Policy'

Genesis Of ‘Murray

J. T. Bensted Writes With Vigour and Sting

|NE of the most valuable con ' tributions to the history of the MacGregor-Murray period in pua which we have seen recently s been written for South Pacific le journal of the Australian hool of Pacific Administration) Mr. J. T. Bensted, who was rector of Public Works in Papua, d closely associated for many irs with the late Sir Hubert irray. \Jr. Bensted has made a long alysis of Lewis Lett’s Sir Hubert irray of Papua; and he roundly idemns the book, both as to facts d implications.

Ne are not concerned with an /ious disagreement between two npetent writers; but we are in ested in the way in which Mr. nsted traces the development Hubert Murray as an Admin rator, and of what now is called e Murray Policy” for dealing with w Guinea’s natives. Mr. Bensted r s that Murray did not create the urray Policy,” and claims that he lerited its fundamentals from Sir lliam MacGregor, and shaped i developed it with the help of earn of loyal and capable officers. . Bensted is quoted: Shorn of all elaboration, the irray Policy’ is a long-range nane plan of indirect rule, applied h commonsense.

The foundation is the anthro ogical view, or dogma, that there no fundamental difference in nkind —that the potential of full igress along the road to civilisa n is equal in all peoples, and it it is only the opportunity that lacking to the ‘backward races.’

On this theory the Papuan ild, whether other interests de- J it or not, be brought to the ne standard as any other man; 1 the writer, after a half century’s ociation, can see progress toward s end.

The ‘policy’ steered a middle irse between the two extremes on the one hand, commercial >rt-range interests, and, on the ier hand, the ‘closed country’ or lationist policy of the religious >sions and some anthropologists.

The first course meant exploit m of the country and natives for vate gain—it was exemplified in ; old German Administration of iv Guinea—while the other way ant a close preserve for the ;sions, and anthropological re rch and experimentation.

Both spelt ultimate ruin to the jve peoples; for the one meant ■ degradation of the native and ultimate extinction, while the ier meant ‘stopping the clock’ ich, of course, cannot be done

without destroying the race, ones a vigorous culture has infiltrated a weaker one.

“The ‘Murray Policy’ (and it is referred to in the present tense as it still lives under another name) means the ultimate salvation of the Papuan; and it is pleasing to note that although it has become the fashion in Territorial circles to forget or decry the old regime (there is not even now, ten years after his death, a memorial to Sir Hubert) the policy is alive and is being implemented under the guise of ‘expert’ direction claiming orig inality for itself. There is no major activity in Papua and New Guinea to-day that was not visualised under Sir Hubert’s administration.”

In challenging the value of Mr.

Lett’s biography, Mr. Bensted pro duces a good deal of interesting material, now almost forgotten.

HOW many people of the present day, for example, have ever heard of the Robinson-Barton tragedy in Papua? Yet Mr. Bensted was there, and writes of the in cidents in a clear and dramatic way.

A man who had friends and ad mirers, Judge Robinson, was the victim. Mr. Bensted says that a former Administrator, Sir George Le Hunts, “filled the Service with unskilled men, mainly from ‘good families’ in the Old Country, who were mostly failures.” There was an interregnum, and Judge Robin son was appointed Acting Adminis

trator. Most people, including th judge himself, thought that Judg Robinson should be appointed.

But Le Hunte, now Governor i: South Australia, through Prim Minister Deakin, “engineered” th appointment of Captain Barton and Robinson knew nothing of i until Barton actually arrived i: Port Moresby to take over. Barter says Mr. Bensted, treated Robinso: in an arrogant and offensive waj and informed Robinson that, as result of a bitter campaign con ducted against him by missionarie (in which Rev. C. W. Abel, of Kwatc was prominent) he was to submi himself to an official inquiry.

Robinson thereupon carried ou his duty as a Judge, and formal! swore in the new Administrator, o] June 16, 1904; and a few hours late he went out into Government Hous grounds and committed suicide, wit] a pistol, at the foot of the officia flagpole.

Barton lasted only three years Maladministration brought a Roya Commission of inquiry; he was con demned and thrown out of office and it was then (in 1907) that th young judge, Hubert Murray, cam into office, to remain there until h died “with his boots on” in 1940.

Mr. Bensted writes with vigoui and considerable sting.