British New Guinea

“ British New Guinea is to most people the least-known part of our empire; but there are few valleys in its dark interior in which the prospector has not "chipped" some quartz formation, or "panned" some sand from the river's bed. The British flag was first planted in Eastern New Guinea by Captain, now Admiral, John Moresby, of H.M.S. Basilisk, in 1872. This officer, whilst employed in superintending the pearl shell fisheries in Torres Straits, learnt that adventurers, both American and French, were contemplating expeditions and occupation of the then unknown shores of Eastern New Guinea. ”

“ They cook the food, which they carry to the communal house; they also do all the work required in cultivating the gardens of yams, bananas, and vegetables. War, hunting, and fishing are the only pursuits of the men.
Three nations, Holland, Great Britain, and Germany, have divided New Guinea among them. The Dutch have the eastern half of the island. The British and Germans possess each about one-quarter, British New Guinea being situated opposite to Queensland, Australia. The British own the Solomon Islands to the eastward of New Guinea, also. ”

“ When we pass from Australia to New Guinea we find that, though the natives stand at a far higher level of culture than the Australian aborigines, the constitution of society among them is still essentially democratic or oligarchic, and chieftainship exists only in embryo. Thus Sir William MacGregor tells us that in British New Guinea no one has ever arisen wise enough, bold enough, and strong enough to become the despot even of a single district. “The nearest approach to this has been the very distant one of some person becoming a renowned wizard ”

“ In April of this year (1886) , the British and German Governments came to an arrangement by which the northern side of New Guinea together with New Britain, New Ireland, and the adjacent western half of the Solomon Group passed under the protection, or in other words into the practical possession, of Germany; whilst Great Britain by this arrangement was to consider the remaining islands of the Western Pacific and the south coast of New Guinea as her sphere of action. It is only in New Guinea that Great Britain has exercised her right. ”

“ On the South coast, in British New Guinea besides the Purari, Kikor and Turama Rivers, the most important is the Fly River, which has been explored by boat for a distance of more than five hundred miles. In Southern Dutch New Guinea there are almost countless rivers: chief among them are the Digoel, which has been explored for more than four hundred miles; the Island River, by which a Dutch expedition has recently reached the central watershed of New Guinea; the Noord River by which Mr. H. Lorentz approached Mount Wilhelmina; the Utakwa and the Utanata. ”

“ Proposal of a British Protectorate.—To such an emphatic expression of the wishes of the Australian Colonists, Lord Derby could not be indifferent. In May of the following year his lordship addressed a despatch to the Governor of Queensland, intimating that the Imperial authorities were inclined to sanction the appointment of a High Commissioner for New Guinea, provided that the Australian Colonies would agree to pay a subsidy of £15,000 per annum towards the expense of a protectorate. ”

“ British New Guinea or the Territory of Papua consists of the southeastern portion of the island, with an area of 90,540 square miles and a population of 350,000 natives. The Australian commonwealth took control in 1901. The Dutch have done little for their territory; but the Germans are developing theirs through a company, though the imperial government administers public affairs; and the Australians have reduced many districts of the Territory of Papua to order and made tribes in large areas settle down to industry. ”

“ Attempts at Australian Settlement.—The Australian colonists have not been wholly indifferent to the probable advantages to be gained from effecting a settlement in New Guinea. During the past twenty years several expeditions have been either planned or partially executed with that object, and the Imperial Government has been again and again asked to take action for the establishment of a British occupation of the territory. ”

“ NEW GUINEA The intelligent observer of New Guinea cannot fail to recognise that the country presents a vast unopened field for the development of British trade. Many sources of wealth are as yet absolutely untouched, but experiments that have recently been made in coffee, tobacco, cocoa, and rubber, yield the richest promise. The geographical configuration of the coast will greatly aid the enterprising trader, for many centres of industry can easily be approached by water at such inlets as Hall Sound, and the cost of transport from the interior would consequently be a mere bagatelle. ”

“ The next point which demands attention is the responsibility which rests with the annexing powers with regard to the protection of the natives. Probably, in no country, and at no period of history, was there a more favourable opportunity for successfully adjusting the mutual interests of European and blacks than in British New Guinea. On both moral as well as politic grounds, it is essential that the natives should be protected, not only negatively from aggressive violence and usurpation on the part of the whites, but positively also from moral contamination and corruption. ”

“ I can strongly recommend the natives of Milne Bay (Mainland) , the islands of Sariba and Loger (China Straits) and the island of Wari, either for plantation work, or the building of houses. The islanders of Wari are by far the best sailors, the others very indifferent.
Unlike Australia, New Guinea is never subject to periodical droughts, and when it becomes better known, British capital will be introduced. Industries will spring up, and the country will eventually be developed and become the home of many of our fellow countrymen. ”

“ The wrongs they had suffered the natives naturally revenged on every white man who came near their islands. [By the Pacific Island Labourers Act, 1901, no Pacific Islanders were allowed to enter Australia after March 1904, or to remain there after 31st December 1906.]
Of late years much of British New Guinea has been explored. Sir William Macgregor ascended Mount Victoria, 13,200 feet high, the highest peak of the Owen Stanley Range; and British New Guinea is rapidly changing. ”

“ The larger half of the coveted territory was added to the German possessions in the Pacific. Then Lord Derby—doubtless with a feeling of thankfulness to Prince Bismarck for his considerateness in leaving a fragment of the prize unappropriated—bethought him of the propriety of taking steps to secure the interests of his own nation in the matter. His lordship appointed an Imperial Special Commissioner, and despatched him to Australia to obtain the funds requisite for establishing and maintaining a British Protectorate over Southern New Guinea and the adjacent Archipelago. ”

“ Your Englishman must have his tub and his champagne, his big tents and heavy camp furniture, his tinned sweetmeats and what not, and it takes an army of porters to carry it all. He learned the safari idea in [8] Africa; but it won’t work in New Guinea, because you can neither move a safari through the jungle nor live off the country with it. The British were a year and a half on the Mimika, and they never got within forty miles of the Snow Mountains. It took them five weeks to cut a safari trail three miles long. ”

“ Just to hear [7] their voices in the good old mother tongue once more, to feel their keen minds sympathetic with his own, was pleasure enough, and Bentham basked luxuriantly in it.
“Where to next, after Kobror, Baldwin?” he asked, after a pause in the flow of news.
“Dutch New Guinea,” puffed the curator. “That’s our main drive this time. Our proa sails for there in a day or so.”
“Dutch New Guinea!” The trader’s face grew suddenly grave. “My word, man! Have you read Captain Rawling’s report of the British expedition up the Mimika? ”

“ The settlement at Triton Bay was on this account abandoned. Seven years later another Dutch commander surveyed what was then called the Dourga River, and found it to be a strait, ninety miles long, dividing Frederic Henry Island from the mainland. The Dutch still hold nominal possession of the territory proclaimed by Captain Steenboom, but practically the acquisition is of no value to them.
English Surveys of the Coast.—The southern shores of New Guinea have been mostly surveyed by British ships, Captain Blackwood, in H.M.S. "Fly," discovered in 1843 the river which he named after his ship. ”

“ British enterprise is simply dead. Where is the spirit that led the old Dutch and Portuguese explorers in their quaint little ships to brave such perils as they did in the unknown In 1644 Commodore Abel Janzoon Tasman sailed along the northern coast of New Guinea on his way home to Batavia. ”

“ They are as yet a young and small community, have trouble enough with the natives as it is, and do not want complications with the British, and fear that many British—who would probably be Australians—would be difficult to deal with. ”

“ He visited New Hanover, the Admiralty group, Hermit Islands, Astrolabe Bay in New Guinea, the Louisiade archipelago, Woodlark Islands, and the Trobriands. After a visit on sick leave to England, succeeded by a short stay in Fiji, he was ordered to New Guinea for the first time, at the end of 1883. In November 1884 he was one of the party which declared the British protectorate over part of New Guinea. ”

“ The Germans have not made much headway in Kaiser Wilhelm Land or in the "Spice Islands," already mentioned; but they spent much money in developing the country and in fostering trade.
The Australians have long feared that the possession of part of New Guinea by an unfriendly Power would be a danger to them, as it would afford an enemy a base for operations against the island-continent. The Queensland Government tried to get a footing in New Guinea about thirty years ago, but the British Government would not then lend its support. ”

“ The natives of the Torres Straits islands have also been studied as fully as is possible. But of the [xx] mountain region lying behind the Mekeo district very little indeed has been published; so Mr. Williamson’s book fills a gap in our knowledge of Papuan ethnology.
We have as yet a very imperfect knowledge of the ethnological history of New Guinea. Speaking very broadly, it is generally admitted that the bulk of the population belongs to the Papuan race, a dark-skinned, woolly-haired people who have also spread over western Oceania ”

“ The conditions for bringing about a war in connection with land, similar to that which occurred in New Zealand, are abundantly present in New Guinea, and unless the land transactions are controlled by Government, complications with the natives must arise. ”

“ There are, in all, about twenty white men now resident in New Guinea. The majority of these are traders, who are backed in a small way by merchants and firms in Australia. There are three stores at Port Moresby, and one settler has erected a sawmill. The traders, as a rule, live in their boats, but a few native houses at Hula and Killerton Island have been erected by Europeans. In consequence of the recent murders that have been committed in the islands, and the disturbed state of the natives generally on the South-East Coast, warnings were sent round to as many traders as possible. ”

“ I believe the company which became the chartered New Guinea Co. in 1884, when the German flag was hoisted at Matupi, had been in possession of some plantations previously to that. On their governing powers ceasing they received a sum of somewhere about £20,000 as compensation, and retained many large areas and stations. In time, no doubt, they will reap a fine reward with rubber and other produce, though, as is always the case in a new and tropical land, they have much to contend with. The clearing of the ground and the keeping it clear is no light task. ”

“ Now on the mainland and in the islands plantations have been established and tobacco and cotton have been successfully grown. Three German mission societies formed settlements on New Guinea, with a branch one on the Gazelle peninsula. The protectorate is included in the Universal Postal Union; each harbour has its post office, also a leading official with a number of assistants to control the natives and the revenue. It is divided into two districts with separate administrations, New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago ”

“ The Ceramers are subjects, and likewise allies, of the Dutch Company, and for the most part expert sailors; and by them, and none else, is the coast of New Guinea visited. The inhabitants of New Guinea have for many years suffered from the treachery and murders of this people, who, not by force of arms but by cunning, have subdued the Papoos. Under the cloak of friendship they take their women (in which they are not very choice) for wives, and the children thus born, being very carefully instructed in the Mahomedan faith, are easily able to control these simple inhabitants of the woods. ”

“ From the Mission a path—no made road or street—wanders along the bank to Herbertshöhe, which is a mere scattered collection of a few wooden houses and iron stores. It is not laid out in any way as a sort of encouragement to people to inhabit it or make a town of it. There are no shops—there is not a tailor, shoemaker, baker, or anythingelse in all the German possessions—merely here a store of the New Guinea Co. Every single thing wanted must come from Singapore, Australia, or from Germany. Anything to be repaired must be sent away. ”