British New Guinea.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 10, 12 January 1895, Page 2

British New Guinea.

The Governor's Report,

Sir William Macgregor supplies a very readable roporb on hia administration of British New Guinea for the year ended in June last. The document abounds in interesting matter, and some portions of ib read like romance. The nativea are being gradually civilised, but the operation ia slow and difficult and provokes many amnsing episodes. The chief judicial officer furnishes a lisb of cases which show thab .the courts have been well occupied during the year, and that the administration of British justice inconveniently restricts the liberty of the natives. For the firab time a native waß executed in August, 1893, for the murder of one _of his own countrymen—the victim being one of the constabulary. In all other caßes of murder, and there are many, terms of imprisonment were inflicted. The following is an instance :—' A tribe at Baiio, on Fu* gu«son, believed themselves to be afflicted by the machinations of a witch, and the community rose against •. her. She said to the chief, "You take and drown me, and all bbc people will be satisfied." He took the old woman by the hand and led her to the beach, pub her in a canoe,, tied a stone to her feeb and another to her neck, pushed out to deep water, and threw her overboard. The accused defended himself by saying he drowned her because she was killing people by witchcraft. The peculiar circumstances of the case were considered to justify clemency.' The sentence of death was also commuted in the case of a native of Kwanau, who one day met on tho path a mountaineer of Dnau who had in bygone times killed bis mother. He clofb the skull of the moun. taineer with a large bush knife, and, in admitting the crime, said he had only done his duty. Another native claimed thab ho was justified inmurdoring an innocent white trader in compensation for the loss of some natives who were taken out fishing by a Greek trader and drowned, and in his case the extreme penalty was commuted to penal servitude. A native who cleft his wife's skull with a tomahawk because she refused to carry home a bunch of bananas also got off with a term of imprisonment. The total trade of Bribish New Guinea for the year amounted to £43,453—the imporbs being £28,501, and the exports £14,952. The whole of tho £15,000 available for the administrative services of the year was expended, and the revenue paid into the Queensland Treasury during the year amounted to £5,866.