Condition Of N. Hebrides

Natives

Part Played By The Missions

Letter to the Editor Mr. NOTTAGE has strayed from the original point at issue, and appeals to be trying to work up a contro versy over insignificant details and use it as propaganda as well.

My original protest was against a plain statement -made by a certain per son, to wit, “that the missionaries were the only people who did anything for the natives”— the implication being that all others were an inhumane set, who took no interest in the natives beyond what they could make out of them.

I can speak for the British, and also for a good many Frenchmen whom I know. It is high time such a foul gen eralisation was challenged.

I made no comparisons, nor wished to do so, nor did I deny the missions any credit. Each has his appointed sphere which need not clash. My point has been conceded so there the matter ends.

Mr. Nottage has appointed himself the champion of the missions—though no champion is needed —but is all the time thinking only in terms of the particular mission to which he belongs. I would re mind this gentleman, therefore, that there are several other bodies working in the group, quite as entitled to the term “mis sion” as his own, each trying to do its best, but not necessarily along the same lines as the one Mr. Nottage has in his mind.

I am not going to permit the original

discussion to degenerate into a senseless argument. I have seen enough of the futility of this course, in the past.

If, in the years gone by, missionaries, traders and planters had shown more wisdom, and tried to find a common basis on which they could agree, instead of the endless wrangling on the points where they disagreed, I am quite certain the position British interests are in at present within the group, would have been far better, and the natives would have been correspondingly better off.

Quite a lot could have been done by bringing united pressure to bear in the right quarters to gain substantial conces sions and benefits common to all, natives included. Instead, we have allowed our differences and antagonisms to be adroitly exploited, and, by the age-old method of playing one side off against the other, the authorities have dodged their responsibilities and given us noth ing. and our position is now far worse than it was thirty years ago.

In any case, so far as the writer is con cerned, the correspondence is finished.

I am, etc.,

Ewen Corlette.

New Hebrides. 20/2/1939.

Mrs. Gregory Bateson, well-known as Dr. Margaret Mead, the anthro pologist, arrived in Sydney early in March, after carrying out research work in the Dutch East Indies. She left for U.S.A., where she is assistant curator of Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History, by the “Niagara” on March 16.