Theory Or Realism In Native Affairs?

Has Rev. J. W. Burton the Right to Speak For All Missionaries?

EVEN New Guinea conformed to the 1944 war-pattern of political ideo logies; and the fight between Theorists and Realists over the body of the generally uncaring native (and his Welfare) already has begun its 1945 session.

The Realists generally have been taken to mean the much-maligned “commercial interests”—the tough gentlemen with axes to grind; the Theorists—the present Australian Government, the scientists and the Missions.

The Government is ephemeral: sooner or later, for good or ill, another group of politicians, of different hue, will take the helm. The anthropolgists, who do not necessarily agree wholly with Mission or Governmental policies, have only a small voice, through sheer lack of numbers. It is the people who go broadly under the heading of “Mission” who find the con tinued enthusiasm to fight the good fight, as they see it.

Note the qualification “broadly.” When we get down to tin-tacks it is found that there is as much graded opinion within the Mission group as without it. In other words, there are as many Realists among the missionaries as there are Theorists.

LEADER of the Theorist group is the Rev. J. W. Burton, General Secretary of the Methodist Mission. For rea sons of his own, he has adopted what he .believes to be the cause of the New Guinea native. He takes the stand that there is no good in indentured (contract) labour; and that the New Guinea Terri tories should be kept exclusively for the natives, further European settlement pro hibited, and those settlers already there compensated by the Government and painlessly removed.

Mr. Burton knows quite well that he has not a hope of achieving complete success for his plan; but he is obviously working on the sound principle that by agitating for a 100 per cent, wipe-off of European activity in the Territories, he may gain something. He has been known to state, in effect, that “I want the thing

talked about—never mind the abuse that

comes my way.”

Mr. Burton has what is called “a good press”; and, through it, he has got across the necks of Territorians more frequently than any other individual or group. That is probably a very good thing. There are some hide-bound Theorists among the Realists who could do with a little leaven in their ideas. But is Mr. Burton justified in setting himself up as the spokesman of every missionary, or Mission body?

In a recent issue of “Sydney Morning Herald,” Mr. Burton stated that the National Missionary Council of Australia wanted the “indentured” labour system abolished. Later, in the same interview, he said that “a commission appointed”

agreed:

“(1) In urging the earliest possible return to civil administration in New Guinea and Papua, this commission considers that the administration should be based on the principles and affirma tions of international agreements to which Australia is pledged—the Covenant of the League of Nations, the Atlantic Charter, and the Four Freedoms—and that native welfare should be regarded as the inviolable criterion of judgment in the framing and carrying out of all administrative policy.

“(2) Although the impact of the indentured system upon native life and welfare has not been the same in all areas, the commission is unable to reconcile it with these principles and affirmations, as it holds back the social, econo mic, and moral progress of the people. This system should therefore be abolished, and, at the utmost, no further indenture of native labourers should be permitted after a period of five years from the re-establishment of civil administration.

“(3) To ensure necessary productivity in the Territories, the Administration should institute a programme of practical education to prepare the way for a system of peasant proprietorship, whereby the people may be taught and encour aged to use their own labour in the cultivation of their own lands, and to qualify in arts and crafts suited to their present needs and to their future development. Only by such means can the native inhabitants move towards economic independence and to a secure and satisfactory future. The commission considers that all com mercial and industrial undertakings should, after the five years’ period referred to, be on the basis of non-indentured labour, but that the Administration should have ‘special regard to the condition and vital statistics of each dis trict concerned, before any recruiting of labour for distant service is permitted.

“(4) The commission also considers that natives who have served continuously for a period of two or more years under a military regime should not be re-engaged as labourers until they have spent at least two years in their own village, and so are given an opportunity to rehabilitate their social and family life, to re store their homes and gardens, and to produce children to help to repair the positive and negative wastage of human life caused the war.”

Unfortunately neither the “smh” or Mr. Burton made it clear who or' what constituted the “commission.”

Did they refer to some missionary con vention? Presumably so, because no Government commission was ever formed to deal with the subject. In early December, External Territories Minister Ward, called a conference to discuss an alternative to contract labour. But that

conference merely conferred, nothing

more. It passed no resolutions, nor was it permitted to make recommendations to the Commonwealth Government.

Since Mr. Burton and Bishop Cranswick publicly climbed on the same band-waggon as Mr. Ward, back in July, and issued a manifesto that indenture was just an other name for slavery, and that New Guinea “commercial interests” were ex

ploiters of deep-dye, we have received,

in this office, many letters from mis

sionaries who firmly repudiate the opinions

then expressed. Certain members of Mr.

Burton’s own Mission have said that, far from being an authority on New Guinea contract labour, Mr. Burton has no prac tical experience in that Territory at all.

His acquaintance with “indenture” of any variety was gained many years ago, among the Indians of Fiji, who had gone to the Colony to work in the sugar in dustry. There was, as Mr. Burton should know, little resemblance between that old Indian labour system and the contract labour of New Guinea, as it applied prior to 1942. . J Typical of the letters received over the past months is this one: On several occasions the New Guinea Anglican Mission has been misrepresented in the columns of the “Pacific Islands Monthly’’ as being op posed to the system of indentured labour; and the name of the Bishop of New Guinea has been incorrectly associated with the joint document issued over the names Of Bishop G. H. Crans wick and the Rev. J. Burton. This has caused some confusion in the minds of Territorians.

In justice to the truth, and to prevent further confusion, I must point out — (1) Bishop Cranswick is the Chairman of the Australian Board of Missions, is resident in Sydney, and is not the Bishop of New Guinea, nor the head of the Anglican Mission. (2) The Bishop of New Guinea was in England when the joint document was prepared and given to the press, and was wholly un aware of the intention of the signatories. (3f The views expressed in the document are the personal views of the signatories, and do not represent those of the members of the Mission staffs at work in Papua.

Circumstances beyond my control are re sponsible for my silence until now.

I am, etc.,

A. J. Thompson,

Archdeacon of Samarai.

Anglican Mission, Dogura, Papua, December 1, 1944. mHE missionary in the field, as well as 1 being a man of God, is usually a true Territorian, who has a real appreciation of practical facts; who, far from believing that his planting neigh bour is a devil in human form, knows him for a decent citizen whom it is pos sible to like and respect.

There are commercial Territorians who breathe fire and brimstone at the men tion of the word “mission,” just as there still are narrow-minded missionaries who see nothing good in the New Guinea European. But, on the whole, these two groups of people, despite all the re criminatory nonsense that has been spilled in Australian newspapers during the past 18 months, lived amicably and happily together, suffering the same brand of hardship and privation, often doing the same type of work—although admittedly with a different purpose in view.

Much bad feeling—with little justi fication—has been caused by the in nuendoes of Mr. Burton and his small coterie of Theorists. Mr. Burton may be lieve that the end justifies the means, and that, if the condition of the native is improved, maligning the reputations of a few planters and miners is a small price to pay. The fact that the generally misinformed public of Australia can now babble about “exploitation,” “slavery,” etc., can be laid largely to the efforts of Mr. Burton and his friends. Mr. Ward’s intermittent opinion on the subject is dismissed by most thinking Australians as just one of Eddie’s brain storms. fT\HERE were and still are some bad- X hats among the “commercial in terests.” But they were, and are, in an extraordinary minority. Mr. Burton may care to pick out the worst of them to use as bogies to frighten the stay-at home Australians, but he definitely is not

justified in making sweeping statements on behalf of all Missions or missionaries.

To quote from a recent booklet, written by the Rev. John D. Bodger, of the Anglican Mission (a man who is held in the greatest esteem by missionary, Gov ernment official and commercial man alike, who has had 17 years’ practical experience in Papua, and who, for many years before the war, represented the Christian Missions on the Legislative Council): “Another factor which has contributed to the well-being of the natives is the way in which most employers of labour have carried out, not only the letter, but the spirit of the conditions imposed on them by the Labour Ordinance; and this, together with the good treatment meted out to the Papuan in the early days by the old-time miner, has borne fruit in the way in which the natives have re sponded when called upon to assist our forces in the fight against the Japanese invader.”