THE PAPUAN ORDINANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 148, 23 June 1908, Page 5

THE PAPUAN ORDINANCE.

MAKING THE NATIVES WORK. ; A| BISHOP'S VIEW. ■ LONDON, June 22. The Bishop of New Guinea (Dr. StoneWigg)',. interviewed relative to the new labour ordinance passed in Papua, stated that |-if "forced labour is only insisted upon for necessary Government work there will be no objection to it, but the Government had no right to inaugurate compulsion in the interests of a handful of white ser.tlers. Since the natives were unrepresented in the Papuan Legislative Council, it was impossible, he remarked, to say that "tho Government represented the native views. Tile ordinance referred to was passed by, the. PapuaC Legislative Council to encourage the natives in the habits of inidustry. It provides that "every male : native between the prescribed ages shall, when called upon, be liable to work under the direction and control of the Government on a Government plantation, public road, or native reserve in the division in which he resides, for the Government, without pay, for a period of one month in every 12." The alternative is imprisonment with hard labour for a period '' not exceeding six months.