NATIVES OF NEW GUINEA.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19149, 4 November 1927, Page 11

NATIVES OF NEW GUINEA.

REPORT AT CANBERRA

(hi cable—press associatiok—copyright.) (australian and k.z. cable association.)

CANBERRA, November 3. The report of a conference of representatives of all the Missions at Rabaul and the Commissioner of Native Affairs and the Commonwealth Institute of Tropical Diseases which enquired into all phases of native life, was presented by Mr' Marr in"1)18 House. It contains extraordinary disclosures of revolting depravity, and disease among the natives. The report states that these practices are universal in tho Territory, the worst offenders being generally the best workers. Planters refuse to report them as they do not desire to lose their best hands. The practices are not confined to the plantations, but also are to be found on the Mission grounds themselves. The report recommends that fjffenders instead of as at present being imprisoned, should be flogged, and emphasises the disproportion between the sexes in the population figures. The report also states that in Rabaul there are only three resident native women to every 100 men and every native woman suffers from venereal disease with the result that the men carry it back to the villages. Bigamy and polygamy also exist in districts long under effective controls More than half the first born habies died at birth because the mothers were too young or worked too hard. The high infant'mortality was due also to wholesale infanticide.

The report also recommends strict limitation • of native secret societies, which in most oases led to awful indecencies. They could not he violently suppressed, but could be confined within reasonable limits.

The report recommends Government recognition of the native chiefs and councils and that certain officials be nominated by the natives and that a. Commission consisting of these and representatives of the Missions and the Government should-fix penalties and deal with other matters in connexion with the secret societies, which in many cases were used by the natives for extortion by blackmail, organised filth, and insubordination.