LABOR IN PAPUA.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 8 October 1913, Page 6

LABOR IN PAPUA.

Referring to the labor dificulty in Papua, Mr Joseph Cox, managing director of the Papuan Rubber and Trading Company, told a Sydney interviewer last week that the demand for "boys" was still.far in excess of the' supply. Single men could live .by very little exertion, and married ones made their wives do the work. They lived as •well in their own villages as they did on the plantations, and consequently there was no pressing necessity for them to become. indentured laborers for the white man. Being communists, the money they earned on the plantations was soon divided among their friends when they returned home to their villages. The natives required just and careful handling. They lost respect for those who were over-kind and lenient; which they attributed to weakness. In order to obtain the best results firmness and justice had to be meted out to them, and, strange to say, they cheerfully accented moderate chastisement when "In the wrong. .Under harsh treatment they were sullen and treacherous, . and would no,t work, and they acquainted other natives where rough treatment was. received, with the result that persons who treated them badly found it diffieiilt, and .sometimes impossible to procure labor.