the People

The Promise and the People New Reference Book on Papua by Lett

ANOTHER volume about Papua has been written by Lewis Lett. This time, a slim volume, called “Papua ns People and Its Promise—Past and Future,” one of a series of independent publications dealing with Australian and Pacific topics, published by F. W. Cheshire Pty., Ltd., Melbourne. As a book of ref erence, it is edited by Miss Amy Cryan; and Miss Cryan would have made the task of the reviewer, and the reader, and seeker after knowledge, easier if she had seen fit to include an index.

However, the book is up to the usual Lett standard; brightly written and con taining much information which might be assimilated by Australians with great benefit to themselves.

It contains chapters on development, native life, customs and culture under the old and new ways of life, the history and geography of the country and the place in it, past and present, for European settlers.

In the introduction, Mr. Lett says: “The longer one stays in Papua the less one seems to know about it. Problems that can be settled off-hand by new arrivals are not nearly so easy of solution to those who stay long enough to learn what lies behind those problems.

“For my part, I must confess] that dur ing my first month in the Territory I was prepared to set the Government right on many points. At the end of my first fortnight I wrote an article on Papua and its problems which was printed in a Syd ney paper ... it was not until I had been several months in Port Moresby that I began to understand just a few of the reasons why my logic was faulty and my opinions worthless.”

Words that should be pasted in the hat of every Australian whose only contact with New Guinea is through the medium of the printed word.

And, again, from the introduction:

“ . . . Our general manager was an Australian of the best type, bi~ genial, easy-going. He had the idea firmly fixed in his mind that his was a pioneering company and that all its employees must show the pioneering spirit by undertak ing any form of work whatever, whether they happened to know anything about it or not.

“Therefore, in pursuance of this theory, my first job was to superintend the dis charge of the company’s steamer. I remember the youthful enthusiasm with which I started the job. It did not appear to me that a single light tramway rail vvas a sufficient load for two fully-grown Goaribari natives. So I made it two. And I managed to induce them to run with the load instead of walking slowly.

“The manager was delighted. But the result did not declare itself until next day, when it was found that the whole gang had deserted and had taken with them a new whaleboat. So my next job was to follow them in another boat with a load of handcuffs and leg-irons and bring them back. I was given a couple

of Colt .44 revolvers and ammunition to make the task less difficult) “Even to my ardent enthusiasm the job seemed a queer one; but I made ready for it and would have started—except that the police intervened, confiscated the irons and firearms and instituted proceed ings against the company. Nearly four months passed before those deserting labourers were brought back by the police.

And the lesson that the incident taught me was that there is a limit beyond which men cannot be driven.”