Wanted—A New Guinea

Solomon!

NEWSPAPERS recently published ex tracts from the report to the United Nations in respect of the adminis tration of New Guinea. These included a description, by a patrol-officer, of an initiation ceremony in the Sepik district.

The ceremony ended with the initiate be ing flogged with pieces of wire, timber or rope in the belief that the more he suf fered then, the stronger he would be later.

The patrol-officer is reported to have said: “Some initiates who previously ap peared to be brash and flighty youths be came quiet, solid citizens.” This officer witnessing the flogging, found only praise for it.

It is interesting, therefore, to note the official attitude to flogging for another purpose. In this case there is no praise but a month or two of gaol is the reward.

When a native runs away with another man’s legal Mary Cor wife), the outraged husband is entitled, according to native custom, to give the adulterer a good hiding. But if he does so, he is liable to be brought into Court and subse quently gaoled even if methods did not include beating with wire, etc.

It is hard to understand why one form of native flogging is (apparently) coun tenanced if the other is to be regarded as an offence.—PAT.

Mr. J. C. Barley, who spent most of his official life in the service of the Western Pacific High Commission— latterly, as Resident Commissioner in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands —has settled down with Mrs. Barley in a new house which they recently built, close to the sea, in Hilda Street, Mermaid Beach, Southeast Queensland.

..Mr. J. B. McAdam, Secretary of the P- NG Department of Forests, made routine inspections of timber areas in Bulolo and New Britain in June and July. In New

Britain many timber leases which were granted before the war, then were sus pended for the duration, are now being revived.