Not To Hang!

Socialist Government and Native Murderers

IT was officially announced in Can berra at the end of September that Australian Territories Minister Ward had arranged the commutation of the sentence of death, imposed on a Papuan murderer, to imprisonment for life.

Mr Tom K. Bowes was murdered in Papua about April 21 last by two natives, Nikula Miripai and Hariha Mehea.

Nikula was sentenced to death, but sentence of death, although recorded against one native was not pronounced.

It is part of the Socialist creed that, no matter what crime a man may commit, he shall not be executed. It is an idiotic creed —all sorts of human monsters in New South Wales, found guilty of de liberate murder and of abominable sex crimes, who unquestionably should have been put out of existence, are now serving sentences in Australian gaols. Some ac tually have been released on “good con duct” grounds and have promptly com mitted new crimes.

It is a further development of Socialistic stupidity to apply such a policy to the primitive natives of Papua and New Guinea. Even if there are some fine distinctions of law and ethics to justify Socialist policy in white communities, there is no justification whatever for its application to primitive natives. There is only one way to impress upon the native mind the seriousness of murder— especially the murder of a European—and that is the ruthless imposition of the death penalty. Further murders of Euro peans in New Guinea by “flash” natives may be laid at the door of the Wardist Administration.