Papua's Murdered

Missionaries

Letter to the Editor IN your June issue, you publish a state ment by Bishop Strong, about the Anglican Mission ladies in NS Papua who were taken by the natives to the Japanese. He states that the group of villages had not been under mission in fluence owing to lack of funds and staff.

It was because of Bishop Strong’s inter vention that the ladies were not forcibly evacuated earlier to a safe place. The villages he mentions were no more than five miles in a direct line from Erora Mission Station, where a European was stationed. Quite a number of these natives attended at the mission school for varying periods. As mission influence usually is felt at considerably more than five miles from a station, it looks as if Bishop Strong is under a misapprehension.

Everyone in that area knows that Bishop Strong advised the mission workers to stay, and he had the evacuation order of the military authorities altered so that it would not apply to missionaries.

The natives responsible for the crime were not numerous, but there is no reason why the facts should be concealed. If villages within five miles of a mission station cannot be visited by the mis sionary, then the missionary should be changed.

I am, etc.,

“Momokana.”

Sydney, August 20, 1943.

Mr. W. H. Watson, a Cook Island mer chant, arrived back recently in Rarotonga with his family, after four months on business and holiday in New Zealand.