May A Melanesian

Have Pride Of Race?

Letter to the Editor IN an article in the March issue of the “P.IM.” is the statement; “In some islands, the pan-Melanesian fantasy hangs over the native mind like the in toxicating fumes of a narcotic.” As one who has inhaled the fumes I would like to put up some defence of this fantasy which the writer so contemptuously dis misses.

We, who know what a stimulant pride of race can be, know also how debilitat ing the absence of it can be. We rejoice in the possession of it for ourselves and, ipso facto, we should rejoice in other races having it.

Like the possession of any good thing, it can be seriously misused and even be come a menace, as witness Germany to day, but rightly directed, pride of race is a valuable incentive to progress and achievement.

A white man may choose to regard racial pride in a Melanesian as slightly ridicu lous, but that is only because of his damned superiority. A white man who thinks that the best hope for the Melan esian is for him to become a coloured imitation of a white man, and adopt his

ways of living and thought is guilty of unspeakable arrogance. He and his like, I presume, are responsible for the New Hebrides natives referred to in the article as refusing food and medals offered by the Government.

As one who watches with interest and sympathy this Melanesian “fantasy”, and who took a small part in encouraging it among the natives of the Solomon Is lands, I am glad to have evidence that it exists among the New Hebrides natives.

Britain has a solemn obligation to ful fil in the Solomon Islands, likewise France and Britain in the New Hebrides.

This obligation is not to frustrate and ridicule the Melanesian pride of race, but to foster and guide it. Pride of race is not a narcotic, but a stimulant—a stim ulant to achieve greatness.

The Melanesian needs all the stimuli he can have, if he is not to lose his identity, if not his very existence.

I am, etc.,

Richard Fallowes.

Strathfieldsaye, Reading, England. 21/5/1940.

Lt.-Commander R. B. A. Hunt, R.A.N., accompanied by Mrs. Hunt and his small son, has returned to Australia, after serving in Papua for nearly a year.