Uneasy Natives In

Territories

IT is reported there are indications of unrest among the natives of the main land of Mandated New Guinea, with Madang as the storm centre. Our news is not official (it seldom is, from New Guinea in these days!) but one report is to the effect that recently between one and two thousand natives threatened to “march on Madang” and failed to carry out the threat only because they disagreed among themselves at the last moment.

Another report on the same trouble comes from what may be called a neutral source, as the writer was introduced to New Guinea as a Serviceman.

He writes: “It seems that the natives are much against the fashion in which ANGAU, and now the Civil Administra tion, are running things. About April 15 or 16, the local natives put on quite a show for the Madang DO, and those in the calaboose broke out to join in. They seem to be demanding back pay for their labour and also for the NGIB and PIB boys. On June 5, at Finschhafen all the Luluais, Tul-Tuls, doctor boys, etc., from the areas just north of the township, massed before the DO. They turned in their hats and are going back bare headed. It is reported that they told the Kiap that he could put their hats on Australians. The natives tell me that this trouble is spreading all over the coastal area as far south as Lae and back into the hills.”

IT would be ridiculous to get these mani festations of native unease out of focus. Before the war the Papuans and natives of the Mandate were sed ulously guarded from all the grosser things of European culture; they were taught, moreover, that fighting is tabu.

In 1942. almost overnight, evervthing was changed, and not only did we fight a major war on their soil, but they were brought face to face with hundreds of thousands of troops who suffered from none of the inhibitions usually suffered by the small minority of Europeans in a native country.

That there would be repercussions from

our war in their Territory, and the con tacts made during that war, was inevit able. Neither have the sudden crusading reforms of ill-advised theorists helped matters.

It will take time before those natives can adjust themselves to a peace-time world again, and while that adjustment is going on, there will be headaches in plenty for all those whose job it is to lead and guide the much-to-be-pitied Fuzzy-wuzzy.