I CALL ON THE GOVERNOR--SUN-WORSHIPPERS--THE MISADVENTURES
OF A DECADE--BRITISH COLONISTS--I INSPECT “POLICE BOYS”--A
“WHITE AUSTRALIA” POLICY CONDEMNED
It was with some misgiving that I found my way up the steep ascent,
which led to the Governor’s residence, commanding a magnificent
view. It was a large, straggling building; at the back of it there
were a number of outhouses which one passed on one’s way to the main
entrance. Spacious and lofty rooms led out as usual on to a wide
verandah overlooking Blanche Bay.
Her Excellency received me cordially; two ladies, one the wife of
a Wesleyan missionary, the other of a barrister, were present at
afternoon tea. Frau Hahl’s English was not so good as my German,
so we conversed in the latter language. She was a tall, handsome
woman of about thirty, belonging to the well-known family of Von
Seckendorf.
In answer to my inquiry concerning her health, she said she was now
acclimatised, and did not suffer as did so many from fever, probably
because the house was built on such high ground. She introduced
her little girl of three to me, and said she had only returned to
Germany once since coming out directly after her marriage. I thought
her charming, but hoped her husband would soon appear, for since I
had no babies to discuss and was not enthralled with the mysteries
of the culinary art, I felt somewhat at a loose end. A young German
girl, who acted as nurse to one of the ladies, roused my curiosity,
for although she had a somewhat striking face, she possessed the
very thickest ankles, covered with white knitted stockings of the
homeliest “bauer” type, I have ever gazed upon. Subsequently I learnt
her history. She had come from Germany some years previously, to join
a small band of sun-worshipping enthusiasts, under the leadership of
a man called Engelhardt, who at one time was a well-known musician
in Berlin.
Here, in an island at the entrance of the bay, these persons--at
any rate, those of the male sex--dressing themselves in the scanty
garments of the native, essayed to live not only “the simple life,”
but the life of the native, minus its bloodthirst. They subsisted
on cocoanuts and bananas, had huts for shelter in case of rain,
otherwise lived and slept under the arc of heaven, holding the sun as
the centre of life, and therefore to be adored.
As the members of the little society gradually died from the effects
of this change in their mode of life, the girl preferred to return to
civilisation, and eventually to her parents in Germany.
When the Governor made his appearance, I at once felt that I should
like him. Honest, genial, inclined to be friendly; he began at
once to speak in excellent English, and we immediately carried on
an animated conversation, for he was only too willing to tell me
of his experiences in the Archipelago. He was of middle height,
scarcely forty, inclining to be stout, but exceedingly active; in
fact, he seemed to carry with him an atmosphere of latent strength.
Of Bavarian family, he told me, he had been legal adviser to the
New Guinea Company several years before he succeeded Herr von
Benningsen, the first Governor. Though he had at different times
had severe illnesses--even that disease nearly always fatal to
Europeans in these parts--the black-water sickness--he was now used
to the extreme heat. In fact, only a man of good health, alert and
active, could do what was required of a Governor in such a young and
scattered dependency, dealing with natives of such treacherous and
fierce instincts as, for instance, the Admiralty islanders! It was no
armchair business! He had visited all the islands in the _Seestern_,
the German Government yacht, and there were few islanders with whom
he could not enter into some communication, for he had made a point
of studying the varying languages. This was necessary, since it
had frequently been his task to lead punitive expeditions against
natives who had killed managers or other Europeans in various parts
of the Archipelago. Had I not noticed the barracks near the hotel,
these were the quarters of his “police boys.” And he proceeded to
explain that in former excursions to chastise different islanders,
they had found that it was impossible for Europeans to chase them
through the dense bush along the tiniest tracks, which, as a rule,
lead to their secluded villages.
Therefore he had, with the aid of his officials, organised and
trained a native police for bush warfare, and hitherto they had
proved themselves a most effective force.
The fierce Admiralty boys were the best for this purpose. He could
get any number of them! Fighting was as the breath of their nostrils
to them! A man-hunt was their greatest joy!
Physically robust, though not of such big proportions as the Bukas,
they were infinitely more intelligent, their activity greater, and
their lithe, slim bodies could slip through dense bush where the
European had no chance whatever.
“Do you get all your police boys from the Admiralty?” I inquired.
“No, that would never do,” he laughed as he replied; “suppose they
were to combine against us, we should be wiped out. Look at our
numbers! Our safety lies in the fact of their being unable to talk to
each other. Some are from New Ireland, some are Sulkas, and so on.”
Then he talked on cannibalism, which prevails more or less in the
Protectorate where European influence as yet does not extend. In
fact, outside settled lands, no one knows how near one may not be
to a cannibalistic orgy. It seems, however, fairly established by
this time that the savage will brain a white man with much pleasure,
but that he will refrain from eating his flesh for fear of revenge
that the spirit of his victim may take at such interference with his
fleshy tabernacle. Mr Parkinson relates how a chief in the Shortland
Islands, a small group off the North Solomons, remarked to him,
“spirit belong white man no good,” whereby he meant that the black
man has nothing to fear from the spirits of his fellows whom he may
kill and on whose flesh he may gorge himself with impunity; but what
the white man’s spirit would do in a similar case is of the quality
of _x_, and best left alone. Thus the bodies of the ten murdered
missionaries at the station in the Baining mountains were all
recovered and buried.
A list of the misadventures and disasters since the Germans first
commenced to trade in these parts, is given by Dr Schnee in his book
on the South Seas, and to show how necessary it is to infuse into the
savage mind a wholesome terror of the white man’s vengeance, I select
some of the chief, occurring in one decade only:--
1885. Station at Kaboteron (Forsyth’s), trader
killed.
1886. Station in New Ireland (Hernsheim’s),
trader murdered and station wrecked.
1888. Station ruined at Kapsu (Hernsheim’s),
Captain H. and Chinaman killed.
1889. Trader killed (Forsyth’s).
1890. At the Fead Islands (Forsyth’s), trader
killed.
„ On a station (Hernsheim’s), trader killed.
1891. New Hanover station (Forsyth’s), two
Europeans killed.
„ In New Ireland, station ruined, two
whites killed.
1892. New Hanover (Forsyth’s), station ruined,
a German dangerously wounded.
1893. Trader murdered by natives of Gardner
Island.
„ At St Gabriel’s (Admiralty), two whites
and three coloured murdered.
„ Kaboteran (Deutsch Handel Co.), station
plundered, white trader killed.
1894. Captain B. attacked and wounded.
„ Station of Kabien in New Ireland, one
European, one Japanese and others
murdered.
„ A station in the Admiraltys (Hernsheim’s),
wrecked and a European killed.
Two things are mercifully withheld from the natives throughout the
Protectorate--firearms and European liquor--their sale is strictly
prohibited. All explosives are kept very carefully under German lock
and key. Only sufficient ammunition for each practice is doled out to
the “police boys,” and occasionally the little community discovers
(with a shock) that one has managed to secrete a small quantity.
“If not for philanthropic reasons, then on economic grounds we must
preserve the native and defend him from the consequences of his
ignorance,” declared the Governor, as he vehemently asked what was
the good to any country of tropical colonies without native labour?
White men could not cultivate the ground in these latitudes, nor was
it desirable they should if they could.
This was precisely the argument I had heard in Jamaica, and I told
his Excellency that the best authorities in the West Indies were
agreed that it was not advisable that the white man should place
himself on the same level as regards labour with the negro.
“Somebody must be top dog,” he laughed as he spoke. He told me he had
fifty-six officials under him in the Archipelago and twenty-eight in
the Carolines.
“I see you vaccinate the kanakas,” I remarked, having passed on the
way to his house a little crowd of natives waiting outside a special
building which served as the Government medical department.
“Indeed we do,” replied he. “The worst thing we dread is the
introduction of European diseases. These people would die off like
flies if we got an epidemic in the place.”
From one subject to another we approached that of British
colonisation, which his Excellency highly commended. Our holding of
India was to him a surpassing marvel. That enormous hive, containing
three hundred million souls, administered by less than one hundred
thousand white men, would prove to posterity the real greatness of
England, the administrative talent of Englishmen.
I left his residence just before dark to find at the hotel a company
of Admiralty “police boys” awaiting my arrival. Dr Hahl had ordered
them round for my inspection. In a few moments they tramped up on to
the verandah, gave me a martial salute, performed a few evolutions
and then lined up in front of me.
My Pidgin-English was not equal to conversing with their leader, but
I must admit, in the half light, their wiry limbs and wild, dark eyes
were weird to look upon. They were of middle height, darker perhaps
than the Gazelle natives, they wore loin-cloths and caps, and looked
at me as inquisitively as I gazed at them!
I was thoroughly pleased with my visit. Dr Hahl had promised to show
me some villages in the hills situated some distance inland before
I left New Britain, and elated with the prospect, I spoke of it to
Dr Thurnwald in one of our many post-prandial conversations that
evening. He had been busy collecting island curios and despatching
them in enormous packing-cases to Simpsonhafen _en route_ for Berlin.
Since his arrival in New Britain, he had photographed and taken
anthropometrical measurements of many natives, besides recording
nearly a hundred “Sing-Songs.” He had secured the services of a boy
from the Admiraltys, and from him was learning the language. Struck
with the superior intelligence of this savage, he often launched
forth in depressing jeremiads concerning the hopelessness of the
Gazelle people.
Another melancholy topic was the fact that apparently Germans would
settle anywhere else on the globe than in their own colonies. They
would flock to the United States; Sydney and South Africa were full
of them, any ready-made colony had the preference.
To this I assented, maintaining that some of the most useful and
industrious subjects of King Edward were plodding, prudent Teutons.
In repeatedly pondering over this subject, I have often wondered how
it is that individual members of admittedly the most martial nation
in the world, where one would naturally expect courage and initiative
to be leading features, do not show the same independent freedom of
action--that impulsive, headlong energy, heedless of risks, that
neck-or-nothing policy, with which the sons of Albion have flung
themselves against nature’s inhospitalities, compelling her to unlock
to them the fruits of their toil and labour. One finds them on every
shore, bringing into cultivation the waste places of earth, carving
homes out of lonely, primeval forests, confronting savage men and
wild beasts under blazing suns, trusting to luck and chance to pull
them through. Instances are numerous in Canada, in New Zealand, in
Australia, where high spirits and heroic hearts have earned fortune
after fortune, how young men have left home as steerage passengers to
return in middle age in comfort and in wealth. One is led to wonder
if these characteristics of indomitable pluck and iron resolution are
peculiar to the British race. The French do not shine as colonists,
and it seems that the subjects of the Kaiser must have the Government
behind them, postage-stamps and lager beer within reach, before they
will adventure themselves in unknown lands.
My scientific friend would ascribe the paucity of _bona fide_
settlers in German colonies to red-tapeism, and quote statistics of
officials _versus_ the latter.
But, for his comfort, I told him, it was just that minute attention
to detail which was the German’s strong point, where we could not
compete with him. Admittedly, his countrymen were the deepest and
closest of thinkers, taking every detail into reckoning. But, he
objected, that sort of thing was carried to excess: if you were
always bent on detail you were unfitting yourself for broad lines of
action which, after all, were the main things in colonisation, as in
life generally.
It was a fault, he thought, which had grown with the development of
the German nation. Before 1870, he argued, each little state had
its dukelet or its princelet, and round the little court everything
centred--nothing could be done without the consent of the head of the
state--there was no room for personal initiative when every pfennig
had to be accounted for to the central authority. For centuries the
men of his race had thought in circlets.
I could not discuss this interesting point with him for lack of
knowledge, but many daily incidents united to testify to my humble
powers of penetration that there was something in the mental make-up
of the Teuton which constituted him less fit than some for colonial
enterprise. He takes few risks. There is nothing, so far as I could
see, analogous to that attitude of mind with which many an Englishman
to my knowledge faces big issues, when, metaphorically, he shuts his
eyes and jumps.
It was interesting to note in the frequent conversations I held with
one and another, that although they upheld British colonisation,
there was a general consensus of dislike to the Australian policy
of “a white Australia.” Why, it was urged, since the huge continent
had only five million colonists, not define a territory in the north
where surplus Japanese might work out their salvation from the evils
of over-population. For this too-populous country would, in the near
future, inevitably, be the menace of the Pacific, since expand it
must.
To this I would lightly suggest that the Protectorate of New Guinea
might offer lands more attractive because more accessible to the
Japanese Government. This idea was not pleasing, but it became clear
to me that the future of Japan, so far as one could forecast it, her
wonderful powers of receptiveness and assimilation, the dauntless
courage and devotion to their country of her sons, is the subject of
some uneasy speculation in these islands, as it is elsewhere in the
South Seas. Yet in the past, during two thousand five hundred years,
Japan has only engaged in five foreign wars, though prior to the
seventeenth century conflicts between contending chieftains disturbed
the island’s peace. The land of the Mikado had evolved a splendid
mentality long before St Xavier reached it, and when, in recent
times, the flood of western light was turned on to its trained and
fertile brain, it was only like leading a scholar into new museums:
whereof the moral is that proper training in youth is the best
preparation for general adaptiveness in later years.