OUR NEIGHBOURS IN NETHERLANDS NEW GUINEA

Our Neighboursin

Netherlands New Guinea

G. T. ROSCOE

BRISBANE

THE JACARANDA PRESS1959

Trinted in Monotype Perpetua by H. Pole SL CO. Pty.

Limited, Brisbane, for the publishers Jacaranda Press,

73 Elizabeth Street, Brisbane. Registered in Australia

Jbr transmission by post as a book. First printed 19 £9.

DEDICATION

To Brown Brother,

whom we serve.

Contents

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2.

3-

4-

5-

6.

7-

OUR NEIGHBOURS IN NEW GUINEA

HOLLANDIA AND BIAK

VOGELKOP, SOUTH NEW GUINEA, JAPEN

HEALTH

EDUCATION

THE PEOPLE

THE ROAD TO SELF-GOVERNMENT

Index

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2o

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38

48

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67

List of Illustrations

THE CENTRAL POLICE SCHOOL TRAFFIC

INSTRUCTION

INLAND FISHING—NURSERY FOR TILAPIA

THE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH STATION,

KOTA NICA

EXPERIMENTAL CULTURE OF CACAO FROM

KERAVAT, NEAR RABAUL

THE NEW WORKERS' HOUSING PROJECT

FOR PAPUAN WORKERS, ' HAMADI,'

HOLLANDIA

NEW HOUSES FOR PAPUAN WORKERS AT

MANOKWARI

THE CENTRAL SAWMILL AT MANOKWARI

THE SHIPBUILDING AND REPAIR YARD AT

MANOKWARI

ratingPage

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36

37

5*

Si

Preface

Australian newspapers mention Netherlands New Guinea atleast once a week, yet Australian people really know very littleabout the Dutch territory. It is not that they are not interested—indeed, when Australians from New Guinea visit the mainlandon leave, people invariably ask questions about the other endof the island.

Not much information is readily available. The best sourcein English is the ' Annual Report to the United Nations onNetherlands New Guinea '—authentic and complete, but notattractive to the general reader. The most entertaining accounts

o o

are in Dutch. It is hoped this little book will give Australiansa clear idea of what Netherlands New Guinea is like, what theDutch are doing there, and how similar their task is to what theAustralians are doing in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea.

I have to acknowledge the kindness of the NetherlandsGovernment in making available the engravings for the illus-trations, which appeared originally in the ' Annual Report 'for 1957. As an officer of the Administration of Papua and NewGuinea, I must state plainly that this is not an official publication,and that neither the Administration nor the Government ofthe Commonwealth of Australia is in any way responsible foranything I have written in this book.

Konedobu, T.P.N.G.May, 19 £9.

1Our Neighbours in New Guinea

THE ISLAND OF New Guinea sprawls on the map of the worldlike a huge ungainly bird. In the far north-west is the peninsulaVogelkop ('Bird's Head') with the oil port Sorong at the pointof the beak. The south-western extremity is East Cape, thirtymiles from Samarai. From Sorong to Samarai in a direct lineis 1,1 oo miles. If East Cape be considered as the bird's tail,the off-lying islands are like loose feathers flying behind, thelast of them, Rossel Island, 2^0 miles from Samarai. The breadthof the island from Hollandia to Merauke is 32^ miles.

Perhaps a better way to gain an idea of distances is to expressthem in terms of flying time. Most of the internal air routesare flown by D.C.3's. Here are the flying times for a D.C.3—

Port Moresby to Lae, 1 hour 30 minutes.Lae to Madang, 1 hour.Madang to Wewak, 1 hour 10 minutes.We wak to Hollandia, 1 hour 30 minutes.Hollandia to Merauke, 2 hours 30 minutes.Hollandia to Biak, 1 hour 40 minutes. (to Sorong, as much

again).The island is divided into three unequal parts. In the north-

east is the Trust Territory of New Guinea, administered byAustralia for the United Nations, in area 27 per cent of thewhole island. In the south-east is the Australian Territory ofPapua—our very own—with 26 per cent of the area. Theremaining 47 per cent in the west of the island is NetherlandsNew Guinea.

The boundary between Australian and Dutch territory is theI4ist meridian of east longitude. There is something uncannyabout that meridian. In the days when North-east New Guineawas German, a team of Dutch and German surveyors fixed theposition of the boundary, and found that the Tami River enteredthe sea east of the meridian. Later, when Australia held theTerritory under a mandate from the League of Nations, Dutchand Australian surveyors measured the longitude again. Thistime the mouth of the Tami River was west of the meridian.

You will say, of course, that the first calculation must havebeen wrong ; but both Dutchmen and Germans are careful,methodical, business-like folk. They do make mistakes, ofcourse, but very seldom careless mistakes. A friend of mine,a distinguished geologist, who knows New Guinea very well,offers another explanation. He says the whole island is driftmgslowly to the west. There is evidence in support of this—inde-pendent evidence. On the marine charts many small islandsand groups east of New Guinea are marked—' reported to liefive miles west of charted position.' It is not likely that marinesurveyors would have been wrong so often, and even less likelythat the errors would be always about the same.

There is no doubt at all that the island is tilting slowly, liftingthe northern coast and depressing the south coast. Depositsof coronus (coral rock) on the north coast, now well above sealevel, must once have been under the sea. Sometimes the earthmovements are not so gradual. At 2.30 a.m. on 2nd March,19£9 I was asleep in the guest-house at Seroei, in the island ofJapen. I was awakened by the bed shaking, and still half asleep,thought someone was walking heavily across the floor. Then Iremembered that the floor was solid concrete, so it must be anearth tremor. I was too sleepy to worry much, and when theshaking stopped I went to sleep again. Later I read that themovement was officially recorded at Manokwari and Biak as' strength three to four.' It is ' strength five ' when the housestarts to fall in on top of you.

In the Australian Territory of Papua and New Guinea we havea smart body of native soldiers, the Pacific Islands Regiment.They have a post at Vanimo, on the north coast near the border,and another at Lake Murray, in the far south. From these poststhey are expected to patrol the border. No doubt that calls

2

up a picture of brown soldiers in jungle green carrying their riflessmartly at the slope as they march back and forwards on a pathbeside a high wire fence. The boundary is not like that at all.In fact, no one could really patrol the border. You cannot evenfly along the border. The aircraft flying from Hollandia toMerauke do not fly directly south. They make a detour deepinto Australian territory, because the Star Mountains are sohigh and rugged and so often hidden in dense cloud that it justis not safe to fly over them.

The surface of New Guinea is dominated by extremes—endless swamps and enormous ' massifs '—compact groups ofmountain peaks, not lined up in ranges or penetrated by valleys,but tangled masses of ravines and precipices, where junglegrowth and mountain torrents and waterfalls and landslidescombine to form an impenetrable barrier. There is not mucharable land in New Guinea in proportion to the total area,because so much is waterlogged, and so much is too steep forpermanent cultivation.

Netherlands New Guinea is even more mountainous than theTerritory of Papua and New Guinea. The highest mountain inthe Trust Territory is Mt. Wilhelm, north-west of Goroka,1^,400 feet high. The highest peak in Papua is Mt. Giluwe,north of Mendi, 13,414 feet. The permanent snow-line inNew Guinea is at 16,000 feet. Netherlands New Guinea has atleast three peaks above the snow-line, Mt. Carstensz (17,700 ft.),Mt. Wilhelmina (16,800 ft.) and Mt. Juliana (16,700 ft.).(See map).

In the midst of the Central Highlands on the Australian sideof the border the wide and fertile valley of the Wahgi River runsfrom Mt. Hagen to Mt. Michael. The Wahgi Valley and thetributary valleys of the Chimbu, Chuave, and Asaro are denselypopulated, carrying hundreds of thousands of virile and intelligentpeople. There are no such features in the Central Berglands ofNetherlands New Guinea. There are centres of population in theWissel Lakes area, in the Baliem Valley, and certain othervalleys on the southern side, but the rugged mountain tractsof the interior are sparsely populated. Although the area ofNetherlands New Guinea is only slightly less than that of theTerritory of Papua and New Guinea, the known population isonly 40 per cent of that of the Territory of Papua and New

3

Guinea. People who say that the Dutch have been slower thanthe Australians in bringing the whole of the interior undercontrol should take a look at the ' uncontrolled territory 'from the air. They would be satisfied that patrol officers whocan penetrate such country on foot and establish contact andunderstanding with the shy, suspicious mountain people arenot only the world's best bushmen and scouts, but the world'smost able diplomats.

The work of exploration is not left entirely to patrol officers.A news release from the Netherlands Embassy in Canberra,dated April i^th, 19^9, reads as follows :

' All members of the Dutch expedition to the Star andAntares Mountains in Netherlands New Guinea—which areais still a white spot on the map since never before has acivilized man penetrated these mountains—arrived lastSaturday, April I3th, in the Sibil Valley base camp. Fromthere they commenced the same day on their expedition,which will last until October.'Preparations for this expedition have been going on for two

years. There is a team of twenty scientists, led by Dr. L. D.Brongersma, fifteen of them from Holland, and the rest specialistofficers of the Government of Netherlands New Guinea. Thereis an escort of twenty men of the Royal Dutch Marine Corps,and twenty Papuan police. An advance party in charge of twopatrol officers has been busy establishing the base camp, erectinghuts from pit-sawn timbers of Klinkii pine, which grows inthe mountains. The scientific staff is organized in five groupswhich will work from the base camp in relays, returning tobase once a fortnight. The geologists will blaze the trail forother teams, making clearings in the jungle where the expe-dition's two helicopters can land with supplies.

Twenty-four tons of stores and equipment were shippedby the K.P.M, ship Kaloekoe, from Rotterdam to Merauke,where there was waiting a further fifteen tons of stores collectedlocally, as well as eighty tons of fuel for the helicopters. Allthis was transported from Merauke in a coasting vessel up theDigoel River to Tanah Merah. Here bulk was broken, and thegoods repacked in cases suitable for handling in boats, whichcarried the cargo to Junction Camp at the confluence of the eastand west branches of the Digoel. The final freighting from

4

Junction Camp to the base in Sibil Valley was done by thehelicopters. These have a maximum payload of 660 pounds, sothat months of shuttle flying were necessary to finish the job.The patrol officers maintained a weather observation stationfor the benefit of the helicopter pilots. Just to be sure theyhad no time left unoccupied, they organized labour gangs oflocal mountain men to carry gravel from the river, and conducteda daily medical aid clinic for the women and children.

The advance party was in constant communication withMerauke by radio, and the completion of the power-house andthe arrival of Radio Operator T. C. Droogh made it possibleto extend the range of transmission. Hollanders are intenselyloyal to their Sovereign, and have a deep affection for the RoyalFamily. Queen's Birthday, 3oth April, was celebrated inHollandia with a magnificent fireworks display. On the same dayan attempt was made to include in the National BroadcastProgramme in the Netherlands a direct transmission from theSibil Valley.

Australian officers of the Administration of Papua and NewGuinea thoroughly appreciate the importance of economiedevelopment, and particularly of native economie development.ïf the people of this island are ever to enjoy the blessings ofself-government, with ample food, comfortable housing, modernhealth services, and universal primary education, they must beable to earn their own living, and pay their own way. TheTerritory cannot remain always dependent on financial supportfrom Australia. It does not help much to talk grandly about thelimitless resources of this magnificent country. In practice thepotential sources of wealth have very definite limits. Mineralwealth is not easy to exploit. In the beginning alluvial gold,though hard to find, is easily separated from sand and gravel,even by native miners working on their own account ; but thedeposits are soon exhausted. Other minerals can be profitablyworked only by large scale operations, for which much capitalis required. The best way for Brown Brother to earn a sub-stantial income for himself is to grow cash crops, somethingthat is in good demand in the markets of the world. Plantingcopra, (coconuts), coffee, and cacao does not call for morecapital than native growers can raise, and in a few years it beginsto yield quite good profits.

5

The situation in Netherlands New Guinea is not fundamentallydifferent from that in the Australian Territory. In 19^6-57 therevenue of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea was£14,000,000, of which £4,000,000 was raised locally and£10,000,000 was a grant from the Commonwealth of Australia.In the same period the revenue of Netherlands New Guinea was£13,000,000, of which ££,000,000 came from internal sourcesand £8,000,000 from the Netherlands. (All figures are roundedoff, and reduced to Australian currency). The aim of the DutchAdministration in New Guinea is precisely the same as that ofthe Australian Administration ; that is, in accordance with theprinciples of the Charter of the United Nations, to bring thePapuan people to a cultural level at which they can supportthemselves, manage their own affairs, enjoy the comforts ofmodern civilization, and take their part in international relations.Dutch officials realize, as does everyone with practical experiencein the uplift of dependent peoples, that political independencemust follow, not precede, economie independence. Beforeyoung people can assume the responsibilities of adult life, theymust be able to earn a living.

The Dutch have found, as we have on our side of the border,that minerals are a precarious source of wealth. The NetherlandsNew Guinea Petroleum Company has upwards of forty wellsin production on the oilfields near Sorong, in the ' Bird's Head 'peninsula. In the year 1957 petroleum worth £2,^00,000(Australian) was exported ; but the yield of the wells is slowly,steadily falling off. There are known deposits of cobalt, nickel,and iron in the Cyclops Mountains west of Hollandia, and inWaigeo Island north-west of the ' Bird's Head.' An agreementhas been reached by American and Dutch financiers for theexploitation of the ore. Even if the project goes ahead, it willbe some years before the revenues of the Territory begin tobenefit. In Netherlands New Guinea, as in the Territory ofPapua and New Guinea, the best business for the Papuan is inagricultural production. In the April, 19^9 number of East andWest, the journal of the Royal Geographical Society of theNetherlands, there are two interesting photographs. Under oneis printed, ' A Papuan busy cleaning a cacao plant from injuriousinsects.' Under the other, ' It is the young who do the work.The old folk watch distrustfully.' The same two photographs

6

niight well have been taken on the Australian side of the border.We cannot do a great deal for the older generation. Not havingspectacles, they peer dimly through rheumy eyes, and shaketheir heads and mutter. ' Such goings-on ! Whatever is thecountry coming to ! ' The young folk, given training and wiseguidance, have great possibilities when garden magie gives wayto agricultural science, and sorcery to technology.

If an Australian, remembering the wealth of his own countryin wool and beef, sugar, wheat, and dairy products, searches themap of Netherlands New Guinea for wide open spaces suitablefor large-scale agricultural and pastoral production, he will bedisappointed. The interior of the ' Bird's Head ' is all mountain-ous, with deep, steep-walled valleys and razor-back ridges,scarred with land-slides and erosion. The scraggy neck of thebird is very much the same. In the eastern part of the territorythe Central Berglands take up a great amount of space. Thereis a narrow plain along the north coast, backed by the NorthernWatershed Range. Between this range and the Central Berglandsis a wide plain called Meervlakte (' The Lake Plain ') drainedby a navigable river, the Momberamo. A visitor from Australianterritory would think he was flying over the Sepik. There arethe same serpentine watercourses, the same endless swamps.A few people live there, for sago palms grow and crocodilescan be caught. (The young ones are easier to catch, and farbetter eating!). The Meervlakte, like the Sepik Valley, offerslittle opportunity for agriculture.

The enormous volume of rainwater that falls on the CentralBerglands has to find its way to the sea, and much flows souththrough rivers which deposit silt and slowly build up theSouthern Plain. Much of it is swampy, of course, but in theextreme south, near Merauke, the rivers are navigable and thereis good grassland. This is the only part of the Territory in whichI saw cattle in any numbers. They are queer cattle, too, mostlyimported from Java. Their horns, instead of pointing forwardlike the horns of Jerseys, Herefords, and other Australianbreeds, point sharply backwards. They have a hump on theshoulder, and a U-shaped neck like a camel. I saw two of themdrawing an old-fashioned bullock-cart, and there is no doubtthat their necks are just the right shape for the yoke.

There is not much fertile soil in Netherlands New Guinea.

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Certain important constituents are missing from the motherrock. Almost everywhere the annual rainfall approaches orexceeds ioo inches, and minerals essential for plant food areleached out of the soil. The fertile areas are small and scattered.There is good land near Manokwari, and at Ransiki, on the coastsouth of Manokwari. Places of relatively dense population,such as the Nimboran Valley (inland from Hollandia), theisland of Japen and the Schouten Islands, are places where thesoil is relatively fertile. Do not be deceived by the appearanceon the map of Frederik Hendrik Island. It is so swampy that inorder to make gardens the people scoop up mud from thebottom with their hands, and pile it up into small islands. Theonly product that is plentiful is—mosquitoes!

Of the three unequal parts into which the island of NewGuinea is divided, the richest by far is the Trust Territory ofNew Guinea. The Territory of Papua, not much smaller in size,is not nearly so prosperous. Not only does the Trust Territorysupport a native population two-and-a-half times the populationof Papua, but the value of its exports is three-and-a-half timesthe value of Papuan exports. Netherlands New Guinea is relativelyless prosperous than Papua. Consider the value of exports fromthe three Territories for 1956-^7.

(Figures are rounded off, and expressed in Australian pounds).

Copra and CoconutOil

RubberCacaoCoffeeNutmegsTotal Exports

T.N.G.

£6,000,000

'. £450,000£180,000

'. £9,500,000(over a million fromtimber and plywood)

Papua

£940,000£1,150,000

£8,000£4,000

£2,800,000

N.N.G.

£270,000

£251,000£3,600,000

(over 2J millions frompetroleum)

When a neighbour invites you into his home, you would notmake remarks about his furniture, but your wife would silentlyassess the efficiency of your hostess as a housewife. An Australianreturning from Netherlands New Guinea is bound to be asked,' What kind of a job are the Dutch doing over there ? ' To makea fair assessment it is necessary to take into account the inherentdifficulties of the task and the resources available to do it. Ithink I have shown that the Dutch in New Guinea are faced

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with a difficult job, even more difficult than our task in theTerritory of Papua and New Guinea. In later chapters I hope thshow that they are tackling it in a thorough and workmanlikemanner.

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2

Hollandia and Biak

QANTAS EMPIRE AIRWAYS provides a fortnightly service fromPort Moresby to Hollandia, by way of Lae, Madang, and Wewak.From Wewak the aircraft follows the shoreline at an altitude ofabout two thousand feet, with the Bismarck Sea to starboard,and the cloud-capped coastal ranges, four thousand feet high,to port. We pass over Wom Peninsula, where in August, 194^Lt.-General Adachi, with 14,^00 men, surrendered toMajor-General Robertson. We cross the old airstrip at But,still dotted with American bomb-craters. Next come St. Anne'sMission, headquarters of the Australian Franciscans, and Aitape,administrative centre of the sub-district. Vanimo, borderstation of the Pacific Islands Regiment, flashes by beneath us.The forward door of the cabin is open, and over the shouldersof the pilots the solid mass of the Cyclops Range looms upright ahead. Across Humboldt Bay, and the aircraft turns inover a sheltered inlet, ringed about with mountains, withbuildings scattered along the shore, the slopes, and the foothills.We do not come down at Hollandia, but continue inland forquite five minutes. Then beneath us stretches a beautiful fresh-water lake, Sentani, the shores and islands dotted with nativevillages. We pass low over a club-house, with a swimmingenclosure and boats at anchor. Two minutes later we are taxi-ingacross Sentani Airstrip to the terminal building.

Customs formalities over, we leave for town, speeding alonga first-class bitumen road skirting the shores of the lake. Wepass the club-house, with a sign ' Meerzicht ' (Lake View).I glance at the speedometer, and note with a start that it reads

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eighty. Then I remember that eighty kilometers an hour meansfifty m.p.h. For the next couple of weeks there will be quite anamount of mental arithmetic, converting metres to feet, guildersto Australian currency and vice versa, at 8.2 guilders to the £ ;and in the technical workshops, converting kilogrammes persq.cm. to lb. per sq. inch. (x 13).

Leaving the lakeside, we drive through cultivated fields,past a sign reading ' Kota Nica—Landbouwproefstation.' Twentykilometres from the airport we reach Hollandia-Binnen, andbook in at the Government Hotel. We are still twelve kilo-metres from Hollandia Haven, and seventeen from the Governor'sPalace. When the American forces captured Hollandia, theirheadquarters were established at Hollandia-Binnen. Then whenthe Dutch returned, they were glad to occupy the buildingsleft behind by the Americans. General Macarthur's housebecame the Governor's residence, and officers' quarters becamethe Government Hotel. Since then building construction hasgone ahead steadily, and a fine town has grown up round theharbour. What pleased me most about the Dutch buildings isthe solid, permanent construction. Crushed coronus, eightparts, mixed with one part of portland cement, makes excellentbuilding blocks. The buildings are light, airy, and cool, andmaintenance costs must be very low. The roofs are of corrugatedasbestos-cement, in small sheets about four feet by two feet six.I commented on the size and was told that although the factorycost of small sheets is higher, the loss by breakage in transportand erection is much less, since a man can handle a small sheet,even in a wind, without difficulty. The houses are not large,and are economically planned, to eliminate passages and wastespace, but they are well sited, comfortable, and surroundedby gardens.

The Government offices are roomy and convenient, butstrictly functional in design and layout. The new hospital isreally an achievement of which the Government may well beproud. A housing project, ' Hamadi,' for Papuan workers, isanother show piece. The houses are smaller than those ofEuropean officers, but they are of the same solid construction,and look really attractive. On a height overlooking the sea isthe Governor's Palace, forming three sides of a square withfountains in the middle. The central portion is a magnifïcent

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reception hall, open and airy, with a wide terrace on theseaward side. On a neighbouring height is the residence of theRear-Admiral commanding the Royal Netherlands Naval Forces.Every senior Government official has a flagstaff in front of hishome, and on Royal birthdays—there are four Princesses—the red, white, and blue ensign flies from every pole. TheAustralian Liaison Officer has two flagpoles, and side by sidewith the Netherlands flag flies proudly the blue ensign with theSouthern Cross.

Commercial development is limited. There are shops andwarehouses in Hollandia, of course, but no establishments likeBurns, Philp or Steamships in Port Moresby, or even theChinese businesses in Rabaul. Once off the main road, the shopsare like what we would call in the Territory of Papua and NewGuinea, ' trade stores.' Residents say the cost of living is high,but I do not know their standard of comparison. The prices ofthe few things I bought seemed to be quite reasonable. Onedifference to be expected is that most of the merchandise comesfrom Holland. I smiled when I saw a tin of Van Houten's Cocoa—a brand I had not seen for more than forty years. People inPort Moresby who like beer drink either ' South Pacific,' fromthe local brewery, or ' Melbourne Bitter ' from cans. InHollandia, and throughout Netherlands New Guinea the beeris Heneken, from Holland. On our side of the border nativepeople are not allowed to drink alcoholic liquor, but in Nether-lands New Guinea there is no such restriction. I neither saw norheard any sign of misuse of liquor by Papuans, but Heneken Beercosts a guilder for a small bottle, and a Papuan could not affordto drink much.

There are several places of interest in the neighbourhood ofHollandia-Binnen. One is the Agricultural Experimental Stationat Kota Nica. This is not only an establishment for researchand the development of new varieties of crops, but also a trainingschool for agricultural assistants. After inspecting coffee, soyabeans, vanilla, and pepper, we came at last to a healthy plotof cacao. ' This makes me feel at home,' I said, ' it is just likea corner of Keravat.' (Keravat is the Agricultural ExperimentalStation near Rabaul). The Agriculture Officer smiled. ' Itought to be,' he said, ' for the seedlings all came from Keravat.'It might be mentioned here that although, as shown in the table

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at the end of the previous chapter, no cacao or coffee wasexported from Netherlands New Guinea in 19^6-^7, thelabours of officers engaged in agricultural extension work arebeginning to show results, and the cocoa industry has nowreached the export stage. Not all the effort is directed to cashcrops. Medical research has shown that much of the endemicdisease, poor physical development, and infant mortalityaniong the Papuan people is due to deficiencies in diet. TheDepartment of Agriculture teaches the people to grow a greatervariety of food crops to improve their diet. There is a NutritionalCouncil composed of specialists in agriculture, animal husbandry,native education and information, and dietetics. The Councilco-ordinates the efforts of the different Government Departmentswhich can help in the promotion of an adequate and balanceddiet for the native population.

Pro te in deficiency is very common indeed, since pigs are theonly domestic animals, and they are killed for food only onspecial and festive occasions. Peanuts are a valuable source ofprotein, and so are beans and peas. At Kota Nica fish are bredfor stocking fishponds—the same variety (Tilapia) that theAustralian Administration has introduced in our CentralHighlands.

Another interesting place is Kota Radja, where the Missionof the Netherlands Reformed Church conducts two schools,both for Papuans, a four-year Post-Primary School and a JuniorTechnical School. The history of the Junior Technical Schoolis well worth telling. In 19^0 a group of young Papuans hadcompleted the course in the Upper Primary ('continuation ')school at Joka, and they wished to learn a trade, more par-ticularly building construction. The Mission applied to theGovernment, which approved the establishment of a JuniorTechnical School, and promised to find the necessary funds ifthe Mission could provide material and labour. All availablebuilding potential was already committed to urgent Governmentprojects.

The Mission was fortunate in obtaining from Holland theservices of a trade instructor with exceptional qualities ofinitiative and leadership, Mr. Heijnes. He undertook to teachthe boys to build their own school. They were temporarilyaccommodated at the Joka Continuation School until their own

13

buildings were under way. Every morning at seven a.m. theyleft Joka in an old jeep, with half the boys riding behind in atrailer, over roads that had had no maintenance since thedeparture of the American forces.

A suitable site for the school buildings was found at KotaRadja. There the Americans had had an installation where longrows of refrigerators had maintained the supply of cool drinksso appreciated by the men in a hot and humid climate. Undera layer of debris, and in the midst of man-high kunai grass, theboys found a concrete foundation slab, 600 feet long and 180feet wide. This looked like a good basis to start from. Therewas a good supply of running water in the foothills of the CyclopsRange behind the site.

Every morning the party travelled five miles from Joka toKota Radja in a cloud of dust. Once when the jeep went into ahole the jolt threw one boy off the trailer. Before he was missedthe jeep was out of sight in the swirling dust-clouds. Beforeconstruction could begin, the rubbish had to be cleared away,and the kunai cut down. Later on, when the boys who had beenon the job from the beginning recounted the history of theirlabours to new arrivals, they told of the huge snakes, metreslong, they had found in the grass. Each time the story wasrepeated, the snakes were one metre longer!

Material for building had to be collected from the bush andthe swamps, where the Americans had left piles of timber anddumps of hardware in the most unexpected places. Everythinghad to be manhandled, and there were times when the boyslost heart, standing up to their knees in mud, dragging heavybaulks and boxes, while the blazing sun burnt their nakedbacks. It was then that the leadership of Mr. Heijnes sustainedthem, and the job was carried through. In spite of the lack oftools, and the discouraging remarks of casual visitors, twoQuonset huts were erected as dormitories, and the daily trekto and from Joka was no longer necessary.

Meanwhile a second instructor had arrived. He took a partyinto the hills and located a permanent source of good water.Lengths of water-pipe salvaged from dumps and ruins made apipe-line to bring running water to the school. Now there wasdrinking water, water for ablutions, and water to mix concrete.The next triumph was the erection of a Master-Quonset hut,

14

ioo feet by jo feet, which was to be the first workshop-classroom.

Organized instruction could now begin, and while the work ofbuilding went ahead, classes were held each day in woodwork,metal work, and motor mechanics. The aim of the teachingwas to make the young Papuans competent and willing todevelop their own country. Their obligation to use their strengthand skill in the service of their own people was constantlystressed.

When the material left behind by the Americans was all usedup, attention was turned to the use of building material availablelocally. The boys were taught to make concrete building blocks,and to feil, dress, and season local timbers, especially the hardand tough ' ironwood.' They acquired much more than technicalskill. In the regular, ordered life of a boarding school theylearned lessons of punctuality, self-discipline, and responsibility.In December 19^3 the first group of students who had startedat the very beginning in 19^0 and had built their own school,sat for a formal examination in trade theory and practice, andseventeen secured their certificates of proficiency. I had readthis story before I visited Kota Radja, and it was a memorableexperience to see the buildings, now fully equipped withmodern machinery, standing on the famous concrete slab, andto shake hands with Mr. Heijnes whose vision, courage, endur-ance and leadership brought the thing to pass.

The sister school at Kota Radja, the Post-Primary School,was the first school of its type in the territory. There are nowothers like it at Manokwari, Sorong, and Merauke. Boys whocomplete the course are eligible to enter the Governmenttraining school for patrol officers. After four years training incriminal law and legal procedure, political economy andadministration, hygiëne, anthropology, institutional law andpolice duties, successful candidates are eligible for appointmentas field assistants in native administration. In the Territory ofPapua and New Guinea we have Papuan and New Guineanofficers of the Public Service, but we have not yet appointedany as Patrol Officers. Of course, other careers are open to boysfrom the Post-Primary School. Some find employment intrade and industry.

There is one more place to be visited before leaving Hollandia,

15

and that is the Yacht Club. It is an attractive building on theo

harbour front. From the spacious, comfortable lounge there isan unobstructed view of the bay, and for mothers a view of thesafe enclosed playing area for children in front of the Club.The Club is not only a base for boat owners, but a delightfulsocial rendezvous. I was pleased to see hanging up on the wallthe pennant of the Papua Yacht Club.

And so to Biak. Internal air services in Netherlands NewGuinea are maintained by the ' Nederlands Nieuw GuineaLuchtvaart Maatschappij ' (N.N.G. Airways Co.) but as thisis too big a mouthful the company is referred to as ' Kroonduif '(Crown Dove). That is the Dutch name for the beautiful blue-crested Goura pigeon, which the Company uses as a badge onits aircraft. D.C^'s are used for most routes, but where thereare airstrips too short for D.C.3's, a Scottish aircraft called thePioneer is used. This can take off and land in a very shortdistance.

On taking off from Hollandia the aircraft skirts the seawardslope of the Northern Watershed Range for over an hour. Thelast half hour is over the sea, and before reaching Great SchoutenIsland the aircraft passes over a long chain of islets and coralreefs. The vivid green of the reefs against the blue backgroundof deep water is tempting to anyone whose camera is loadedwith colour film. To anyone from Australian New Guinea theapproaches and terrain of Great Schouten Island are a strongreminder of Manus Island.

Biak is an international airport, the terminus of K.L.M.(Royal Dutch Airlines). From Biak, K.L.M, aircraft fly toTokyo in one day, to Alaska the next, and the third day theyfly over the North Pole to Amsterdam. What a trip for a Dutchofficial going home on leave! Across the way from the terminalbuilding is the Rif (pronounced ' reef'—it means that) Hotel,managed by K.L.M. The food and accommodation are quite upto international standards, the service is excellent, and thesituation, with an outlook over the ' reef,' is very pleasant. Inthe lounge of the terminal building there hangs a panel with apainting of a seventeenth century ship, and the followinginscription :

16

' WILLEM SCHOUTEN ' WILLIAM SCHOUTENEYLANDT ISLAND

. . een Groot Schoon . . . a Great Beautiful IslandEylandt dat seer groen ende that very green and pleasantplaysant was om aan te sien.' was to look upon.'Scheepsjournaal Eendracht, Log of the ship Eendracht,

24 Juli, 1616. 24A July, 1616.This is the story behind it. When Vasco da Gama discovered

the sea route to India in 1498, the Portuguese commenced totrade with India. The Dutch soon followed, and established atrading post in Java, at Batavia (now Djakarta). The trade wasin the hands of one chartered company, the Dutch East IndiaCompany, which by law held a monopoly on trade with theEast Indies either by the Cape of Good Hope or the Straits ofMapellan. A keen and intelligent master mariner named Le Maire

o o

decided to find another route not mentioned in the law. Twoships set sail from Holland in 1616, under the command ofCaptains Schouten and Le Maire. Off the South American coast,Le Maire's ship was destroyed by fire. He and the survivors weretaken on board the Eendracht, Schouten's ship, and the voyagecontinued. Instead of entering the Straits of Magellan, Schoutenkept on south, till he discovered, rounded, and named CapeHorn. He had opened one of the great sea routes of the world.

Having crossed the Pacific, Schouten and Le Maire sailed alongthe soast of New Guinea, and on 24th July, 1616, WilliamSchouten made the entry in his log that is quoted above. Onreaching Batavia, the Eendracht was confiscated by the DutchEast India Company, and Schouten and Le Maire were sentback to Holland under arrest. Long litigation followed, but inthe end the East India Company was ordered to pay themcompensation. It is a pity that through confusion the name

Schouten Islands ' was given to a group of small islands offthe mouth of the Sepik. There is no doubt which island fitsthe description in the Eendracht's log. I was told that the panelin the airport terminal was painted by someone who claimed tobelong to Schouten's family.

The mother rock of Biak is coronus, ideal material for concretebuilding blocks, and full advantage has been taken of it. Iinspected a new housing settlement for Papuan workers. Itwas similar to the Hamadi settlement at Hollandia. The houses

17

were small, but well designed and attractive, and of course aspermanent as houses could be. What pleased me most was tosee that a school had been included in the design, and had beencompleted at the same time as the houses. It is a Primary ' B 'school, that is, of a type intended for children who do not speakDutch at home ; but it is in no way inferior to the Primary ' A 'schools provided for Dutch-speaking children. In NetherlandsNew Guinea there is no discrimination among school childrenon the ground of race. All who speak Dutch go to the Primary' A ' school, whatever the colour of their skin. The rest whodo not know Dutch when they come to school, attend a Primary' B ' school where they will be taught Dutch. In the upperclasses the curriculum in both types is very much the same.

In the interior of the island there are deep caves in thecoronus, and here it was that the last Japanese held out whenthe Americans re-occupied the island. From these hiding-placesthey harassed the Americans until they were tracked down.It was hopeless to follow them into their lairs, and they wouldnot come out, so dozens of forty-four gallon drums of petrolwere rolled down into the chasm, punctured by rifle fire, andset alight. No Japanese survived. Some years after the war aJapanese War Graves party visited the place and set up a memorialstone near the en trance to the caves. I climbed far enoughdown to see the rusted drums, but the overhanging coronusseemed so rotten that I did not venture underground.

The island is the most densely populated place in the territory,and the Papuan people are culturally advanced and progressivein outlook. They are active in building churches and schoolsfor themselves by co-operative effort, all in concrete brick, ofcourse. Much as I admire this type of construction, there aresurely limits to its use. I was surprised to see, in one of theselocally built schools, built-in cupboards of concrete!

Biak is a port with accommodation for the largest ships.Besides the ei vil airport, there is a station of the Royal Nether-lands Air Force, equipped with jet aircraft. There are bulkinstallations for the storage of petrol, aviation spirit, and dieselfuel. The national broadcasting station, Radio Omroep NieuwGuinea, (pronounce it—Rah-dio Om-roop Nee-oo Hin-ay-uh)is located at Biak. It transmits on a wave-length of fortv-twometres with a power of five kw, and is on the air for thirty-six

18

and a half hours a week. Of this, four and a half hours is in Malayfor the benefit of Papuans and others who know Malay, butnot Dutch.

19

3

Vogelkop, South New Guinea, Japen

I DID NOT visit the ' Bird's Head ' peninsula, and the informationgiven here about Manokwari, Sorong, and Fak Fak has beencompiled from official sources.

Manokwari is the oldest settlement in the territory, theNetherlands having established administration here in 1898.lts importance is now due to the sawmill and the shipyard.There are big stands of timber in the mountains of NetherlandsNew Guinea, but exploitation is difficult. The stands generallyconsist of a mixed assortment of species, and the steep andrugged terrain makes access and transport very hard indeed.Good stands have been located in Vogelkop and on the shoresof Geelvink Bay, and the sawmill at Manokwari has been estab-lished to cut up the logs. Construction was started in 19^6, andwas completed in 19^8, but operations were carried on in alimited way during the latter half of 1957. The mill is designedfor a capacity of over five million super f eet per annum, whichmakes it a big plant. The Administration sawmills at Keravatand Lae in Australian territory together cut rather more thantwo and a half million super feet per annum. There are joineryworks associated with the sawmill, which turn out doors andwindow frames for houses throughout the territory.

The Konijnenburg Shipyard at Manokwari was completed in195-7. The slipway can take ships up to 3,600 tons, and up to360 feet long. There are engineering workshops in connectionwith the slipway and shipyard. There is also a gas-making plantproducing sufficient oxygen for all the requirements of theterritory.

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Sorong is the base of the Nederlands Nieuw Guinea PetroleumMaatschappij, an operating company in which 40 per cent ofthe shares are held by the Royal Dutch-Shell group, and 60 percent by Standard-Vacuüm Oil. It has already been mentionedthat in 19^7 the company was operating 43 wells, and thatpetroleum exported was worth £2,500,000 Australian. In thatyear the company employed 322 Europeans, and 3,88^ non-Europeans. It maintains a fleet of small ships with a total tonnageof 8,000, and there is a floating doek at Sorong to keep them inrepair. The company has undertaken extensive housing con-struction for the accommodation of its staff, both European andnon-European.

It has gone into the business of education in a big way. Itmaintains at its own cost without Government subsidy twoinfant schools, a Primary ' A ' School, a Primary ' B,' and anAdvanced Primary school. It conducts a Junior Technical School,which in 1957 had sixty-seven students, forty-four Papuans,and twenty-three non-indigenous—a term which covers bothAsians and Europeans, with possibly mixed race students as well.For the Junior Technical School the Company receives aGovernment subsidy of fifty per cent of the cost. There arealso courses of vocational training for employees in the geologicalservice, the shipping service, and for office employees, coursesin commercial subjects. The total expenditure on educationby Nederlands Nieuw Guinea Petroleum Maatschappij, in 1957was £5-2,000 Australian.

Fak Fak is not in the ' Bird's Head,' but on the western coastof another smaller peninsula that juts out from the ' neck ' ofthe ' bird.' Fak Fak is memorable for one thing only—nutmegs.It was mentioned in Chapter One that in 1957 nutmegs worth£25-1,000 were exported from Netherlands New Guinea.Almost all of this was shipped through Fak Fak. In addition tothis, nutmeg husks dried and used as spice under the tradename of ' mace,' amounting in value to £84,000 Australian,were also shipped through Fak Fak. Most of the nutmeg grownis of the Papua variety, but the Department of Agriculture isassisting and encouraging the planting of the superior Bandavariety. Fak Fak has some importance as a centre of education.Both the Catholic (Franciscan) and Protestant (Molucca)Missions have teacher training schools and district school

21

managers at Fak Fak. It was one of the first Dutch settlementsin New Guinea, established in the same year as Manokwari,1898.

When you arrive in Hollandia, you notice that the numberplates of motor vehicles have the prefix NNG. On arrival inMerauke you find that the prefix is ZNG, which stands for Zuid(South) Nieuw Guinea. The Division of South New Guinea,which is administered from Merauke, includes the area southof the Central Berglands, and between the meridians of 136degrees 30 minutes and 141 degrees East Longitude. (Approxi-mately only, because the boundaries are adjusted to the banksof rivers). Even a casual scrutiny of the map of New Guineawill convey an impression which later personal reconnaissanceof the terrain will confirm, that the meridian of 141 degreesis a most unnatural international boundary. It does not conformto any physical features of the country. It does not mark anydifference in the climate, soil, or population. It is as arbitraryas the boundary fixed in 1493 by Pope Alexander VI, when heassigned to Spain all the lands ' more than 100 leagues west of theCape Verde Islands.' During the eighteenth century the DutchEast India Company was engaged in profitable trade, particularlywith the Spice Islands. They took no interest in New Guinea,quite rightly regarding it as inaccessible and unprofitable ;but in 1793 two ships of the British East India Company exploredthe south coast of the island as far as the Gulf of Papua. Itoccurred to the Dutch that a British station in New Guinea—at least in West New Guinea, might threaten their monopolyof trade with the Spice Islands. So in 182S the Netherlandsissued a proclamation annexing the portion of New Guineawest of the i4ist meridian. It is quite clear that this particularmeridian was chosen almost at random. Annexation was con-firmed by the establishment of a post on the south coast at TritonBay ; but so many of the people died from tropical diseases thatthe post was abandoned in 1836. In 1884 Germany annexedNorth-East New Guinea, and the British proclaimed a pro-tectorate over Papua. To maintain their title to West NewGuinea, the Dutch established posts at Manokwari, and FakFak, as has already been mentioned, in 1898. The arbitrarilychosen boundary received international sanction.

Topographically and climatically, the Division of South

22

New Guinea is continuous with the Trans-Fly Region of Papua.There is plenty of swamp—the annual export of £A 144,^00worth of crocodile skins from Merauke is proof of that ; butthe country is not waterlogged all through the year. During thesouth-east season, from May to October, when the shores of theGulf of Papua are drenched with rain, the Trans-Fly-MeraukeRegion is almost arid. There are some places that are suitablefor large-scale rice production ; in fact mechanized rice projectshave been established at Merauke and at Koembe, fifteen milesnortri-west of Merauke. In 1957 116 tons of rice were milledat Koembe, and 8^ at Merauke. There were heavy losses atKoembe through birds, and at Merauke through dry weather.There are quite good prospects of greatly increased yields at bothplaces. Reference has already been made to the cattle I saw atMerauke. There is a Government experimental cattle-breedingstation at Merauke, which incidentally I did not visit. At presentthe herd numbers about 100, but plans are being made toincrease the grazing area sufficiently to carry ^00 to 700 head.The Animal Husbandry Branch of the Department of Agricultureis experimenting with cross-breeding of the local Meraukecattle with other breeds. At the end of 19^8 three Brahmancows and five heifers as well as a Santa Gertrudis buil were air-freighted from Australia to Merauke. The first calves are expectedthis year.

These details are taken from a recent news release by thePress Section of the Royal Netherlands Embassy. The samerelease quotes a report by the Head of the Animal HusbandryBranch, who has recently investigated the possibility of cattleraising in the Baliem Valley. He reported that the area sur-rounding the Wamena Patrol Post is ideally suited for thebreeding of beef and dairy cattle. There is abundant grass onrather moist soil, the climate is mild, and there are 110 cattlediseases. Wamena is £,000 feet above sea level. The area in thevicinity of the Patrol Post is divided into small garden plots.On the moist soil in between and on the uncultivated swampyparts were found enormous quantities of so-called rice grass,an excellent fodder for stock. As air transport is the only meansof communication between the Baliem Valley and the outsideworld, stud cattle will have to be flown in. The airstrip is beingenlarged to accommodate D.C.3's. Last year the Christian and

23

Missionary Alliance imported three Illawarra Shorthorns, twoheifers, and a buil calf into the Baliem Valley. The expertreported that all three are doing well. The Government willfly three horses to Wamena this year, for use in patrolling.

The approach to Merauke by air is quite impressive. Asmentioned above, the south-bound aircraft from Hollandiamakes a detour over Australian territory to avoid the very highpeaks of the Star Mountains. It must cross the watershed betweenthe Sepik and the Fly almost directly above the track followedby Karius and Champion in 1927, when they penetrated thelimestone barrier between Bolivip and Telefolmin, and completedthe most historie patrol ever made in New Guinea. With theaircraft flying at 10,000 feet, the ground beneath drops sharplyaway to the plain, and suddenly you see the level surface extend-ing for miles and miles, dissected by rivers and dotted withswamps ; then far beyond on the dim horizon, the sea. Theaircraft descends rapidly, and the surface features become moredistinct. That wide space ruled in squares like a chessboardmust be the mechanized rice farm. That river must be theMerauke, with navigation marks at the mouth. The aircraftswoops low over the shore, there is a glimpse of red roofs asit banks sharply, and comes in to land. In a few minutes you arein the passengers' lounge at the airport, trying hard to distinguishthe names of the people you are being introduced to.

It must be very different approaching the place from the sea.I have been on board a small craft trying to find Daru during asouth-east drizzling rain, and I know how featureless the flat,mangrove-fringed shore looks from the sea. In the early davs ofthe Pacific War the Japanese sent a force to seize Merauke,but they went up the wrong river, and searched for a long timewithout finding Merauke. In the meantime an Australian forcehad forestalled them, and remained in possession of Meraukeuntil the end of the war.

There are Indonesians in Merauke—good-looking people witha pleasant marmer and a ready, friendly smile. They have smallhands and feet, and are graceful in their movements, in everyfeature unmistakably different from the Papuan people. I knewno Malay, so had no chance to talk to them, but I understandthat most of the adults had been in Merauke before the war,and that most of the children had been born there. The Papuan

24

people in Merauke are exactly like the Papuans on our side ofthe border. I had chosen to bring with me from our Territorytwo officers of the Auxiliary Division of the Public Service, onea Papuan and the other a New Guinean, as we call the nativesof the Trust Territory. These two established closer contactwith the native people than I could ever do. In the hotel inMerauke they found a man who understood Police Motu, inpre-war days the lingua franca of the south coast of Papua.They also discovered that there are words in Malay which alsooccur in Motu or in Melanesian Pidgin. There was another oldfellow who heard me speak in English, and immediately caraeforward and said, rather haltingly but with evident pride,' Good day, sir. I can speak English.' He had learned someEnglish during the Australian occupation, but it was rusty withdisuse, and he was eager to get some practice.

Merauke is an important educational centre of the CatholicMission—not the Franciscan, as in Hollandia, but the SacredHeart. They have boarding schools for boys and girls, a seminaryfor future (Papuan) priests, a training school for village teachers,and a Junior Technical School. All these schools are housed ingood, permanent buildings. The teachers are well qualifiedprofessionally and the schools are efficiently run. The equipmentin the Junior Technical School is very similar to what we havein the Technical Schools in our own Territory, at Port Moresby,Lae, and Rabaul.

Elsewhere I have spoken of the deficiency of protein in thediet of many Papuans. That does not happen in Merauke. Thereare wild deer in the neighbourhood, and they have increased innumbers to such an extent that they do serious damage to thefood gardens. They are regularly hunted, and venison sells inMerauke for one guilder a pound (really half a kilogram, i. i lb.,but the Dutch call it ' pond '). Even the boarding schools areable to give the school children plenty of meat.

Seroei is the most pleasant place I visited in NetherlandsNew Guinea. Old-timers, who recall the gracious leisurelylife they led in the Netherlands East Indies before the PacificWar, say that Seroei is the one place in Netherlands New Guineawhere they feel most at home. Perhaps their memories are notentirely trustworthv. Quite possibly life was not really sogracious and leisurely as they seem to remember it. Maybe there

25

were drawbacks they have forgotten—certainly medical controlof tropical diseases was imperfect in those days. All the same,it is probably true that there is something of the atmosphereof the good old times about Seroei, and for a sound practicalreason. Biak was bombed by the Americans so thoroughlythat every building now standing is either a war-time structuresuch as a Quonset hut, or a modern building of concrete blocks.Seroei was bombed only once, and that by mistake. Most of thebombs mïssed their targets anyhow, so almost all the pre-warbuildings are still standing. The big raintrees with interlacingboughs that shade the roadways stand as they did before the war—a feature Seroei has in common with Madang and Kieta in ourown Territory.

The friendly, peaceful tone of life in Seroei is partly due to itsbeing situated off the main lines of traffic. Biak is a busy, bustling,dynamic, go-ahead sort of place, as a modern internationalairport ought to be. Seroei is only half-an-hour's flying time byD.C.3 from Biak, but the Dakota calls only once a week, and thepopulation turns out to welcome it as they used to do in remoteparts of Queensland years ago, when the branch line train puffedslowly into the station.

Japen is a long, narrow, mountainous island, with its longaxis pointing slightly north of west. lts length is one hundredmiles and its greatest breadth about fourteen. Right in the middleof the south coast is Seroei, the only port in the island. Thereis a stone quay for small ships. The day I left a ship of about£,000 tons arrived, and anchored two or three cables off,sending cargo ashore in boats.

The island is fertile, and has a good rainfall. I noticed therewas plenty of native food of many varieties exposed for sa] e inthe native market (what they call ' pasar,' and we in Pidgin call' boong'). There seemed to be many sellers, and few buyers.Also in the morning I saw many native women outside thekitchens of the boarding schools, offering fresh garden producefor sale. It would appear that more native food is grown thanthe people can eat. The houses are set among flower-gardensand greenery. There are a few Chinese families, all in businessas storekeepers, of course ; and occasionally in the passing crowdof Papuans there are people whose features and figures areunmistakably Indonesian, though these are very much a minority.

26

Seroei is important as an educational centre, and particularlyas the main base for mission work by the Netherlands Reformed(Protestant) Church. Apart from the village schools in differentparts of the islands, there are in Seroei itself the foliowing schools,all maintained by the Protestant Mission with Governmentfmancial support :

One Primary ' A ' (European type), one Primary ' B ' (fortown children not speaking Dutch as their mother tongue).

A ' continuation ' school for boys, and another for girls.These are upper primary boarding schools, for selected pupilsfrom village schools, a training school for village teachers, and aseminary where village teachers can complete a nine-monthstheological course.

The Government Officer in charge at Seroei corresponds withwhat we call in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, anAssistant District Officer, and like an Assistant District Officer,his responsibilities are numerous and highly varied. Apart fromthe more obvious duties of the senior resident Governmentofficial, he is the harbourmaster and airport superintendent, theradio operator and chief meteorologist, and manager of theGovernment guesthouse. Through his kindness I was enabledto visit a large marine village a few miles east of Seroei. Hesaid it was the largest in the island, with a population of about3,000 people. I think it was the largest marine village I haveseen anywhere in New Guinea, that is, a village with all thehouses built on piles above the water. What interested me mostof all was the close resemblance to marine villages in our ownTerritory of Papua. The type is less common in the TrustTerritory of New Guinea ; but if I mixed my photographs ofthis village with photographs taken in Tubuseria or Kapa Kapa,marine villages east of Port Moresby, it would be hard to teilthem apart.

The canoes were different from those on our side of theisland. Our Papuans use a log canoe with one outrigger forswift sailing, a canoe with two log hulls for cruising or carryingcargo. They are generally under sail, and only the reallywell-to-do have outboard motors on their canoes. Japen canoeshave a log huil with an outrigger on each side. This pattern isfound only on our side of the border in the neighbourhood ofDaru. I did not see a single canoe under sail in Japen. Every

27

canoe had an outboard motor, and some were high-poweredexpensive models. I asked the Assistant District Officer whatthe owners did for maintenance and repairs. He laughed andsaid, ' Buy a new one generally.' I still do not know how theyafford it.

The day I was to leave Seroei drizzling rain set in, with lowdrifting cloud, making it impossible for the Pioneer to land.Next day when it cleared, by arrangement made by radio with' Kroonduif ' at Biak, we went out in a launch to a sheltered baywhere a Beaver float-plane could alight. Shelter is essential, notonly for safe alighting, but also for the comfort of passengerswho have to climb out of a launch and walk along the narrowfloat to the ladder. The Beaver duly kept the appointment.I sat up beside the pilot, camera in hand, with a splendid viewthrough the windscreen and a small window I could open onmy right. I got shots from the air of Seroei and Biak with notrouble at all.

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4Health

THE MEDICAL SUPERINTENDENT was showing me around thehospital. I had seen the living quarters of the Papuan nurses,the kitchen, the dispensary, the operating theatre. We cameto the maternity ward, where on one side of the ward werethe mothers in bed, and on the opposite side, each in his own cotunder a mosquito net, a dozen brand-new Papuans were lying,some squirming and kicking, others asleep. ' Do you noticeanything in particular about them ? ' asked the doctor. ' Well,they are small,' I said, ' especially in comparison with new-bornEuropean babies. What is the reason? ' ' I'll teil you later,'he said, and went on to talk of plans for future improvements.

When we had completed our round of inspection, we wentinto a spare room. An assistant produced a small projector,plugged a lead into a power point, and drew the blinds. Thedoctor produced a box of colour slides. When a man's heartis in his job, and most of all when his job, like my own, is onethat makes urgent demands far more than he can ever meetwith all available resources, he is always prepared to talk andexplain his job to an interested listener. That is particularlythe case in New Guinea. In Australia or in Holland you couldpractise medicine or manage a school without becoming involvedwith agriculture, economics, or community development.Every teacher in this country is brought face to face with starkfacts of disease and malnutrition. Every medical practitionerrealizes the urgent need for universal primary education andtraining in hygiëne. Every Government official worth his salt

29

knows that he is a member of a team, and must co-operate withother workers in every aspect of welfare and development.

The pictures had all been taken on medical patrols, somein the lowlands of South New Guinea, some in the high countryaround the Wissel Lakes. One of the most interesting was apicture of Miss Sheila Malcolm, nutritionist employed by theSouth Pacific Commission, introducing new foods, in the shapeof protein containing legumes, to primitive people in the WisselLakes region.

' There is your answer to your question about the babies,'said the doctor. ' The mothers have been living on a diet withfar too little protein. They just haven't got the necessarymaterial for building up body tissue.' ' Does protein deficiencydo any damage apart from making the babies undersized? ' Ienquired. ' Take a look at that,' he said, and threw on thescreen a picture of a mother holding her child of perhaps ayear or a little more. His limbs were thin like sticks, withknobby joints, his little belly was protuberant, and his hair wasthin and patchy ; but the most striking feature of his conditionwas the colour of his skin—not a heaïthy warm brown, but adull sickly red. The doctor gave it a name, a barbaric name,not built up from Greek or Latin like respectable medicalterms, but something out of Darkest Africa—' Kwashiorkor.'I remarked that I had seen babies like that in the WesternHighlands of our own territory, but I had thought the causewas genetic. ' Yes, you've got them too,' he said. ' As for thecause, there may be a genetic factor in some cases. We don'tknow everything about it ; but we do know it does not occurwhen the mother has been fed from her girlhood on a properlybalanced diet.'

The slides that followed were not the kind your friendswould find entertaining. Yaws—great raised sores with the rawsurface resembling in colour and form the raspberries from whichthe disease gets its scientific name—Fiamboesia. Tropical ulcers—great craters of corruption eating deep into muscle, sinew, andbone. Leprosy—cases with mutilated extremities or a ' leonine 'face—a face like a very miserable lion. T.B. wasted patients,both adults and children. I enquired about the means of infection,and how these diseases were communicated ; but the doctorstressed his original point, that these people have never been

30

properly fed, not in all their lives. A healthy well-fed Europeanhas a very considerable resistance to all sorts of infection ; butprimitive people who have a hard struggle to satisfy their hungerwith any kind of food ; whose diet is deficiënt in protein, invitamins, in essential mineral salts, fall easy victims to the potentinfections to which they are exposed.

It was not the first time I had seen such pictures, and indeedin the villages and among the mountain people in our ownterritory I had seen more such cases than one would ever want tosee. It was not the first time I had heard such a lecture. Morethan thirty years ago, long before I had any thought that I shouldever see New Guinea, I heard a public lecture by Sir RaphaelCilento, a leading authority on tropical medicine. He said thatpeople sometimes asked him, ' Why not leave these simplesavages alone, in their condition of primeval happiness? ' Heprojected a slide showing the upper half of the body of a veryattractive girl. ' Do you like her? ' he said. Then he showed thenext slide—the lower part of her body, with a terrible tropicalulcer eating deep into her thigh. ' What do you think,' heasked. ' Should we leave her in her primeval happiness—likethat? ' That is something people living comfortable, civilizedlives should never forget. Primitive people lead lives that arefull of fear—fear of headhunters, of sorcery, of starvation ;full of pain—from simple ills like toothache, to the horrors ofdysentery or scrub typhus, without any medical aid whatever;and lives that, on the average, are cut short at or about thirty-five years of age. Not all Europeans in New Guinea are mission-aries, or even religious. There are many Europeans in placeslike Port Moresby or Rabaul who know little of any nativepeople but their houseboys ; but I doubt if there are any,missionaries, officials, anthropologists, or recruiters, who haveseen at first hand the condition of native people in undevelopedareas, and remained unmoved. The need of such people is greatand terribly urgent ; and in no field is it greater or more urgentthan in that of Health and Medical Services. From what I havesaid it should be quite clear that the situation is exactly thesame in Netherlands New Guinea and in the Territory of Papuaand New Guinea. When you enquire what the Dutch authoritiesare doing about it, the answer is, exactly the same as the Aus-tralians are doing in their end of the island.

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When you face a task of great magnitude with relativelylimited means, you must employ those means in the way that willgive the greatest possible returns. Curative medicine is expensive,and can benefit relatively few. Preventive medicine can attimes produce dramatic results at comparatively small costs.Administering powers in dependent territories necessarily givemuch attention to measures of prevention.

Malaria is one of the deadly killers that in former years madeCentral Africa and New Guinea notorious as ' white men'sgraves.' The discovery that the disease is spread by the bite of theanopheles mosquito made malaria amenable to control bypreventive campaigns. In 19^6 the Government of NetherlandsNew Guinea, with the assistance of the World Health Organi-zation and UNICEF planned an attack on the anophelesmosquito by indoor spraying of houses with DDT. During1957 more than 123,000 persons living in the island of Japenhad their homes sprayed inside with insecticide. When I visitedSeroei it was no longer necessary to use mosquito nets.

Some of the secondary factors that affect the prevalenceof malaria-carrying mosquitoes are the number of potentialbreeding grounds in the shape of pools of stagnant water ; theextent to which people are out of doors at night, and whetherthey wear protective clothing or use mosquito repellent. Thewanderings of nomadic Papuans spread infection from oneregion to another. Indoor spraying was most successful in Biak,where the secondary factors I have named are at a minimum.In the Sentani area near Hollandia, where the mosquito popu-lation was particularly heavy, there was a marked decrease inthe number of disease-carrying parasites.

During the Pacific War, when quinine was unobtainable, theuse of atebrin for the prevention of malaria became quite generalin the fighting services. Since the war more effective and lessunpleasant drugs have been developed, such as paludrine,daraprim, nivaquin, camoquin, and so on. These are termed' suppressives ' because they do not in fact prevent the subjectfrom being infected with malaria, but they do control theparasites within the body and prevent the symptoms fromdeveloping. Europeans in New Guinea are advised to take

suppressives ' regularly, and those who do rarely devclopmalaria, even in places notorious for the incidence of the

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disease among the native people. Anti-malarials are suppliedfree to all Public Servants in Australian New Guinea, but thereare obvious difficulties in the way of supplying expensive drugsto the whole population. One serious difficulty is to ensure thatthe tablets are swallowed, and not thrown away. It is not enoughto supply the drugs and distribute them. People must be trainedto a sense of responsibility in the matter of regular dosage.

The Dutch authorities have attacked this problem vigorously.In the places where houses have been sprayed with DDT,suppressives have been supplied to various groups of people.Research is constantly going on to provide the informationnecessary to guide the workers in the field of prevention. It wasfeared that some strains of anopheles mosquitoes might becomeresistant to DDT and dieldrin, but so far this has not proved tobe so.

Yaws is a disease that does not often cause death, but it ispainful and disfiguring. It occurs among people whose hygiënestandards are low. People who keep their bodies clean and whoseclothes are changed and laundered daily are not likely to contractthe disease. Fortunately it is a disease that can be attacked by amass campaign. The treatment is a simple injection, which neednot be given by a doctor. Any normally intelligent and carefulperson can be trained to give the injection. The drug usednow-a-days is a special preparation of penicillin.

In 19 SS the Government of Netherlands New Guinea came toan agreement with WHO and UNICEF for a two-year campaignagainst yaws. During 195̂ 6 the Government spent £40,000(Australian) on the campaign while UNICEF supplied medicineand equipment to the value of nine thousand dollars. By the endof 19^6, 270,000 people had been examined and where necessarytreated. In 1957 the campaign was extended to the areas morerecently brought under control. Because of the inaccessiblenature of the country and the difficulty of making the peopleunderstand the reason for the campaign, not so many wereexamined and treated as in 19^6 ; but thousands of cases ofyaws were discovered and treated. A follow-up check of peoplepreviously examined showed a few cases of fresh infection.In the Schouten Islands and in Japen the disease is now fullyunder control. During 19^9 the campaign is being extendedto the remote and inaccessible areas in the Central Berglands.

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Tuberculosis (T.B.) is widely prevalent in New Guinea,but the time and marmer of its introduction are uncertain.There is evidence that T.B. occurs most frequently in placeswhere the native population are in close contact with civili-zation. There are four main lines of attack upon T.B. in Nether-lands New Guinea. The first is the prevention of infection byquarantine regulations. Great care is taken to prevent T.B.carriers from entering areas where the people are free from T.B.,which means that they would be easily infected. Special care isalso taken with school children, especially in boarding schools.X-ray and other exaniinations of staff and pupils make it possibleto isolate T.B. carriers.

The second line of attack is towards increasing the resistanceof the people to the disease. As T.B. is one of the diseases thatattacks people who are not well-nourished, the efforts made toimprove the diet of the people also assist the campaign againstT.B. A start was made in 19^6 to test people for T.B., and wherenecessary to vaccinate them with ' BCG.' By the end of 1957,£8,000 people had been examined, and 33,000 had been treatedwith BCG. The third line is to improve the equipment andincrease the staff for tracing and examining cases of T.B. Thefourth is to offer the widest possible opportunities for T.B.patients to receive treatment, either at hospital or at home.It is most encouraging to find that the Papuan people areco-operating willingly in the campaign. In the more developedareas where there are more educated people the fight againstT.B. receives almost universal support.

Leprosy is believed to have been introduced into the RadjaAmpat Islands, west of the ' Bird's Head,' in the nineteenthcentury. From there it spread to other coastal areas. It is mostcommon on the southern shore of Geelvink Bay. When thecampaign against yaws was being carried on in 195̂ 6 and 1957,advantage was taken of the opportunity to examine large numbersof people for leprosy at the same time. Throughout the areasunder full Government control, nearly seven people per thousandwere found to be infected. In the Geelvink Bay area the rateof infection was more than fifty-six per thousand.

Leprosy Hospitals have been established at Geelvink Bay,Sorong, Fak Fak, and Seroei. At the end of 1957 there were 8o^leprosy patients being treated, about half of them in hospitals,

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and the rest as out-patients. As already has been stressed, whilecurative medicine cannot be neglected, the number it canbenefit is limited. Preventive medicine can benefit thousandswho without preventive treatment would have contracted thedisease. Leprosy may be in some way linked with T.B., for thereis evidence that the inoculation with BCG which is carried outas part of the anti-T.B. campaign also gives a certain degree ofprotection against leprosy. This possible clue to prevention isbeing carefully investigated.

These four—Malaria, Yaws, Tuberculosis, and Leprosy,are the most serious of the endemic diseases in Netherlands NewGuinea, but they only begin the list of enemies against which theDepartment of Health is in constant strife. There is hookworm,a parasite that anchors itself to the lining of the intestine, andsucks the blood of its host. When the ground is polluted bythe excreta of hookworm patients, the tiny parasites attackthe bare feet of passers-by, penetrating the soft skin between thetoes. People who wear boots or shoes are rarely infected. It ishardly practicable, however, to pro vide footwear immediatelyfor thousands of Papuan people. The most practicable meansof prevention is to insist on people ha ving proper latrines, andusing them. When the soil is no longer polluted, the diseaseceases to spread. There is a substance called carbon te tra-chloride which is used in fire extinguishers and dry cleaningmachines. A veterinary surgeon in U.S.A. tried it for treatingdogs suffering from intestinal worms, with marked success.He wrote up his experience in a technical journal. His articlewas read by a doctor in the Pacific Islands (formerly ChiefMedical Officer in the Territory of Papua) who had somehundreds of hookworm cases on his hands. He tried carbontetrachloride, and it worked like a charm. Thereafter he treated10,000 cases successfully without a casualty, but after that hehad two or three deaths. It was found that under certain circum-stances, alcoholism for instance, carbon tetrachloride may bedangerous. A satisfactory substitute has now been found intetrachlorethylene. In a village where hookworm infestationis known, it is often simpler to dose the whole population of thevillage, instead of spending hours examining specimens under themicroscope to find out the infected individuals. The medicineis relatively harmless, and causes only minor discomfort.

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Another disease that can be eradicated by strict sanitationis dysentery. The infection comes from the excreta of someonewho has the disease, and the commonest way to piek up infectionis by drinking polluted water. It is a good rule for Europeansin the tropics to drink only water that has been boiled. Papuanhouseboys are sometimes careless about this, and that is why,instead of asking for a glass of water, it is better to ask for acup of tea. The water is sur e at least to have reached the boil.The schools render valuable assistance in the drive for improvedsanitation. Hygiëne is taught in the village schools, and moreeffectively still in the boarding schools (' continuation schools ')where the pupils can be trained to practise what they are taught.I was particularly interested to see that in the Junior TechnicalSchools in the course on Building Construction the boys aretaught siniple but sound designs for earth latrines and W.C.s.In other countries it might be thought that lessons on the lifecycle of the fly and the mosquito were hardly relevant to thetraining of carpenters, but in Netherlands New Guinea they arevery necessary.

Rice is a staple food throughout the whole island of NewGuinea, not so much for village people as for workers in Govern-ment or private employ, who receive it as a ration. Unpolished(' brown ') rice contains Vitamin Bt in the outer brown layer,but rice imported from overseas is usually polished (' white ')rice, deficiënt in vitamins. Beri-beri is a disease somethinp likedropsy to which people are subject whose diet is lacking inVitamin Bj. The Netherlands New Guinea Petroleum Companybegan the practice of treating imported rice by the addition ofsynthetic Vitamin Bx, and now the practice has become generalthroughout New Guinea.

Fortunately bubonic plague, cholera, and yellow fever donot occur in New Guinea, and strict quarantine regulations areenforced to keep them out. Smallpox has not been reportedfor thirty years, and vaccination is enforced in seaports wherepeople come into contact with new arrivals from overseas.Over 78,000 people were vaccinated against smallpox in 1957.Special mention should be made of the work in the field ofmaternal and child welfare. There are five een tres, at Merauke,Hollandia, Biak, Seroei, and Manokwari where Papuan girlsare trained as maternal and infant welfare nurses. The course

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lasts eighteen months, and when the girl returns to her villageshe becomes responsible for the care of mothers and babies.Even after their own marriage the girls often continue theirwork with the mothers and babies. Since 195^ UNICEF hasbeen assisting in the training and equipment of these nurses,and more recently has supplied powdered milk and cod liveroil for distribution to infants, school children, expectantmothers, and nursing mothers. The distribution is carried out bythe maternal and infant welfare nurses, assisted by the villageschool teachers.

In this chapter stress has been laid on the work being donein the field of preventive medicine, because this is so veryimportant. This must not be taken to mean that curative medicineis in any way neglected. There are twenty Government hospitalsin Netherlands New Guinea, and the new Central Hospital atHollandia is something of which the Government may very wellbe proud. It is very fully equipped, and has extensive facilitiesfor the training of medical personnel.

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5Education

THERE IS A tradition in Australia that education should be' free, secular, and compulsory,' at least in the primary stage.All the State Governments have established primary, secondary,and technical schools. If church organizations establish schoolsfor their own people, they do so at their own expense, withoutGovernment subsidy. ' State aid to denominational schools 'has often been proposed in Australia, but most members ofParliament regard it as ' political dynamite.'

When the Department of Education was established in theTerritory of Papua and New Guinea, it was Government policyto train as many teachers as possible and to establish quickly asystem of Administration schools. At present (19^9) there areover six hundred trained native teachers employed in over twohundred primary schools conducted by the Administration fornative pupils. There are approximately 27,000 pupils inattendance at these schools.

It was clear from the start that universal primary educationcould not be brought about by Administration schools alone.The Christian Missions already had some thousands of schoolsin operation, although most of the native teachers were untrained,many had no knowledge of English, and some were not literateeven in a native language. The force of circumstances made itnecessary to subsidize Mission schools. At first the subsidieswere almost unconditional, but as the Missions improved theirschool organizations, it became possible to insist on the regis-tration of schools as a condition of financial support. The maincondition of registration is the possession by the teacher, whether

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European or native, of a Trained Teacher's Certificate. Asubsidy of £400 per annum is paid for every qualified Europeanteacher, and £40 or £60, according to grade, for every qualifiednative teacher. It is quite clear, of course, that £400 per annumis much less than the salary of a European teacher, and £40 or£60 is much less than a native teacher would receive, withexactly the same qualifications, in an Administration school.However, the financial grant is a help, and it has encouragedthe Missions to train more teachers for the Teachers CertificateExaminations, and to improve the efficiency of their schools.There are still thousands of ' exempt ' Mission schools, whichdo not fulfil the conditions for a grant-in-aid, or even for freeissue of school materials. That is the educational situation in theAustralian Territory of Papua and New Guinea.

The situation in Netherlands New Guinea is quite different.Apart from two schools of special type—' MULO ' schools asthey are termed in Holland, every school in Netherlands NewGuinea is a Mission school, and every school that is approved asefficiënt is subsidized 100 per cent by the Government. Thesalaries of the teachers at the normal professional rates are paidin full. It is not correct to say that ' all Mission schools inNetherlands New Guinea are fully supported by the Govern-ment,' for there are in fact some hundreds of Mission schools,especially village schools, which do not qualify for subsidy.Every teacher in a subsidized school must be trained. TheEuropean teachers hold certificates from Training Colleges inHolland. The native Papuan teachers have been trained inMission training schools inspected and approved by the Inspectorof Schools. All subsidized schools are regularly inspected, andthe standard of efficiency is high.

It is interesting to note the reason for the difference betweenthe Dutch and Australian attitudes towards denominationalschools. For historical reasons the north of Holland is pre-dominantly Protestant, and the south Catholic. Both partiesheld strongly that the education of children should have areligious basis, and both wanted to conduct their own schools.In 1826 a law was passed recognizing the right of denominationalschools to full financial support by the Government, subjectto their being efficiently managed to the satisfaction of theGovernment. There is keen competition for employment in

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Holland, and there is hardly a job to be had without an edu-cational certificate, diploma, or degree. An Australian thinkshe has done well if he knows one foreign language. Every educatedDutchman speaks at least three modern languages other thanDutch.

With this tradition it is easy to understand the attitude ofthe Government of Netherlands New Guinea towards Missionschools. Each of the major Missions appoints a General SchoolManager, whose salary is paid by the Government. In addition,in each district in which the Mission has schools it appoints aDistrict School Manager. If the Inspector is dissatisfied withanything in the work of a school, he brings it to the attentionof the District School Manager, whose business it is to see itattended to. There are two Catholic Mission Societies. TheFranciscans (Ordo Fratrum Minorum) have a general schoolmanager at Hollandia, and district managers inland from Hol-landia, in the Vogelkop, at Fak Fak, and on the south coast,as well as in the Wissel Lakes area. The Missionaries of theSacred Heart (M.S.C.) have their headquarters at Merauke,and eight district managers throughout South New Guinea.The principal Protestant Missionary Society is the Mission of theNetherlands Reformed Church. There are two general schoolmanagers stationed at Hollandia, but the main educational centreis at Seroei. There are district school managers at Joka nearHollandia, Seroei, Biak, Manokwari, and Sorong. OtherProtestant Missions are the Molucca Protestant Church, theBaptists, and the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

A clear difference is recognized between the educationalneeds of the children in urban areas and those whose environ-ment is rural. For urban children there are schools of two types.The Primary A school is for those who speak Dutch at home,and is almost exactly like a primary school in Holland. ThePrimary B school is for children who speak Malay or some otherlanguage, not Dutch, in their homes. These children progressmore slowly in general subjects than the pupils of the Primary A,because they have to learn the Dutch language. Note that childrenare not separated on the basis of colour. Dutch, Chinese,Indonesian, Papuan, or mixed race children may attend thePrimary A school, provided they speak and understand Dutch.For those who complete the primary course there is the

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' MULO ' or Intermediate school. There are two of theseschools, both run by the Government, one at Hollandia, theother at Manokwari. There is only one Secondary School,the High School at Hollandia. The Headmaster is a FranciscanFather. Half the staff are Catholics, and half Protestants. TheSchool Board is Iikewise composed of go per cent Catholicsand ^o per cent Protestants. That is one thing of which anAustralian can say quite confidently, ' It can't happen here! '

Most Papuan children begin their education in a village school,taught by a ' guru,' or native teacher, who may be eitherPapuan or Indonesian. The lessons are all in the Malay language.That does not seem to me to be a good thing. There is much tobe said for teaching a child first in the mother-tongue which healready knows. Then if he is to learn European ways of living,hygiëne and improved agriculture, science and self-government,and all the rest, the child must certainly learn a Europeanlanguage such as English or Dutch. A child who speaks a nativelanguage at home, learns Malay at school, but knows no Europeanlanguage, is still shut out from most of the benefits of civilization.

The reason why the Missions use Malay is that in the dayswhen Indonesia was the Netherlands East Indies, Malay was theuniversal trade language, or ' lingua franca,' exactly likeMelanesian Pidgin in the Trust Territory of New Guinea.Mission teachers are trained in Malay, and now the Missionshave hundreds of teachers who do not speak Dutch. It wouldnot be easy to replace them in the schools with Dutch-speakingteachers. As the mountain areas are opened up, the Missionsseek to establish schools, and they have tried to teach themountain men to speak Malay. The mountain people wantDutch, but they do not want Malay, and the Government is inentire agreement with the mountain people. At Enarotali inthe Wissel Lakes region the Franciscan Mission is teaching inthe local language, with the intention of teaching Dutch after-wards, without Malay. At Tiom, in the Baliem Valley, aProtestant Mission is trying a most interesting experiment.Instead of opening village schools, the Mission has brought infifteen Dutch speaking Papuans under a Training Master to dotheir teacher training in the place where later they will teachschools. They will study for four years, not only class teachingand school management, but also the local vernacular language

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and the customs of the local native people. They will work outa special school curriculum to suit the needs of the district.People in the Wissel Lakes region live entirely on gardenproduce. As has already been mentioned, they need to be taughthow to grow and use a greater variety of food plants, so thattheir diet will include sufficient protein, vitamins, and minerals.All this, and hygiëne too, will have special place in the Tiomschool syllabus.

When a school is first opened in a new area, where there hasnever been a school before, the children are not started onformal learning right away. The very idea of organized activity,of assembling every day at a regular time, of school routine, issomething quite foreign to the village child. The Dutch callthese pioneer schools ' beschaving-school,' ' school of civili-zation.' They do not qualify for Government subsidy, but theyare regarded by the Government as playing a useful, indeed anessential part in the enlightenment of primitive people. Thevillage people erect the school building themselves, and theMission pro vides the ' guru,' who is not as a rule a qualifiedteacher. He has, however, had one or two years religioustraining in an Evangelist School (Protestant) or Catechist School(Catholic).

In the ' school of civilization ' the children become accustomedto order and routine, they play organized games and learn to sing.They work together in the garden under the guru's guidance,and they learn to play the flute. The flutes are made of bamboo,either by the guru or with his help. These school flute orchestrasare almost unknown on our side of the border. Indeed, I haveseen only one, at the Methodist Mission in Bougainville. Theguru is not only the village teacher, but the village pastor, whogives religious instruction in the school, and conducts religiousservices in the absence of the minister or priest. The influenceof the guru and his wife, the ' njora,' has a profound effect onthe village people. He enjoys prestige as the only educated manin the village, the only man who has seen the outside world,often the only man who possesses a few steel tools. (He mayeven lend you an axe if he can trust you to bring it back). The' njora ' sets an example to the women in the way a houseshould be kept, the rules of hygiëne observed, and babies andchildren cared for.

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The gum's task is never easy, and is sometimes discouraging.Primitive Papuans are often semi-nomadic, not from choice,but from the necessity of following the food supply. At oneseason their gardens are productive, but when the gardens areexhausted they may move to the coast to catch fish. Sometimesthe guru finds all his pupils have disappeared overnight. Again,he may find their parents have gone off, and left the children onhis hands. Feeding twenty or thirty children is a serious problem.The guru has probably cultivated the school garden—with thechildren's help—as insurance against such an emergency; butthe school garden is also affected by seasonal changes. Whenthere is no more food, the whole school may have to migrateto the coast, to fish for a living. The youngsters would probablyenjoy the change more than their teacher.

Gradually informal activities give place to regular instructionin reading, writing, and arithmetic. The Standard of attainmentand efficiency gradually improves, though the process takesyears in some circumstances. Educational levels in these villageschools vary greatly from one locality to another, and from schoolto school. Schools which reach a level of efficiency approvedby the Inspector and comply with other requirements of theregulations are eligible for a grant-in-aid, and receive the statusof village school C.' This pro vides a three-year primary course,and the pupils do not, as a rule, have an opportunity of furthereducation. Teaching in village ' C ' schools lays more stress onunderstanding of the local environment, and preparation for thegood life as it can be lived in the village, than on scholasticattainment. It is a particular aim of the Department of CulturalAffairs to raise the ' C ' schools to the higher status of village' B ' schools. These are regarded as the normal type, andal though the course is still limited to three years, it brings thepupils to a level of attainment that fits the more gifted pupilsfor further education.

The ' continuation school,' which is designed to cater for thosegifted pupils who have completed the three-year course at thevillage school ' B,' is quite different from anything we have inthe Territory of Papua and New Guinea. It is an upper primaryboarding school, with a predominantly European staff. Malay isused as the teaching medium in the lowest class, but as quicklyas possible the pupils are taught Dutch. The purpose of the school

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is to préparé the highly selected pupils for further educationand for vocational training. There are generally separate schoolsfor girls and boys, not only because it makes domestic supervisioneasier, but also because the curriculum of the girls' schoolsincludes domestic arts and other subjects of special use forpotential wives and mothers. In Papuan society there is no placefor old maids and career girls. Marriages are gene rally pre-arranged by the families concerned. One of the social changesthat alarms the older generation is the increasing tendencyamong educated girls to disregard obligations entered intowithout their consent, and to insist on choosing their own mates,as European girls do.

The continuation school offers a three-year course, and thestaff officially consists of three Dutch teachers and one Papuanqualified at a Teacher Training School. Between 19^0 and 1957the number of Dutch teachers registered by the Governmentincreased from 57 to 238. The teachers are engaged in Hollandby the Missions, but their professional qualifications must satisfyGovernment requirements. I was particularly impressed by thequality of the young women teachers from Holland. They arebrought out on three-year contracts, after which they go hometo the Netherlands on leave, and the majority do not return.They have made a contribution to the welfare of a dependentpeople, they have had an interesting experience, and they lookforward to marriage in Holland or elsewhere. All whom I sawwere highly skilied teachers with very fine personal qualities.In Seroei, for example, in the evening the school girls gatheredon the veranda and in the living room of the teachers' house forcommunity singing. Both pupils and teachers seemed to enjoythemselves immensely. I can only hope, for the teachers' sake,that it did not happen too often, but I am satisfied that theclose personal association of the Papuan girls with these sensible,well-adjusted, cultured young women will do them no end ofgood. These are Mission schools, and the atmosphere is religious ;but religious training does not involve any neglect of secularsubjects, or any unhealthy inhibition of the gaiety and exuberanceof youth. In the Catholic schools the teachers are members ofreligious orders, who have accepted this service as a life-longvocation ; but what I have said of the Protestant schools inSeroei is also true of the Catholic schools I saw in Merauke.

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There is the same high Standard of efficiency in secular subjects,and the same healthy happy tone throughout the schools. Theonly fault I could find with the continuation schools is that thereare not more of them. At present there are approximatelytwenty, with a total enrolment of about three thousand.

Boys and girls who finish the three-year course at the con-tinuation school are eligible for admission to a three-yeartraining school for village teachers. Considerable stress is laidon practice teaching, and a supernumerary member of the staffkeeps in touch with ex-trainees who have been posted to schools.This continues the in-service training of the young teachers,and keeps the training school in touch with what is actuallyhappening in the village schools.

For boys who are attracted towards skilied trades, completionof the continuation school course qualifies for admission to aJunior Technical School. Other vocational training coursesare also open, such as the Training School for IndigenousAdministrative Officers at Hollandia, the Police Training School,the Elementary School of Navigation, and the Agricultural Schoolrun in connexion with the Agricultural Research Station atKota Nica.

It is not intended to extend the system of continuationschools to cater for all children of Primary school age. In themore advanced areas Missions are encouraged to extend thethree-year course of the Village school ' B ' into the four-yearcourse of the village school ' A.' Ultimately the ' A ' typeschools will cover the full range of six years of primary education.

In speaking of my visit to Kota Radja, I referred to thefour-year Post-Primary School. There are four such schoolsin Netherlands New Guinea, and they carry Papuan pupilsup to much the same Standard as the Secondary Schools in ourown Territory at Sogeri, near Port Moresby, and Keravat,near Rabaul. The educational level corresponds to the Queens-land University Junior Public Examination, though of coursethe content of the curriculum is somewhat different. Themedium of instruction is Dutch, and English is studied as aschool subject.

The history of the Junior Technical School at Kota Radjahas already been related. There are now five of these. TheNetherlands Reformed Church has two, the one at Kota Radja

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and the other at Biak. The Sacred Heart Mission (Catholic)has a Junior Technical School at Merauke. There is a GovernmentJunior Technical School in Hollandia, and the NetherlandsNew Guinea Petroleum Company maintains another on a£o per cent Government subsidy at Sorong.

I saw three of these schools, and all three were good. Thebuildings were permanent and substantial, well lighted andventilated, and the boarding accommodation was as adequateand suitable as the workshops and classrooms. There was ampleequipment, including modern machinery. As an instance, ateach of the schools I visited there was provision for teachingboth oxy and electric welding. The oxygen is manufactured atthe shipyard at Manokwari. I watched students in the drawingoffice, at the bench, and at the lathe, and the work was quiteup to the Standard of what is being done at the Technical Schoolsin our own Territory, at Idubada, near Port Moresby, Malahang,near Lae, and Malaguna, near Rabaul. We have been proud,and not without reason, of the standard attained by nativestudents in our technical schools. The Dutch achievement withPapuan pupils has been at least as good as our own. There isonly one lingering doubt in my mind about technical educationin Netherlands New Guinea. That concerns the capacity ofindustry to absorb the skilled tra desman. For village handymentraining with hand tools would be sufficient. The boy who haslearned to use modern machinery looks for employment inindustry. As yet the opportunities are somewhat limited.

There is one type of school in Netherlands New Guineathat takes the Australian visitor by surprise, and that is theChinese school. The Chinese residents of Netherlands NewGuinea often prefer to send their children to their own unsub-sidized schools where the children are taught in Chinese, insteadof sending them to a subsidized school where the teaching isin Dutch or Malay. At Hollandia, Biak, and Merauke theChinese schools are run by Chinese societies. At Sorong,Manokwari and Fak Fak they are conducted by the FranciscanMission in collaboration with local Chinese societies. Thesituation in the Trust Territory of New Guinea is quite different.In Rabual, Lae, Madang, Wewak, and Kavieng, Chinese parentssend their children either to Administration or Mission schoolswhere the language of instruction is English. On completion

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of the primary school course most of the children proceed toAustralia for secondary education, receiving the same financialassistance from the Administration as the children of Europeanparents. Teaching of the Chinese language in schools in theTrust Territory ceased some years ago. Chinese residents areeligible to admission to Australian citizenship, and a steadilyincreasing number are applying for the privilege. It certainlyappears that Chinese people in the Trust Territory look toAustralia rather than China as their metropolitan country.In Netherlands New Guinea it would seem that they cherishtheir own culture and desire to remain a distinct and separateracial group. I know nothing of their political sympathies. Itmay be that they have no great concern with either Nationalistor Communist China ; but one could wish that their childrenwere being educated along with the otherSj European, Indo-nesian, Papuan, and mixed-race children that I saw in theMULO-school in Hollandia. There were some Chinese pupilsthere. The pity is that not all Chinese children are beingassimilated.

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6The People

THERE ARE NEARLY as many Europeans in Netherlands NewGuinea as there are in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea.In the Territory of Papua there are 7,000 Europeans, morethan half of whom live in Port Moresby. In the Trust Territoryof New Guinea there are more than 10,000. The Europeanpopulation of Netherlands New Guinea is more than 16,000.Nearly half of these live in Hollandia, which has a much largerEuropean population than Port Moresby. Only three othertowns have more than 1,800 Europeans : Biak, Manokwari,and Sorong. Practically all the Europeans in Netherlands NewGuinea are Hollanders. In the Territory of Papua and NewGuinea nearly all the Europeans are Australians, but we do havea few foreigners—about 200 Hollanders and 100 Germans.

I like Dutch people, and feel very much at home among them. .There are words in Dutch that remind me of expressions in the \dialect of Lowland Scots, and I fancy there are certain charactertraits that are common to both peoples. Of course, generali-zations about national character are often quite wrong. TheEnglish enjoy jokes about the meanness of the Scots—jokesmostly manufactured in Scotland for export. People who knowthe Scots are well aware of their generosity in cases of realneed. The tradition of Scottish thrift has come down from daysgone by when living was hard and no one could afford to beextravagant. The Dutch also have a reputation for being thrifty.A young lady from Curacao who is training in Holland as adomestic science teacher said she found Dutch housewivesmore practical, frugal, and saving than women in Curacao,

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who spend money more easily on luxury foods. She might haveadded that there are no mothers anywhere whose children arebetter nourished, and that Hollanders are good neighbours andkind hosts. They have a proverb that ' a good neighbour isbetter than a distant friend.'

There is a high Standard of living in Holland, and the Dutchhave always appreciated solid domestic comfort. Yet life in theNetherlands has always been strenuous. To begin with, there isthe never-ending struggle against the encroaching sea. Thefirst dykes were built in the seventh century, to keep back thespring tides from flooding the low levels. Through the centuries,as population grew, shallow inlets were enclosed and pumpeddry. Gradually more and more of the sea bed was reclaimed, tillsome polders were twenty feet below mean sea level. In timesof storm and high nood the dykes were sometimes broken.The last great disaster of that sort occurred on ist February,1953, when more than 1,800 people were drowned, and370,000 acres flooded. Always the Hollanders counter-attacked,building stronger sea-walls and reclaiming more of the sea bed.In this year, 19 £9, reclamation work is proceeding on a greaterscale and at a faster rate than ever before.

The sea is not only the foe, but the friend of the Hollanders.They are among the foremost seafarers of the world, and havegiven us many of our nautical terms—words like yacht, mast,boom, and shackle. They were rivals of the English for the tradeof the East, and fought them for it. In a school in Hollandia Isaw a coloured print of a seventeenth-century sea fight. WhenI looked at it closely the teacher said, ' It is the Dutch fightingthe English. I think you won.' I replied, ' I am not so sure.The Dutch fleet is the only one that ever sailed up the Thamesand bombarded London.'

The Hollanders fought many a grim battle for freedom againstforeign oppressors. Everyone should know Motley's classichistory, ' The Rise of the Dutch Republic,' which records thegallant and stubborn resistance of the Netherlands against themight of Spain. William of Orange led them. A century laterhis grandson, Prince William III of Orange who was also KingWilliam III of England led their desperate resistance against thearmies of Louis XIV of France. In modern days the Hollandershave again experienced oppression and resistance. They will not

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forget the bombing of Rotterdam, or the days of the ' under-ground ' war against the Nazis.

Resistance to tyranny bred a sympathy for other oppressedminorities, and Holland afforded a refuge to many persecutedforeigners. Everyone knows that the Pilgrim Fathers sailed in theMayjlower from Plymouth. Not everyone remembers that someof them had been living in Amsterdam since 1603, and others inLeyden since 1608. Most Hollanders take their religion quiteseriously, but at the same time are very tolerant. They arecourageous, hard-working, and enterprising, a people of soundbusiness ability, and practical good sense.

Australians are friendly, and very fair-minded (' Give hima fair go! '), but their marmers lack the polish of the ContinentalEuropeans. In social affairs they are deliberately casual. Notso the Dutch. In matters like punctuality, appropriate attire, andcorrect forms of address, they are very particular. They believein democratie government, just as we do, and they have oldage and invalid pensions, unemployment benefit and publichealth and medical services in every way comparable with ourown. I think their sense of civic responsibility is keener thanours, and their self-discipline possibly stricter. Certainly, morerespect is paid to senior officials in Netherlands New Guineathan is customary on our side of the border.

Family affections are strong among Hollanders, and this isrelated to their loyalty and love for the Queen and the RoyalFamily. I saw at Government House, Hollandia, the screeningof a colour film of the visit of Crown Princess Beatrix to theNetherlands West Indies. It was interesting to see the enthusiasmwith which she was received everywhere she went. It was no lessinteresting to see the enthusiasm of the audience watching thefilm. It is not hard to be enthusiastic about Princess Beatrix.She is not only a Crown Princess, but a very charming one too.Much the same might be said of Her Majesty the Queen, PrinceBernhard and the other three princesses. The motto of the Houseof Orange is ' je maintiendrai ' — ' I shall preserve,' and a longline of faithful rulers has upheld the liberties of Holland. Forthis the Royal House is rightly honoured ; but it is the personalqualities of the members that make them dearly loved.

The number of Asians in Netherlands New Guinea is slightlymore than the number of Europeans—17,000 as against 16,000.

50

About half of these are natives of the South Molucca Islands, andperhaps 6,000 come froni other parts of the Indonesian Archi-pelago. Almost all are Dutch subjects, and are permanentlysettled in Netherlands New Guinea. Many of them hold postsin the Public Service, and a great number are ' gurus '—teacher-pastors in Mission schools. With regard to the PublicService, it is worth while noticing that there are no differentialrates of pay for Europeans, Asians, and Papuans. An officeris paid the standard salary of the position he occupies. It istrue that as yet no Asians or Papuans are to be found occupyingthe senior posts in the Government ; but this is entirely amatter of educational attainment and professional training.There is no social discrimination on a basis of race. It is interest-ing to study the distribution of the Asian population in Nether-lands New Guinea. £,000 live in the town of Sorong and 2,000in the town of Merauke. 1,000 live in the town of Hollandia,900 in Fak Fak, and 400 in Biak. That means that rather morethan half the Asians live in urban areas. The majority of theAsians in Sorong are employees of the Netherlands New GuineaPetroleum Company.

Approximately 3,000 of the Asians in Netherlands NewGuinea are Chinese. I cannot say much about them. I watchedone or two Chinese girls playing a particularly good game oftennis, and I saw a sprinkling of Chinese pupils in the schools.I would expect that they are very like the Chinese people wehave in the Trust Territory of New Guinea. (There are hardlyany Chinese in Papua). Chinese pupils are a pleasure to teach.They are studious and attentive, courteous and co-operative.Their parents' interests are almost always commercial, so whenthe lesson is mental arithmetic, on shopping transactions andgiving change, they are quick and accurate. Even the very littleones are used to serving in the shop. There are so many Chineseshops in Rabaul that one wonders how they can all make a living.The same idea occurred to me when I saw so many Chineseshops in Hollandia. It is wonderful what varied stocks theycarry. I ran out of colour film in Merauke, and hardly expectedto buy it there ; but I saw the ' Agfa ' sign in the window of aChinese shop, and sure enough they had colour film in stock.In my experience Chinese shopkeepers are courteous andobliging. I suspect that their prices vary somewhat according

51

to the identity of the customer, but they are honest in theirdealings and fulfil their contracts. Chinese people set a highvalue on family life, and make sacrinces for their children'seducation. I have already drawn attention to one differencebetween the Chinese in our territory and those in NetherlandsNew Guinea—the fact that the Chinese in Netherlands NewGuinea maintain their own schools for the preservation ofChinese language and culture. One possible reason for thedifference is that Australia is so much closer than Holland.The Chinese in Australia are numerically few, but almost allare in prosperous businesses ; and Chinese students in Australiafind their environment congenial. I do not know whether anyChinese students go to Holland for their education. It is a longway to go, and the environment would be unfamiliar.

Europeans and Asians attract our attention because they arein the foreground of the picture, and take the lead in governmentand business. Numerically they are a small minority. There are700,000 Papuans in Netherlands New Guinea. Only half of theselive in areas that have been brought under Government control.It is estimated that there are 3^0,000 living in places which areso difficult of access that they have had little or no contact withEuropeans. We have plenty of rugged, inaccessible countryon our side of the border, but nothing quite so difficult as theCentral Berglands of Netherlands New Guinea. For instance,we do not have glaciers, but they do. Glaciers in the tropics!

The natives of Netherlands New Guinea are always referred toas ' Papuans.' We on our side term ' Papuans ' for inhabitantsof the Territory of Papua, but the native people in the TrustTerritory object very strongly to the term, and insist on beingcalled ' New Guineans.' Ethnologists distinguish Papuans fromMelanesians, and linguists distinguish Papuan languages fromMelanesian languages. Dutch scientists claim that Melanesianelements of the population are found only in places on the northand north-west coasts, and that the indigenous population isalmost entirely Papuan. The distinction between Papuan andMelanesian seems obscure. To quote from the Annual Reportof the Trust Territory of New Guinea, 19^6-7 :

' The distinction sometimes made between Papuans andMelanesian racial types lacks clarity. There is so much over-lapping between groups, and so much variation can be

52

observed within each group, that attempts at this distinctionare not profitable except in the most general way. There issome confusion, also, because these terms have been usedin linguistic studies, and groups recognized as a result oflinguistic classification do not necessarily coincide with thoserecognized as a result of physical classification.'Put simply, the facts are that the ancestors of the native people

did not all come from one source ; and there has been so muchmovement and mixing since that the original types have beenlost. Throughout the whole island there is great diversity ofphysical appearance, language, and custom.

One question people often ask is—' How many differentlanguages are there? ' The easiest answer is to say, ' Óver ioo inNetherlands New Guinea, and over p o in the Territory ofPapua and New Guinea.' But this is putting it much too simply.What the linguists count as one language has often many differentdialects. They say that if two different groups speak differently,but can understand each other, their speech is two dialectsof the same language. If they cannot understand each other,they are speaking two different languages. In practice it is noteasy to teil just how far two groups understand each other.There are different degrees of understanding.

Differences in custom are just as complicated. It is a commonnotion, both in Holland and in Australia, that all the indigenouspeople in uncontrolled areas are headhunters and cannibals.That is quite wrong. Some are, some are not ; and even amongthose that are, customs vary widely. Some cannibals eat onlybodies of victims slain in raids. Others eat only the bodies oftheir own dead relatives, as a mark of affection and respect!Modes of waging war are not the same everywhere. Some preferthe ambush, or the stealthy stalk, or the sudden dawn raid onsleeping and defenceless people. Others turn warfare into anelaborate ceremonial, with rules as definite as a game of football,and sometimes not a much greater casualty rate. In some areasthe war is won by the party that can scream the loudest and mostinsulting abuse. Throughout the whole island, the only commonfeature of native customs is their extreme diversity. A Dutchauthority says, ' There is no single positive element of culture,no character trait or special skill, no mark of race, no customor artifact, that is common to all Papuans that inhabit the land.

53

There is a confusing diversification that makes impossible anygeneralization in any field at all.' Journalists and other visitorsoften attempt to apply to the indigenes of New Guinea ternisand conceptions from Africa or elsewhere, and speak of ' chiefs,'' tribes,' and ' tribesmen.' There are no chiefs, no tribes, inthe sense they mean. Even people who have been a long time inthe country, and are familiar with coastal natives, think andspeak of ' village communities ' ; but in the interior smallgroups of people scatter in search of food, and gatherings ofthe people occur only on the occasion of an important feast.

One statement that is very generally true is that prior toEuropean contact the Papuan had few natural resources andonly the simplest of implements. Islanders and coastal folk werebetter off than swamp dwellers or mountain people. In theswamps people had to keep moving—upstream for sago andhunting, downstream for fishing. In the high country shiftingcultivation was essential. To the Europeans it seems so wastefulto grow a erop or two on one site, then abandon the ground forsome years; but the custom is based on experience of the rapidexhaustion of plant food in the soil. Agriculture to a Europeansuggests ploughing and harrowing, or as it is called, tillage.In New Guinea, especially on steep slopes, tillage causes erosionand leaching of mineral salts. The primitive method of culti-vation with a digging stick is actually the best in such circum-stances.

Life in primitive New Guinea would have been impossiblefor big groups of people. To live off the land it was necessaryto be scattered in small groups. If permanent settlement waspossible, villages could only be small. In Netherlands New Guineatoday there are not many villages with population over £00.Of 2,000 villages included in a demographic survey in I9££,more than one half had less than 100 inhabitants. That is whythere is no tribal organization as in Africa, and there are notribal chiefs. The characteristic feature of social organizationin New Guinea is the small inter-related group. Of necessitythese small groups had to enter into negotiation with others.It was sometimes necessary to barter for food, or for brides,but such transactions usually had a background of suspicionand even hostility. The people you traded with now might raidyou later on,

54

In small inter-related groups of people family relationshipsare of great importance. In European society kinship obligationsare greatly weakened, but in primitive Papuan society the claimsof blood relations are imperative, and last as long as life itself.A Papuan once explained to me why he must remain in thevillage, and help build a house for his father-in-law, and plantsome coconuts and make a garden. ' You Europeans have oldage pensions and life insurance.' (He was quite well educated).' If we fulfil our obligations to our relatives, they will look afterus when we are old, or look after our children if they areorphaned.' He implied, though he did not say, that if he failedto do his duty, his relatives would consider themselves freefrom theirs. There was no mention of affection or unselfishness.It was quite a business arrangement.

That leads to the fundamental principle of morals in nativesociety—the principle of ' pay-back.' When a primitive Papuanmeets a stranger, he is suspicious and watchful. He waits forthe stranger to do something, either good or bad. If the strangermakes friendly advances, and offers a gift, the acceptance of thepresent creates an obligation, which must be paid back. If thestranger inflicts an injury, the obligation to ' pay back ' is justas deflnite. An anthropologist I know once said, ' It is true thatthe reciprocal code of morals is inferior to the Christian code,but it is practised much more consistently.' It is well forEuropeans coming in contact with primitive people to rememberthe principle of ' pay-back.'

In small kinship groups, without rank or class, there is littleneed for formal authority or the sanctions of justice. Theforce of public opinion is sufficient when there is only the onesmall group to belong to, and the rest of the world is hostileand strange. A potent force in the life of primitive Papuans was—and still is—sorcery. Illness and death are not ascribed to' natural causes,' but to black magie. The only counter to themalign influence of evil spells is the more powerful magie ofanother sorcerer. Shrewd individuals exploit the universal beliefin sorcery to attain prestige and power. If the Papuan is to sharein the benefits of our science and technology, we must impartto him our belief in the invariable succession of cause and effect.That is not easy. Even educated native Christians are sometimeshaunted by superstitious fears.

55

The desire for material wealth such as Europeans enjoygives rise, among people who believe in magie and witchcraft,to what is called ' cargo cult.' Some would-be prophet announcesthat the ancestors of the group are about to send a consignmentof ' cargo ' to their descendants. There is usually a notion thatall the good things of life come from the blessed hereafter,and are despatched by the ancestors for their own people, butare intercepted by the cunning and unscrupulous white men.Certain conditions have to be fulfilled to ensure the arrival ofthe cargo. Sometimes an attempt has been made to clear anairstrip. Quite often there are religious observances. Occasion-ally in a frenzy of excitement houses have been burnt andgardens destroyed as proof of faith in the promise of theancestors. When the deluded people find themselves starving,in desperation they turn to deeds of violence. The ultimate curefor cargo cult is education. In the Territory of Papua and NewGuinea it has been found helpful to take selected native peopleon tours of Australia to see the process of manufacture of thearticles they covet. The lesson has to be driven home that thereis no magie in manufacture. It depends on capital equipmentplus ' know-how ' plus work. What you can't make yourselfyou can buy, but you must produce something that the otherfellow wants, and will pay money for. If you want a motor-truck, plant cacao or coconuts. It cannot be stressed too stronglythat native economie development is an urgent necessity. Thepeople must be self-supporting before they can be politicallyindependent. One suspicion that lingers is that the white manknows magie spells which he keeps to himself, as the sorcererwould do. Thus when an agriculture extension officer introducesa new erop, the people want to know ' the magie of it.' Whenhe says there are no spells or incantations, just care and culti-vation, they suspect he is keeping something back. Even thedesire to learn English or Dutch is sometimes based on the ideaof the magical efficacy of words.

All that has been said in this chapter about the indigenouspopulation applies to the whole island of New Guinea. TheI4ist meridian marks no difference among the people. Indeedwhat I have written has been from my own knowledge of thePapuans and New Guineans in our own territory, but I havehad the Dutch reports open beside me, comparing point by

56

point as I set it down. The experience of their field officersand research workers tallies exactly with that of our own.

Before closing this chapter there is one more importantpoint to be stressed. There is no INHERENT inferioritj, eitherphysical or mental, in the native population. The people arephysically inferior to Europeans because of malnutrition anddisease. Students sent to Holland or Australia increase in heightand weight at the same rate as normal European schoolboys.The expectation of life under primitive conditions is thirty-fiveyears; but the same people, given the hygienic conditions andmedical care that we enjoy, have exactly the same expectationof life as Europeans. The mental handicap of the Papuan isentirely due to his limited opportunities. Within the limits ofhis culture he often shows intelligence and ingenuity, fore-thought and skill. Start him at school at the same age as our ownchildren, and give him comparable opportunities, and he willgo a long way. Some Europeans will teil you that native peopleare lazy, shiftless, irresponsible, and dirty. Our own childrenwould grow up the same way if we did not give them strongmotives to be otherwise. People who are industrious andenterprising have cultivated those qualities because they findit pays. The irresponsible youth learns to discipline himselfthrough having responsibility thrust upon him. Papuan boysand girls who have lived at boarding school are reluctant toreturn to the village because thev are as conscious of the stenchand filth as we should be. If they remain in the village, they willinsist on a clean-up. There is nothing in the emotional orconative dispositions of Papuans that is in any way differentfrom the rest of humanity. When your relations with them areon terms of friendship and mutual respect, you will find themvery nice people indeed.

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7The Road to Self-Government

THE TERRITORY OF New Guinea is a ' Trust Territory ' adminis-tered by Australia on behalf of the United Nations, to the GeneralAssembly of which an Annual Report is rendered by the Admin-istering Power. The Territory of Papua is an Australian pos-session ; and Netherlands New Guinea is a possession of theNetherlands Crown ; but Australia and Holland have voluntarilyundertaken to furnish Annual Reports to the United Nationson these ' non-self-governing territories ' ; and both are pledgedto promote the ' economie, social, and political advancement 'of the indigenous inhabitants. The Dutch and Australian inter-pretations of these pledges are exactly the same, and the termswe use have exact equivalents in Dutch. Independence =Onafhankelijkheid ; The Right of self-determination =Zelfbeschikkingsrecht ; Self-government = Zelfbestuur. Inthinking of the future of their respective territories bothAustralians and Netherlanders look forward to ' Self-govern-ment ' rather than ' Independence.' Australians hope that whenNew Guineans and Papuans govern themselves, they will stillbe bound by ties of affection and mutual interest to Australia,just as Australia is to Britain. The Dutch are quite sincere intheir purpose of Papuan autonomy ; but they hope that homesin New Guinea will still be lighted with Philips' lamps, andNew Guinea cacao will still go to Holland to be made intoVan Houten's Cocoa, and that members of the Royal Familywill still be welcome visitors to New Guinea, There are peopleof other nationalities that do not see it that way. In their languagesthere are no distinct terms for ' independence ' and ' self-

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government,' and they do not understand the relations betweenElizabeth the Second, Queen of Australia, and her Australianpeople.

So it happens that well-meaning people on the TrusteeshipCouncil of the United Nations from time to time ask theAustralian Government to name a target date for the inde-pendence of New Guinea. The Australian representative alwaysreplies that it is not yet possible to forecast the date by whichNew Guinea will attain self-government. He generally adds afew remarks that mean that we are on the road, and our pace isaccelerating. This is quite true, not only for the Trust Territory,but also for the Territory of Papua, and for Netherlands NewGuinea as well. It was after one of the periodically recurringquestions that the Paafic Islands Monthly published a strikingcartoon. In the background native houses were blazing, andin the middle distance corpses were lying about. In the fore-ground a naked warrior was hacking the head from the bodyof his victim. An Australian Patrol Officer was starting forwardwith hand upraised to apprehend the slayer. A character dressedlike an American tourist was entering from the wings, andcalling—' Say, guy! When are ya going to give him independ-ence? '

In one way that cartoon gave a wrong impression. We arereally much further along the road to self-government thanthat. It was unfair, too, to my native fellow-members of theLegislative Council of Papua and New Guinea, and my nativefellow-officers of the Public Service of the Territory, who areat least as civilized as I am. It did emphasize two facts—that theroad to self-government is long and difficult, and that the firststep on the road is pacification. On the Australian side the firstcontact is always made by a ' penetration patrol '—one or twoexperienced Administration field officers with a party of theRoyal Papuan and New Guinea Constabulary and native carriers,interpreters, and guides. Missionaries are not allowed to comein tilï a police post has been set up and some control established.The Dutch allow rather more latitude to missionaries, whosometimes enter uncontrolled territory before the Governmentpatrols. It is still true that the first step to self-government mustbe the establishment of law and order, of which the policepost is the outward and visible sign.

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Soon after there are murders, as a matter of course, orperhaps they should rather be called killings, since the offendershave no conception of crime. The killers are arrested, tried,and sentenced to a term of imprisonment; but this is no hard-ship. They are better fed and quartered than ever before in theirlives, and the experience is most enlightening. They return tothe village or the mountain with the prestige and the broadenedoutlook we ascribe to the holder of a Fulbright Scholarship.

Clearing airstrips and building roads mark a further stage.Usually the native people work willingly on these tasks, quiteunderstanding that advantages will follow, even if they are notprecisely sure of their nature. The road is more significant thanthe airstrip, for pedestrians can move by road of their own freewill, and for the first time travel beyond the limits of theirnative valley. They can even cross the territory of their hereditaryenemies unmolested, so long as they keep to the road. Nextcomes recruitment for labour on a plantation or in a town.This is indeed a great adventure, beginning with a fiight in anaircraft, and folio wed by other novel and exciting experiences.To be sure, a man is expected to work, but the food is good andplentiful, and when the term of engagement is over, for the firsttime in his life the native labourer is in possession of hard cash.It is from relatively backward areas, where the people havenot learned to grow cash crops, that native labour is most easilyrecruited.

The reader may say—' But what has all this to do with self-government? ' A great deal, because it would be useless tointroducé the fornis of even local self-government until the basicconceptions of law and order, organization and discipline havebeen learnt, and until the individual can think of himself asbelonging to a bigger community than the small kinship group.Native pastors and teachers are probably the first to think ofthemselves, not as members of one clan or inhabitants of onedistrict, but as people of a country called New Guinea. Thisis because they are assembled at a training school from widelyscattered sources. They make friendships with other teachersor pastors from other parts of the territory; and they are seldomposted among their very own people.

Training in the orderly conduct of public meetings comesabout in various wa\s. The Papuan is not always a stranger to

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public discussion of important business. Indeed, a loud mouthand a glib tongue are just as useful among primitive people asthey are in more august assemblies. There are two ideas, how-ever, which are quite new—the idea of election of officers orrepresentatives, and the idea of counting votes, and acceptingthe decision of the majority. I have been present at nativemeetings conducted on the old lines, and I have never yet beenable to determine how a decision was reached. The people talkand talk interminably, then suddenly it seems as if everyone hadsimultaneously reached the same conclusion. Still it is necessaryfor the Papuan to learn our way of conducting public business,and quite often he learns it first in church meetings for theelection of native office-bearers, or in a native co-operativesociety. Training in responsibility comes through service in thepolice, or in other branches of Government. On the Australianside we have not yet appointed indigenous Patrol Officers, butthe Dutch have gone further. In 1957 they were able to report :' Of the 6 5 districts, 2^ are now administered by Papuandistrict heads, who have administrative powers in respect ofall inhabitants of their district, irrespective of race.'

It is now regular practice in both Australian and Dutchadministration to have native representatives and consultants oncommittees and councils of an advisory or deliberative nature.At first they sit in as observers, and even when conceded theright to take part in debate, they are naturally a little reluctantto do so. When I am chairman of such a meeting, I make a pointof inviting Mr. Goava or Mr. Bwaruada to express his opinion,or to teil us the attitude of his people to the proposal underdiscussion. There is a danger in the early stages that nominatedrepresentatives will be ' tame ' natives, who will say what theEuropean would be pleased to hear. Wise selection and wisehandling by the chairman will ensure that the native represent-ative is not afraid to teil us the facts, however unpalatable.Here the reader may note that I am speaking from personalexperience in the Australian territory, when I am supposed to begiving an account of Netherlands New Guinea, but comparingnotes with Dutch officials has made it quite clear that ourexperiences in such matters are exactly paralleled by theirexperiences on the other side of the border.

In the Territory of Papua and New Guinea we now have Native

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Local Government Councils, with power to legislate on purelylocal matters, to levy a local tax, and to spend the revenue onpublic works. In Netherlands New Guinea a number of advisorycouncils have been set up at local and regional level, and theseare expected to develop into locally autonomous legislativebodies with their own fmancial resources. In 19^7 such councilshad been established in Hollandia, Manokwari, Sorong-Doom,The Schouten Islands, and Japen. A special function entrustedto these councils is deliberation on the formation of an inde-pendent legislative body for their area, and to that end thesubmission of proposals regarding the council—its composition,the method of electing the members, the tasks to be allotted toit, and the way in which the costs can be met from local resources.The Advisory Councils in Manokwari and Hollandia both gavethe same advice—that a local representative council should beset up with both Papuan and European members, the majoritybeing elected, but a few places being left to be filled by appoint-ment.

The Advisory Council for the Schouten Islands gave somewbatdifferent advice. It is suggested that the entire subdivision of theSchouten Islands should be organized in sixteen village com-munities, each administered by an elected council, consistingof five to nine members, according to the number of peoplein the village. Over these village councils should be set up aregional council of elected members, with power to appointthe chairman of the village councils, and to supervise theirfinances. As there did not seem to be sufficient interest in thevillages to make the village councils effective, it was decidedto set up the Regional Council first, and to delegate functionsand powers to the village councils when they showed themselvesready for it.

At a press conference at the Hague in January, 19^9, theGovernor of Netherlands New Guinea and the Minister forOverseas Affairs jointly announced that elections would shortlybe held in the Schouten Islands among the indigenous populationfor a representative Regional Council of twenty members.All adults would be eligible to vote. When the Regional Councilbegins to function, Papuans from other parts of NetherlandsNew Guinea will be sent to Biak to study the working of thecouncil, with a view to setting up the same kind of legislative

62

and executive body in their own districts. It is worth mentioningthat in 19^7 a number of Papuan members of Local AdvisoryCouncils were sent to Australian New Guinea to study theworking of the Native Local Government Councils there.

The road to self-government is long and difficult, but in themore advanced districts of Netherlands New Guinea the Papuanpeople have travelled quite an appreciable distance along theroad. There are still more rivers to cross. In the beginning aNative Local Government Council is very properly concernedwith matters that concern native people only; but in the naturalcourse of things the scope of the Council's functions must bewidened to include all matters of local interest, some of whichwill involve Europeans. Will Europeans submit to the authorityof a Council consisting mainly, if not exclusively, of Papuans,and elected by an overwhelming majority of Papuans? Givethem time to get used to the idea, and they certainly will. Iremember when native policemen were first used for trafficduty in Port Moresby. There were some Europeans who werereluctant to obey a traffic signal given by a policeman with abrown complexion. No one thinks of that now. Indeed, whenthe traffic is heavy, the service of traffic control is greatlyappreciated.

In the Territory of Papua and New Guinea we have a Legis-lative Council, in which there are three native M.L.C.'s, allappointed by the Administrator. There is no doubt that in duecourse the number of native representatives will be increased,and that they will be elected, not appointed. In NetherlandsNew Guinea there is as yet no Legislative Council, but there isalready provision in the fundamental law (Decree for theRegulation of the Administration of New Guinea) for thecreation of a New Guinea Council. It would appear that thesoundest way to introducé the forms of representative govern-ment among the Papuan people is to work from local governmentup to regional government, rather than from the top down.

It is not my intention to discuss at length the pros and consof the Indonesian claim to sovereignty over West Irian, as theIndonesians call Netherlands New Guinea; but it is likely thatsome at least of the readers of this book have bought it becausethey have heard so much of the question, and want to knowsomething about the disputed territory. It is quite fair for such

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a reader, having patiently followed my account so far, to askbluntly, ' What do you think yourself about the Indonesianclaim? ' Among many uncertainties this much is certain. TheAustralian people are pledged to support the principle of self-determination. We believe it is wrong to dispose of any groupof people, however weak and defenceless, without their consent.That goes for the Papuans too. The question of the futuresovereignty of New Guinea should be decided by the native peoplethemselves, and by nobody else. If someone says that they areas yet incapable of making such a decision, the answer is thatthey are already travelling on the road to self-government, andthe pace is accelerating.

The persistent reader may ask, ' If the decision is left to thePapuan people, how do you think they will choose? ' Now Icertainly had no chance to conduct a Gallup poll, and it wouldnot do to quote a Dutch opinion, as being from an interestedparty. I have, however, a little independent evidence. The twojunior colleagues who accompanied me to Netherlands NewGuinea, being themselves autochthonous, made closer contactwith the gurus than I could hope to do. I had counselled them tosay nothing about Indonesia, but to listen and take notice.They heard little or no reference to Indonesia, but they did hearopinions freely expressed in favour of : first, closer acquaintancebetween the native people in Dutch and Australian territory;second, an opportunity for natives of Netherlands New Guineato learn English; and third, ultimate political union of the peopleof the whole island.

I have tried to teil something of the sound and workmanlikejob the Dutch are doing in Netherlands New Guinea, andincidentally I have mentioned something of what we Australiansare doing in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. Do youremember the prophecy of George Essex Evans concerningQueensland? I have seen that prophecy fulfilled in my lifetime.Is it too much to hope that it may prove true of New Guinea, too ?

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' We are hut the hands of the Builder, who toileth and framethafar;

System, and order, and sequence; sun, and planet, and star—Faint sparks of a mighty Genius, a breath of the Oversoul,Who shapes the thought of the workers wherever his worlds may

roll.On, though we grope and blunder, the trend of out aim is true.On, there is death in dalliance, while jet there is work to do;Till the land that lies like a giant asleep shall wake to the

vict'ry won,And the eyes of the Master Worker shall see that the work is done.'

Q

The Nation Builders. This year (19^9) is Queensland's CentenaryYear.

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INDEX

AIRSTRIPS, Construction, 60Asians, 50

BALIEM VALLEY, 23, 41Baptists, 40Beatrix, Crown Princess, 50Berglands, Central, 7Beri-Beri, 36Biak, 16, 36, 40, 51' Bird's Head,' see Vogelkop

CANOES, 27Cargo Cult, 56Carstenz Peaks, 3Cattle, 7, 23Chinese, 26, 46, 51, 52Christian and Missionary Alliance,

22, 23, 40Cilento, Sir Raphael, 31Concrete Building Blocks, 11, 17Continuation Schools, 27, 36, 43, 44Cultivation, Shifting, 54Customs, Native, 53Cyclops Mts., 6, 10

DENOMINATIONAL SCHOOLS (See Mis-sions, Christian, and Education)

Dutch (Language), 40, 41, 45, 56Dutch (People, Government), 8, 9,

48, 49, 50Dysentery, 36

EARTHQUAKES, 2' Eendracht,' 17Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, 59Enarotali, 41European Population, 48Exports, 8

FAK FAK, 21, 34, 51Franciscan Mission (Catholic), 25,

40,41Framboesia, see YawsFrederik Hendrik Island, 8

GEELVINK (' Goldfinch') Bay, 34Girls' Schools, 44' Guru' (Native Teacher), 41, 42, 51,

64

HIGH SCHOOL AT HOLLANDIA, 40Hollandia, 10, 37, 40, 51, 62Hollandia-Binnen, 11Hookworm (Ankylostomiasis), 35Housing Settlements for Native

Workers, 11, 17, 18

INDEPENDENCE, 58Indonesia, Indonesians, 24, 50, 63, 64Inferiority, Supposed, of Native

People, 57Inspector of Schools, 43

JAPANESE, 18, 24Japen Island, 26, 33Juliana, Mt., 3Juliana, Queen of the Netherlands, 50

KARIUS AND CHAMPION (Explorers),24

K.L.M. (Royal Dutch Airways Co.),16

Kota Nica (Agricultural ResearchStation), 11, 12, 45

Kota Radja (Technical School), 13Kroonduif (N.N.G. Airways Co.), 16,

28Kwashiorkor, 30

LANGUAGES, 53Legislative Council (T.P.N.G.), 59,

63Leprosy (Hansen's Disease), 34Local Government Councils, 61

MALARIA, 32Malay (Language), 40Malcokn, Sheila, Miss, 30Malnutrition, 29Manokwari, 15, 20, 36, 40, 46, 62Maternal and Child Welfare, 37Meervlakte, 7Melanesians, 52Merauke, 15, 22, 36, 44, 51Meridian, 141° E., 2, 22Missions, Christian and Education, 38Molucca Protestant Church, 40Morals, Native, 55' MULO ' Schools, 39, 41, 47

67

Index

NETHERLANDS REFORMED CHURCH,13,27

Northern Watershed, 16Nutmegs, 21

ORANGE, HOUSE OF, 49, 50

PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY, 59Pacific Islands Regiment, 2, 10Papuan People, 52-57' Pay-back ' Principle, 55Petroleum (N.N.G. Petroleum Co.),

6, 21, 51Population, 48Post-Primary Schools, 15, 45Preventive Medicine, 32Plimary Schools, 40Protein Deficiency, 13, 25, 30Public Service (N.N.G.), 51

QANTAS EMPIRE AIRWAYS, 10

RADIO OMROEP NIEUW GUINEA(Biak), 18

Recruitment of Native Labour, 60Revenue, 6Rice, 36Roads, 60Royal Family, 50, 58

SACRED HEART (CATHOLIC) MISSION,25, 39

Sawmüling, 20Schouten Islands, 16, 17

Self-determination, 58, 64Self-Government, 58 et seqSentani, Lake and Airstrip, 10, 32Seroei, 25, 34, 36, 40, 44Shipyard, 20Smallpox, 36Sorcery, 55Sorong, 15, 20, 34, 40, 51Star Mountains, 24, Expedition, 4

TAMI RIVER, 2Tanah Merah, 4Teacher Training, 45Technical Schools, 13, 21, 25, 36, 45,

46Tiom, 41Trans-Fly, 23Triton Bay, 22Trusteeship Council, 59Tuberculosis (' T.B.'), 34

UNICEF (United Nations Children'sEmergency Fund), 32, 33, 37

VOGELKOP, 1, 7, 20Vitamins, 36

WAIGEO ISLAND, 6W.H.O. (World Health Organization),

33Wilhelmina Mt., 3Wissel Lakes, 30, 40

YAWS, 30, 33

68