Territories TALK-TALK

With Tolala

Is it mere coincidence that natives of Papua and New inea pick on New Year time to stage what has been »hemistically termed “demonstrations”?

PIR malcontents “broke out their barracks” on January 1961; the Rabaul “strike”, some 3,000 employees—house its and what-have-you—failed ort for duty on the morning uiary 3, 1929. And a carefully id, but abortive, massacre at ig during the Germans days ffieduled for a day or so fol the New Year, i inclined to the opinion that phisticated native, accustomed ways and weaknesses of his master, realises that the days liately following the Christmas 'Jew Year festivities, when irers are rife and white re are slow, is the best period ich to launch offensives, d be. The native is nothing a realist.

)baul

3" more than probable that a r of the present-day European its of the Territory have heard of the events which lace in Rabaul on January 3, is triggered off by a New Ire chooner master working for :elanesian Company, by the of Sumasuma, assisted to no degree by Sgt.-Major Rami, Police, a native from the nd. r objective was £1 a month Both these lads were receiv )re than that sum in their ist jobs, but they were work r the masses of house-boys, laundry-boys and ordinary ;rs in the town. . Reed, in his The Making Of i New Guinea (published in has this to say about the a of the most recent de ments in the system of native r ... . has been the first z stirring of group conscious- The most remarkable mani tion of this embryonic trend in event which took place in ul. . . On the morning of ary 3, 1929, European resid were astounded to wake and not a single labourer in the ; more than 3,000 workers deserted in a body to a on station a few miles away.

. . . The whole thing had been planned and carried out so effici ently that no inkling of it had reached white ears, this was the most disconcerting fact of all, showing the Europeans how little they knew of the forces behind native behaviour and how easily the whole structure of the com pound society might be imperilled.

Thus the comments of an Ameri can sociologist with a keen, discern ing eye.

An inquiry followed, naturally, of which Brig.-General Tom Griffiths was Commissioner. The result was that both ring-leaders were “de ported” and the cause described as coming from an agitating negro sea man from an American freighter, together with Sumasuma and Rami.

The Commissioner commended the actions of Mr. John Walstab. who was Acting Government Secretary at the time, Mr. W. B. Ball, Acting- Inspector of Police and Rev. J. H.

Margetts for their handling of the situation.

And that was that.

Trimming

Sail What is really more disturbing to my mind in connection with current Territorial affairs is the natural reaction of company em ployers in reducing their native staff, which affects the labourer, and the decline in copra prices, which affects all producers.

How many of the native em ployees, plus the native producers are “hep”, au fait, or understand the economical potentialities of these changes?

Most natives have the idea that fluctuating prices are controlled locally. Do they understand the in tricacies of world markets, of de mand and supply? Few. And I can not see the situation improving. The solution?

One suggestion is to give them their independence now and let them fight out the problems of in creased wage demands and lowering world prices of their staple primary products.

As in Tonga, let them appoint Europeans as heads of departments and see then how they get on in this ever-changing modern world.

They would realise what a fairy god-mother they have had protect ing them from a hard and bitter world. That would be learning in dependence the hard way and the wisdom of adopting a standard of living commensurate with the country’s economy.

Not yet ready for self-govern ment? . . . No? . . . Then what did they do in the centuries before the white man came? (Over)

They managed well enough “] Guinea fashion”. But, of course insist they adopt our methods.

And are those methods of our altogether fool-proof and perfe We are beginning to wonder selves.

Consistency

—A Jewel Usually Government departm are more or less consistent v using proper names. Howeve: noticed an exception to this rule other day when sorting out s philatelic “covers” from Guinea.

Some of the post-marks ' “Papua and New Guinea”, ot were merely “Papua-New Guir and I have one which shows “P N.G.”

Officially, the country is know the Territory of Papua and Guinea, And the ampersand is Actually I do not remember 1 ing seen a post-mark with the T tory’s correct name. Perhaps, in stream-lining, initial-using age should condense the name

Panga!

I am quite aware there are greater issues at stake tha: uniformity of post-marks. Still Care in small matters is not t neglected!

And talking of vagaries in postal world: Old residents wffi member the days back in the when the Australian stamp, c printed “N.W.Pacific Islands” in use in the T.N.G.

N.W?. . . Northwest from \ point? What are we doing the: the South Pacific Commis crowd?. . . . Magnetic variatio: less than 40 years?

An Anniversary

Again

It happens to be January 23 day as I pick up my Talk Talk to write. A date I shall never fo It takes me back 19 years gods! how the time flies); the of the Japanese landing in Ral Nearly every resident in the 1 had taken shelter in Refuge G (the entrance to which was in grounds of Judge Phillip’s housi Namanula.) There were two exceptions; Bn of Motor Transport and J. O. Sn They slept (?) in Brown’s bungi and were awakened rudely by a patrol.

The Gully contained a medle races: European, Chinese, m and natives. The actual landing brought home to all of us w after hearing machine-gun from the Namanula Road and zooming of Zeros, Rogers Warden’s despatch-rider—arrive the Gully badly wounded. He 1 died.

At daylight a white-flag p was organised to surrender the l

at the safety of the occupants e Gully be assured, aroved to be a wise step, for vilians from the Gully (with ixception of the wounded •s) were brought down under i escort to the sports ground i they remained until late loon when they were trans l to the Kuomintang Hall. \ they slept the night, j events of that day are still in my memory; The pummel received from an enthusiastic rivate; the degrading tour in a iry truck around the town, to r with Brown, Smith and Heck, ison. ;n the walk from the Gully to aorts ground under escort; the leans’ eviction from the grand so that natives might have ;hade while we stood in the the “co-prosperity” policy was •ce already); the “frisking” of ersons; the long, hot, hungry mtil the evening when we were d into the Kuomintang Hall, he night made hideous by the of the Asiatic women as the s raped them. y are not pleasant memories. . . such is war. fication k to keep the record straight the two nostalgic photos January, p. 34). The lady i sitting beside Harold Page Sir Walter McNicoll (two please) in the top one is not Page but Mrs. Jean Woods, s now Mrs. Jean Scott.

ding

ntices

ening to a news review session the ABC network the other ’ was somewhat surprised to an official of an oil company NG make the statement that (the oil company) were the

first people to introduce the native apprenticeship scheme in the Terri tory.

He was referring to the post-war period.

I realised he was only one of many who have the idea that noth ing was ever done for the native before the Second World War.

I have distinct recollections of several Rabaul industries back in the ’2o’s taking on native apprentices and being subsidised by the Ad ministration to the extent of pro viding rations for them.

Harry Hamilton, who took over the Rabaul printing works from the Government; Gilbert Renton, who was at that time running a tin smith and plumbing business was another.

Ah Tam’s ship-building concern was also one and Adams & Cooper, motor mechanics and engineers, another.

And that was nearly 40 years ago.

Later on I read in PIM (January, p. 135) all about the lag in Rabaul over private employers not support ing the present system under exist ing conditions and I was not sur prised.

It was in the late ’2o’s that the TNG Administration started its own technical school at Malaguna.

In that same decade there was an Administration School of Domestic Science, where cook-boys were trained by a competent Euro pean women teacher in the gentle art of cake-making and other culinary mysteries.

Fair go! Credit should be given where credit is due and it does not all go to the post-war period by any means.

And, remember insofar as TNG was concerned, it all came from in ternal revenue. No £I4M out of an Australian cornucopia.

That Economic

Survey

From what I have read of the economic mission’s survey on P-NG conditions, the aspects which please me most are the remarks advising the P-NG Workers’ Association not

to confine their thinking according to Australian methods and practice and for the Administration not to overplay its role of “fairy god mother” to natives in guarding their interests when employed by Euro peans.

If the guardians of native wel fare can use a local yard-stick, in stead of endeavouring to “Aus tralianise” the natives, something progressive will be accomplished towards native education.

The need to “think native” is as important now as it was 50 to 60 years ago when the first European educationalists tried to plumb the depths of native intelligence.

Experience has taught us (or, at least, it should have by now) that military leaders must have some thing more than a knowledge of the Field Service Pocket Book to be successful in handling native troops and that self-appointed lecturers to natives in political science are a dangerous addition to the Territory’s community of expatriate Australians.

An Incipient

Danger

Whatever the final result of the Cooper sedition case, one part of the evidence reminded me of the danger of discussing abstract sub jects and the expounding of theories to natives by a beginner using the Pidgin language as an intermediary.

There is often a vast difference between what a European intends to convey by words and the inter pretation placed upon such message by the native listener.

Often the most innocent remark uttered by a European new-chum is twisted and turned by the native into what the native thinks the white man meant to say.

Newly-arrived Europeans, especi ally those holding positions of in struction to natives, should avoid advancing abstract theories political or economical—until they have a full grasp of a language and can be sure their meaning cannot be misinterpreted.

I can see many a pit-fall for some of these “crash” educationalists if they don’t watch their step.