White Women And South

Seas Natives

Letter to the Editor 1 FULLY agree with your correspondent from New Guinea regarding the photo published on page 7 of your September number (film star lighting cigarette for Papuan native). It looks as if there were a conspiracy on foot nowadays to pull down the respectability of the white woman in the eyes of the natives of the South Seas. What they see in our picture theatres is suggestive enough: but on top of it are those silly, illustrated papers, which are freely cir culated among the natives by unscrupu lous whites.

I wonder what these natives think of us as a race, and what must they think of our womenfolk, when they see some pages of papers like “Life,” “Pix,” “Post,”

“American,” and others. Surely their estimate of us cannot be very high.

I remember meeting, many years ago, one native who was fully persuaded that all lawyers were professional liars. I would not be surprised if his sons were thinking to-day that half or more of the white women are of loose morals. This is all because of the bad taste of a press which is without principle, without shame and without respect for the common laws of decency.

Perhaps we should begin to think of what these Islands are to be like after the war. The natives then will not be what they were 10 years ago; and, if we insist on painting ourselves even blacker than we are, which is bad enough, the result in the next generation—or sooner —may be a source of grave concern to our civil administration. In this world we generally reap what we have been sowing.

I am, etc.,

Fiji.

Settler.