Papuan Police
p. 65 · Read in the full issue
Loyalties
A Plea For Better Instruction
P. Moresby, Oct. 29.
VHEN he addressed 400 native police recruits, on parade at Sogeri in October, the Acting ovemor-General, Sir John North itt, brought out a point that is too equently overlooked in our deal gs with native peoples. He re inded them that, as police, they rved His Majesty the King and, mbined with this service, was eir responsibility as police to sist and guide their own people.
It is no longer the fashion among my ultra modernistic groups to eak of loyalty to the Crown, but is a fashion which could be re fed with benefit to Australians d natives alike in Papua.
Since Australia bears the re- Dnsibility, the burden and the sh cost of administering the usteeship Territory, loyalty to the ipire as well as loyalty to the dted Nations could be well com led in the New Guinea area, rhe native may be sophisticated unsophisticated, as his environ nt determines; but if and when 5 concept of loyalty and pride in vice to a great ideal is explained terms he can understand, we will ■ results. He has many times >ved his capacity to appreciate • privilege and accept the in •ent responsibilities, throughout the post-war Govern nt of Papua and New Guinea official emphasis has been all on ving” the natives this service and t, on ensuring their “welfare”
I “progress.” Some services are ioubtedly needed; but, for self pect and true progress, they must ) develop a sense of pride in 5 privilege. his is not so difficult as it may at t appear. The Territory natives still so close to tribal loyalties, t, as these disintegrate or weaken reason of the rapidly changing umstances of their lives, they d new loyalties and new . What finer association be offered them than that nfied in the flag which flies at y Territory centre? ut they cannot be expected to erstand this unless it is ex ned to them, and the King ‘esented to them in more com lensible fashion than by merely lotograph in a court-room where, i their limited understanding, 7 . cannot be blamed if they oiate it more with law and its alties rather than with the id record of the British race, istralia has much more to offer primitive peoples of Papua and
New Guinea than mere material benefits and “handouts.” They should be made to understand that life's real values are not weighed out in the form of groceries, cotton and bush cutlery.
Miss Shirley Jacobs, of Qantas, Lae, New Guinea, has become engaged to First Officer Richard Davis, also of Q.E.A., Lae.
The engagement is announced of Mrs Mardie Doyle, of Wahroonga, daughter of the late Dr. and Mrs! g- S' McDouall of Wahroonga N.S.W. to Mr. W. S. Leslie, Head master of Barker College, Hornsby N.S.W. They plan to be married m the Christmas vacation. In 1938 she married Mr. H. G. (“Tiki”)
poyie and went to live on the Malaita Coast in the Solomon Islands, and later to Selapiu Plan tation, Kavieng, New Guinea, from where Mrs. Doyle was evacuated in 1941. Mr. Doyle was captured by the Japanese and was lost on the Montevideo Maru. in 1942. His family are well known in Fiji.