So Very, Very Sad!
p. 17 · Read in the full issue
pROM the Adelaide notes of the “ABM Review”: MRS. FRANK WESTON introduced the speaker, Miss Harry, who had been a missionary in Melanesia from 1935 to 1942, when she was forced to leave as a result of the Japanese invasion. Miss Harry delivered a most interesting and instructive address, describing the man ners and customs of the Melanesians.
The Netherlands Government controlled the Solomons until Australia solemnly undertook, after the last war, to foster the welfare of the natives. The trouble is that the people who make the laws do not interpret and administer them. In Rabaul, before the war, commercial inter ests had all the power, and the natives were ill-used and sadly exploited.
You can do anything with the Melane sians by going to them as a big brother, a helper, but if you regard them as an inferior race you get nowhere with them.
Coloured people resent snobbery; to get anywhere with them you must serve them.
The death is reported of Mr. P. E. J.
Ebsworth, sub-manager of the Bank of New South Wales, Wellington, New Zea land. Mr. Ebsworth, who was 64 years of age, was in Fiji prior to being transferred to Wellington in 1929.