In the intercourse with the natives the weird form of speech known as pidgin-English is in universal use throughout the South Seas. It is framed on the same principles as their own languages, and every white man who cannot speak native seems to fall naturally into the use of it. So universal is its use that in German New Guinea the Government officials, to the offence of their kultured minds, had to use it if they wanted the natives to understand them.
In their anxiety to spread the use of German, this must have been particularly distasteful to the officials, especially when an Englishman who did not understand German found a medium in pidgin-English.
Some compensation, however, is found by a German writer who says that "although it is deplorable that, while the easily learned Malay language might be introduced with advantage, this unlovely dog-English should still be encouraged, the quaint expressions promptly invited by the natives for anything new to them, amply demonstrate their ready wit and furnish a constant source of amusement."
But if "pidgin" is a barbarous perversion of English, on the other hand pidgin-German is a horror hardly conceivable.
Of all the island groups in the Pacific Ocean, perhaps none offers conditions equally favourable for agricultural pursuits than does the north coast of New Guinea and the Archipelago. Lying outside the cyclonic belt, those devastating storms which are largely responsible for the failure of crops in Polynesia, as well as in some of the groups north of the line, need not be reckoned with, and a greater fertility of the soil further helps to make this part of the Pacific well fitted for tropical cultivation.
Cocoa-nut growing especially proves most profitable, but cotton, rubber, cocoa, coffee, and tobacco are also grown, besides spices and fruits.
The export of copra, which in 1912 amounted to £300,000, has steadily increased as more and more land was brought under cultivation. Other articles of export include phosphates, pearl and tortoiseshell, trepang, sandal-wood, and vegetable ivory.
The exportation of phosphates in 1912 amounted to about £250,000, and with copra made up 90 per cent of the exports.
Skins of birds of paradise were exported from Kaiser Wilhelm's Land in 1912 to the value of £25,000, but an agitation on hand against the destruction of wild birds for the sake of their plumage will no doubt put an end to this traffic.