THE NEW GUINEA TRIBES.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), 16 February 1883, Page 3

THE NEW GUINEA TRIBES.

Mr Holies aud others avlio have spent as many as five and nix years in New Guinea, assert (says the Cooktown Herald) that it is only on the coast, among the semi-civilised natives, that antagonism and treachery have to be guarded against, in the interior the natives are mild and friendly, and so far from being averse to taking service in Queensland, there have been cases where as many as twenty young men, from a village of about 200 inhabitants, have not only volunteered to accompany the Avhites, but have folloAved them for miles towards the coast, and at the final parting have exhibited every symptom of real grief at being unable to see and serve in the land of their Avhite brothers. This corresponds Avith the reports of BataA'ian missionaries avlio have taken servants and laborers into the Dutch settlements, and found them strong and active, but always afflicted Avith the national kleptomania. Our informants describe tbe natives (about sixty miles from the coast) as quite a distinct race from hybrid Malays, among Avhom the missionaries say they are so successfully sowing the seeds of Christianity. It is not a flattering- coininentaiy on our Christianising system of eiA-ilisation to bo assured by practical explorers, that the further they penetrate beyond the influence of the missions the more secure do they feel. It maybe that there arc unscrupulous fishermen and traders on the coast, Asdio, by their brutal acts, provoke revenge, and that the native mind, accustomed to identify a whole tribe with the crime of an individual member of it, make the Avhole Avhite race responsible for the acts of some unprincipled scoundrel, but the missionaries on their part are just as undiscriminatiiig- and inconsistent Avhen they oppose and denounce European fishermen and their engagement with Papuan helps, Avhile they themselves oniploy hordes of the natives in fishing along the coast for the benefit of the missions. It is inconsistent to be jealous of trade, because that must induce civilisation and law. and it should be a principle of Christianity to encourage

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