They’Ve Won The Right To

Defend Their Country

After years of agitation by all races, Papua-New Guinea’s Chinese and native people in February were given the right they had asked for — the right to train themselves to defend their own country!

Volunteers for the Papua-New Guinea Volunteer Rifles —the citi zen’s military force in the big Territory, which has a common border with Asia—are now being accepted from among men other than Euro peans. Present membership is 200 and it has been an all-European show —for some peculiar reason known only to Australian Top Brass and certainly not to New Guinea citizens of every colour. When the chips were down in World War 11, colour made no difference.

The photograph above, taken in Rabaul after the decision was announced, indicates the interest of Chinese residents. They were all filling out applications, and there were some leading citizens among that first batch, including Chin Hoi Meen, who took the picture.

Applications poured in at other centres, too, with probably the heaviest demand in the Highlands areas.

Native recruits are required to have a certain standard of education so that they can follow the English instruction.

There is one matter that hasn’t been ironed out yet to everybody’s satisfaction —that of pay.

Recruits all get 4/11 d a day—but there is an “expatriate allowance” of 29/6 for Europeans and anybody naturalised, which includes many Chinese. This difference in pay scales is already seen as an insult to educated natives earning a fairly good wage, and our tip is that the Army hasn’t had the last word on the subject yet.