Medical Work Among

N. Hebrides Natives

Letter to the Editor IN a recent issue of your paper I found it necessary to make some comment on a letter by Mr. E. H. Corlette, in which he implied that a great deal of the medical work done by the Missions was done with the assistance of the Condominium Government and the Rockefeller Institute, whereas planters did similar work without such assist ance.

Mr. Corlette has now (in your issue of September) given an explanation of this. But, unfortunately, his letter is largely a re-assertion, with amplifica tion, of the same mistaken idea. It is not the policy of missionaries to take much notice of such letters, but lest Mr.

Corlette should lead some of your read ers astray I feel that in this case some thing further should be said.

The “Medical Care of the New Heb rides Natives” is not, in our opinion, a

matter of “Credit to Administration or Missions , as your headings suggest. My letter specnicany stated mat a compari son couid be made, out that mat is un necessary in this discussion—the reason being that it would serve no useful pur pose.

Why, then, does Mr. Corlette charge me with being “rather stingy in giving any credit at all to me Administration’ ; and how does ne Know what I am “pre pared to admit”; and why assert that I “belittle wnat is done”? Surely to state clearly some facts with regard to what the Administration does not do in con nection with the worx of the Missions is not to belittle the Administration?

All the statements that I made or now maKe are accurate. Despite his greater experience in me Group, Mr.

Corlette has not been able to Keep his own statements accurate.

It would never occur to me to belittle the worK of the RocKefeller Institute, or to give them less credit than was tneir due, as Mr. Corlette suggests. One lans to see how he reads such into my let ter.

Mr. Corlette speaks of “the fact that the Administration pays . . for the periodi cal rounds of injections of NAB and hookworm treatment”. By this, surely, he means throughout the New Hebrides, since it is of the whole Group that we both speak. Yet, unless he limits his statement to a relatively small proportion of the Group, his statement is very mis leading to anyone who is not in a posi tion to know the facts —for only a very limited portion of the Group could be said to have had “periodical rounds of injections of NAB and hookworm treat ment” at the expense of the Adminis tration, and much of the Group has had none at all. Is he really ignorant of the position, that he should call this assertion a fact?

I thank Mr. Corlette for his explan ation of his paragraph on the source of supply of NAB to the Missions, and I am sorry that in making the transcription of his letter he should have made the slip in two successive sentences. Even the corrected version is only partly accurate, in that the supply of this drug to the Missions is by no means all through the Rockefeller In stitute, though at times it has been lar gely so. At present, it is found to be cheaper to buy through London.

In this, as in other points, Mr. Cor lette speaks as though he is as closely in touch with Mission affairs and mis sionaries as I am, and as though he is more fully and correctly informed of their business and opinions. We both know that that is not so.

A greater purpose can be served by all if they used their best endeavours to assist the natives as well as them selves, and that not only in health. As sisting less fortunate people does not demean one, nor is it without its re ward. No golden future can be foreseen for the New Hebrides unless the na tives are to have some share in it.

The Missions have for almost a cen tury been using their best endeavours in a variety of directions for the bene fit of the natives. I would like it to be perfectly clearly understood that they have been and always will be ready to co-operate with the Administration in any similar work.

I am, etc.,

B. R. C. Nottage.

Tongoa, New Hebrides. 31/10/1938.

Mr. G. R. Jordan, of the Lands and Survey Department, Fiji, is at present on six months’ furlough.

Mr. Reginald Townsend, Barrister-at- Law (Gray’s Inn), has been appointed to the Fiji Judicial Department as Re sident Magistrate.

The head-stone of a Rarotonga native who was killed while playing football. That is why the ball is depicted on the stone. —Photo, by Wm. H. Watson.