A Plan To " Cool Their

Stomachs "

A FEW weeks ago, when a tray con taining morning tea was brought to the office of W. R. Carpenter & Co. Ltd., in Wau (New Guinea), Mr. W.

Haywood noticed that there was around the tea-pot a strong aroma of phenyle or lysol.

He called the police; and Warrant Officer Watson, after some pretty fierce cross-examination of native servants, discovered that a Madang boy, named Yoiap, had poured phenyle into the tea pot at the back of the store, when it was being taken by another boy to the office, Yoiap told the police that the European members of the WRC staff had been shouting a great deal at him during his work, and he thought that if he put phenyle into their tea he might cool their stomachs.

The gentle Yoiap was sentenced to five months’ imprisonment, with hard labour.

This is just another example of the kind of spirit which the present New Guinea Administration’s native labour policy is creating among the native labourers in the Territory.