Murray Regime

The Anglican Mission And The

Letter to the Editor

IN the April number of your paper the following statement appears:— “Individual members of the influential Anglican Mission, who remained silent in last year’s controversy, have lately ex pressed support of the pre-war set-up, at least as far as it is applied to Papua.

There are obvious reasons for this sudden sponsoring of the old order. Missionaries at the beginning of the evacuation period, no doubt, were anxious to see which way the cat was going to jump, and to judge how that jump was going to affect them and their native charges before they stated their feelings in the matter. They naturally were anxious, also, to see the improvements and reforms, if such were going to be of practical value to the natives.” ...

“A week after Mr. Ward’s announce ment, a long article urging the re-estab lishment of the Murray regime in Papua, by the Rt. Rev. P, N. W. Strong, Bishop of New Guinea, appeared in the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ . . . . ”

The above remarks are neither true nor fair. Your paper was informed some time ago that the Bishop was in England dur ing the controversy in the Australian press, and had no opportunity of express ing an opinion on the matter.

I was in Australia for two months (October-November) in 1943. and was certainly not silent on the matter. The Melbourne press interviewed me and pub lished my views, and they were probably the views of most missionaries in this Territory. From the pulpit of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne I broadcast a ser mon which left no doubt in the minds of listeners as to the views I held about the whole position. In Sydney Churches also, I certainly did not hesitate to express myself very strongly about the matter under discussion. I further wrote, at the invitation of the Editor, a long article in the “Australian Geographer,” which again contains much of the material which would have supported your views if you had troubled to read it. All this, sir, was in 1943.

I spent the next ten months telling, the United States, Canada, and Britain, that victory in Papua (the Territory where the

Japanese received their first defeat on iand m this war), was due to the loyalty of the natives as well as to the courage of the Allied Forces; and that this loyalty was due to three things, viz., good govern ment, mission teaching, and the fair deal given to the natives by nearly all em ployers of labour and especially the early miners.

This was the burden of my remarks at press conferences in many important cities in USA and Canada, and at a press conference which the Bishop and I attended at the Ministry of Informa tion in London.

The material which was submitted jus tified articles in the “New York Times”

Sunday magazine, and other papers, and also broadcasts from many stations in the USA and Canada, and by the BBC in England. I also cut two records for the ABC in 1943.

It is strange, therefore, that the “Paci fic Islands Monthly” heard nothing of this. Nearly 450 talks, lectures, broad casts, sermons, etc., in a 60,000 miles trip in 15 months should surely have given the views held by the Anglican Mission a sufficient airing, I think any former member of the Papuan Government would tell you that the Anglican Mission gave its loyal sup port to the Government in pre-war days, and strove to carry on the same ideals during the invasion months.

The Anglican Mission has been too busy carrying on its task to interest itself in feline gymnastics as described in your columns: our primary duty is to God, and that remains the same whatever Government may be placed here.

As non-official member of the Legisla tive Council, representing Christian mis sions in the Territory of Papua since 1939, I have loyally supported the Government policy, and where I disagreed with it have stated my views at the Council table. rE implication that the Bishop waited until Mr. Ward had made his an nouncement is altogether false, as you would have realised if you had stopped to consider the time it would take for the details of the announce ment to become known here, and the sending of the Bishop’s article to the press. Actually the Bishop’s article was in Australia for some considerable time before Mr. Ward’s announcement, and was held up because the publishers wished the Bishop to alter some of the strong comments which he had made, and which he refused to do.

I am, etc.,

John D. Bodger.

Dogura, Papua.

May 17, 1945.