NEW GUINEA SLAVES

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXXIII, Issue 69, 16 September 1924, Page 2

NEW GUINEA SLAVES

LATEST STARTLING DISCLOSURES!. ILL-TREATMENT OF NATIVES. Press Association—Copyright, Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. (Rjeecived 9.55 a.m.) London, September 15. Mr John Scurr, editor of the Socialist Review, in a letter to the Morning Post makes reference to the New Guinea charges. ' He points out that Mr Canning had spent under a month at New Guinea, and of that fourteen days were spent at Rabaul, and the balance in. cruising around the coast. In the evidence taken on oath of fiftythree Whites examined,' twenty-five wore officials. In addition to the evidence quoted by the Socialist Review, further reliable information was provided by M'r R. A. Prescott, a member of the British Scientific Expedition, who states that at Marienbura he witnessed the consigning of 130 slavey for forced work, and by Miss Beatrice Grimshaw, who was surprised to find how brutally the Whites treated the natives at Sepik River. Mr H. B. Cameron, medical assistant at Bahnatti Island, reported on the ill-treatment of the natives on De/oember 12th to the Commissioner (Mr H. Garden), who.ordered an investigation, but it had not taken place. The letter quotes Senator Pearee's statement to Parliament on June 17: "It is impossible owing to deliberate departmental obstruction to sheet home the charges of a grave nature against officials in the mandated territory." Mr Scurr adds.- "After this declaration it is imperative that a real impartial inqury should be held, which it is to bo hoped the League of Nations will undertake fearlessly.".