COLOURED LABOUR.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1013, 31 December 1910, Page 3

COLOURED LABOUR.

THE'PROBLEM IN PAPUA. The Rey., Price Jones is among those who do not consider that New Guinea, so far as its labour is concerned,' is ready for tho application of tho Whito Australia policy. He has been many years engaged in missionary work in that territory, and has had a splendid opportunity of. gauging its labour prob- , lem,. having watched its, from the days prior , to plantation activity. . _ Mr. Jones arrived in Sydney by the London Missionary Society's . yacht John Williams.' last week, on a few weeks' furlough. "It is the general opinion, I think, .among'tho ' fairest-minded ireii," lie : 'to a '[Herald" representative, that aew. Guinea- can never be worked by its own native labour, and planters will largely wait .upon a cliango of sentiment on the part of tho Commonwealth Government with regard. to its .colour-line prohibition. If . tho whole 'of tho able-bodied men' were placed upon plantations, it would denudo tho native villages or their population. .There is not sufficient population to supply, the' plantation with native labour. "Native labour, again, is not of the quality that _ plantation men like, because there is a t-ende'ney oil tho part of those natives who have served a period to show a disinclination to.serve a second'time. In my opinion it will becomo a serious matter, unless there ; is a in favour of the introduction or outside coloured labour. . "Labour will have to be cheap,' and it would appear that. fo'r many years plantations;cannot be worked by white men. _It is quito a mistako to think there is ample native labour." Mr. Jones added, that- plantations were being worked as well as possible, but there would necessarily -be- a stay to their devlopment.. .As .a matter of fact, planters' were not, in his opinion, working all their land. Young plantations could not. stand the * expense of r white labour.

"Of course,; we have suffered from a poom. A large number of people came over looking for employment,, and'found none. The . new goldfield proved not to be as prosperous as was hoped; not because tho gold was not there, but sickness broke'out, dysentery and—though the doctors were divided—beriberi. Thus it was the field had to. be closed against ■ native labour,, and recruiting was brought in. As a consequence o"f the sickness, the natives took fright, and do not-desire, to work in the mines. It is only experienced men who can deal with and old hands, who are. able, to work of this sort." Speaking as a missionary, Mr. Jones doubts the wisdom of utilising the natives of. the great river delta of the west at the present time, because there is no one to interpret for them, and tho natives are unacquainted witli white men and their conditions of labour. "It.is" orpelty, to my mind, to take these natives away from' their, villagos and expect them to work steadily for 12 months. I fully recognise, howovcr; tho advantage a native derives by going away for a short period and acquiring an idea of work, but it is hard to- expect him to start, knock off, and restart, by bell six days a week without bcingl properly disciplined to it. And tho result has not proved altogether satisfactory. Somo natives were brought from Goaribari, and. taken , to Port Moresby. They wero fairly treated—the Government is very'careful of its'treatment of natives—but they wero absolutely not amenable to discipline. It is said that one .man,- whe was showing a native how to do so©e i work, pushed him, with a view to urging him. Tho : nativo picked up a stone and struck tho man-

"Oh, yes, tho Government is, very considerate'to tho natives. There were no complaints from them when I left." At tho same time, Mr. Jones, speak-ing-as a missionary, and regarding the question from a sociological point, considers that it is futile t-o expect natives who aro practically living in a stone age to ' see eye to eye with the -whito man, with , his; thousands of years of inherited industry.