Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1888-03-30
NEW GUINR4,S FUTURE.

II Mast BE Governed For and By the
NGtfUes
The future of New Guinea largely
depends on the native question. As Sir
Peter Scratchley says in his notes;
"The only hope of making New Guinea
pay is by the employment of natives,
who CAM by patience and care, be
trained. If they disappear, others will
have to be imported. Putting, there
fore, the protection of the natives on
the lowest ground, it will be seen that
it viii be cheaper to preserve and ed
ucate them. New Guiena must be gov
erned for the natives and by the na-
ives" In this respect, the duty Of a
humane government and the interests
Of capitalists coincide; for if the natives
are corrupted or made hostile, the
Island viii become the happy hunting
ground of INSCRIPTIONS adventurous,
while, if they learn to repOse confidence
in their rulers, settlement Will be pos
sible. European capital may with adj
vantage be introduced and New Guinea
viii become the permanent and regular
source of supply Of tropical products to
the Australian markets.
This, then. is why Sir Peter devoted
himself so persistently to win the good
will of the native and to establish some
sort of political organization among
them. He found, in several instances,
two or three rival chiefs in a single
village, and he endeavored to render
the people more capable of self-govern-
ment by appointing a tribal chief in
each district, who should not only be
trustee for the lands and responsible
for the conduct of the inhabitants Of
his district, but should also be vested
with some government authority. The
scheme which he proposed, and which
it is to be hoped his successor viii COM
plete, was "a modified form of the Java
system, making the government elected
chief the recipient of a fixed annual
payment, and responsible for the safety
of foreigners as well as for the main
tenance Of law and order within his
district"
Then, by means of the official chiefs
and native teachers, he proposed to in
trOduce the cultivation Of rice and
maize, so as to give the people an in
ducement to labor and to systematic
cultivation.
The IabOrs of the London Missionary
Society have certainly prepared the way
for such a scheme as that we have IN
Dictated. They have some forty stations
where native teachers are employed.
and at their headquarters they instruct
native students in the industrial arts.
At Murray Island, for instance,
students have built a schooner for mis-
sion purposes, under the direction Of
an English boat builder. The efforts
of the missionaries and their native as
sistants have opened up communication
along most of the coast line of our new
territory, and also far into the interior,
so much so that confidence in white men
is beginning to be established, and a
European can now go alone and un-
armed for fifty miles inland from any
point between Port Moresby and Hela
IN perfect safety. That is a stretch of
about 100 miles along the sea-board,
which does not seem much in the vast
area Of our new possession; but it Is
something gained, and Is more than can
be said of any section of Dutch or Ger
man New Guinea. The Roman Catholic
missionaries have been endeavoring ia
establish themselves in places where
the London Missionary Societies have
been for years, and Sir Peter Scratch
icy regarded these efforts as extremely
unwise from a political point of view,
since confusion Of creeds is productive
Of disturbance among primitive races
He persuaded some of the Catholics to
leave and to turn their attention to dis
tricts where there are no other mission
aries.