Some Experiences of a New Guinea Resident Magistrate

by C. A. W. Monckton

Some few days after Moreton had resumed his duties, the Merrie England came in with Sir William on board, and his Excellency told me that as Ballantine, the Treasurer and Collector of Customs, had broken down in health, it was necessary for him to be relieved at once, and that I was to take up his duties. I protested that I knew nothing about accountants’ work or book-keeping, and respectfully declined the appointment. “You can do simple addition and subtraction, that’s all I want; find your way to Port Moresby as soon as you can,” was all the Governor replied. Then the Merrie England left; and I consulted Moreton. “The Lord help you, laddie,” said he; “you will make a devil of a mess of it, but you must do what Jock says.” Then Armit. “You must take it, or you will never get another job; but you will be all right if you sit tight, and refuse to sign anything without the authority of the Governor or Government Secretary.” Then I went to Arbouine and unfolded my tale of woe. “Oh, that’s all right,” said he; “I will write a line to Gors, our manager at Port Moresby, and if you get stuck, he will lend you a good clerk for a day or two, who will keep you all right.”

Then I resigned myself to the inevitable; Treasurer and Collector of Customs I had to be. The next thing was to find my way to Port Moresby, and break the news to Ballantine. A steamer came in, the Mount Kembla, an Australian-owned boat recently chartered to carry coal to German New Guinea; Burns, Philp and Co. were the agents, and upon my going to book a passage to Port Moresby, Arbouine said, “This vessel is bound by her insurances to carry a pilot in New Guinea waters; I can’t let her leave here without one, and you are the only man I can get hold of capable of acting as a local pilot.” “Damn it all,” I said, “I only want a passage, and you can hardly expect the Acting Treasurer and Collector of Customs of New Guinea to act as your blanky pilot.” “Oh, all right,” said Arbouine, “if you don’t sign on as pilot, the ship won’t leave.”

Eventually I did take on the job as pilot of the Mount Kembla, and left for Port Moresby. She was an iron collier with iron decks, and utterly unsuited for tropical work; hardly had we got out of Samarai Harbour, before the skipper, a nice, genial little man, came to me, and said, “I’m feeling very ill, for Heaven’s sake look after the ship.” I looked at him and, taking his temperature with a clinical thermometer, found he was in a high state of fever. “Get away to bed, man,” I said, “and I will dose you.” Then I told the mate to fill him up with brandy and quinine. “I can’t do it, pilot,” said the mate; “everything is in the lazerette and under Government seals, and I dare not break them.” I soon settled that by smashing the seals myself, meanwhile explaining to the mate that the ship’s pilot happened to be the Collector of Customs for the Possession. “My God!” said the mate, “I’ve been in the coal trade all my life, and been in many parts of the world, but I have never been in a country like this before.” I took the Mount Kembla safely into Port Moresby, from whence she departed two days later; and, to my regret, I afterwards heard that hardly had she cleared the harbour before her nice little skipper died.

Leaving the Mount Kembla, I went to the office of the Government Secretary, the Hon. Anthony Musgrave, and told him I had been sent by the Governor to relieve Ballantine. “I suppose, Mr. Monckton, you have had previous experience of accountancy and audit work?” said Mr. Musgrave. “On the contrary,” was my reply, “if you searched New Guinea from end to end, you could not find a man more blankly ignorant of the subject.” Muzzy—as he was generally termed in the service—gasped. “Did you tell the Governor that?” he asked. “Of course I did; but he seemed to think that a man who knew navigation and could do simple addition and subtraction was all he required,” was my reply. Muzzy sighed, and then sent for Ballantine and introduced me to him, after which, he gladly washed his hands of the matter. Ballantine was very nice and kind about it all. “You had better work with me for a few days,” he said, “it’s not all quite as simple as his Excellency appears to imagine.” Three days satisfied me that the job was quite beyond me; Ballantine was doing sums all day long, and could do work, in five minutes, that would take me a full day. At the end of the three days, I got him to accompany me to the Government Secretary, to whom I pointed out, that if I were to carry out the Treasurer’s duties for one month, at the end of that time it would require at least ten clerks and one expert accountant to unravel the tangle. “What am I to do?” said Mr. Musgrave. “Sir William must be obeyed.” Ballantine also intimated that he was Registrar for Births, Deaths, and Marriages, and that, as the Death Register had not been written up for some years, I might delve into piles of letters and papers reporting deaths, and write it up; to which cheerful occupation I betook myself.

A MOTUAN GIRL

Meanwhile, Muzzy caught Dr. Blayney, R.M. for the Central Division, and told him that he was to act as Treasurer, etc.; Blayney undertook it with a light heart, but three days of it reduced him to a mass of perspiring and swearing humanity. Again came a council of war. “Bramell, Government Agent at Mekeo, is an expert accountant,” said Ballantine; “fetch him here to act as clerk to Blayney, and send Monckton to Mekeo as Assistant R.M.” “The very thing,” said the Government Secretary. I accordingly was sworn in as Assistant R.M. for the Central Division; and, a few days later, Blayney took me to my new district in his patrol vessel, the Lokohu, a sister ship to the Siai.

Mekeo Station, at this time, was situated some twenty miles inland, amongst a fairly thick and troublesome population. It had originally been opened by the late John Green; he was followed by Kowald, who was killed on the Musa; then Bramell was appointed. The Station consisted of an officer’s house—the usual three-roomed affair—constabulary barracks, gaol, storerooms, drill ground, and about twenty acres of gardens; the buildings and drill ground were surrounded by a high and strong stockade. The Station was originally established to protect the missionaries of the Sacred Heart Order, who were penetrating into the country. The Mekeo natives were a cowardly, treacherous, and cruel lot, much under the influence of sorcerers, and averse to control by the Government. Blayney, some four weeks previously, had swooped through the villages and arrested every sorcerer he could find; he told me that the villagers would not give evidence against them unless he undertook to kill them, so that they could not return to exact vengeance. Blayney accordingly simply convicted them upon discovering any implements of their trade in their houses, such as charms, skulls, snakes, etc.

Upon our arrival at the Government Station, Bramell received us with very mixed feelings. “I am glad to get out of this hole,” he said, “but it seems I have got an Irishman’s rise.” Blayney, after staying a day, went off again, but Bramell stayed a little while to put me in the way of things, and a cheery way of things they appeared to me. He showed me his bedroom closely shut up, and his bed surrounded by a circle of tables, upon each one of which he had deposited loaded firearms. “What on earth is all that for?” I asked. “Sorcerers,” he replied; “they are the most poisonous brutes, and keep me perpetually on the jump; how they get in I don’t know, but get in they do, and put snakes and other beastliness in my bed. Arrows, too, come over the stockade in the night and light anywhere, though we can never catch the men shooting them; on dark nights we have frequently discovered strangers prowling about the houses, but up to now, they have always managed to get over the stockade before we could catch them. The beggars are always trying to poison me too; don’t you ever buy cocoanuts with the husks off, or anything else into which they can possibly have inserted poison; they have contrived to kill three boys in succession carrying my mails to the coast; the boys are all supposed to have died from accidental snake bite, but I know better.”

After having given me all the information in his power about the working of the district, and having completed the formality of handing it over, Bramell left for the coast to take ship for Port Moresby, being escorted by half a dozen constabulary. I spent a week overhauling the last year’s reports from the Station, and getting a grip, as best I could, of the trend of affairs in the past. I soon saw that the district was out of hand, and would require fairly strong measures in dealing with it; I saw also that it was not Bramell’s fault, for he had not sufficient authority as a Government Agent and Native Magistrate to keep the people in order: my appointment, however, carried the full powers of a Resident Magistrate.