Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/210

164 for them. In a new country it is a wrong system. There is a happy medium between the two systems which neither nationality attains to. The Germans are excellent, peaceable, industrious colonists under us or in America. In their own possessions they stagnate. They need more freedom, and the surety of profiting by their own enterprise.

Since the Government must do everything, it is very obvious here in New Guinea that a duty of the Government is to build roads straight out into the interior from each port, gradually extending these roads, from which in time other roads would branch off on either side. The natives of the interior would gradually and naturally avail themselves of these roads to bring their “trade” to the coast, and they and the roads would be constantly kept under observation and control. Gradually inland posts are established along the roads, giving further control over the natives, now hidden in impenetrable forests and beyond restraint; and so in time the land and people are peacefully won. Only the Government can do this; it is no light and easy task, and means money, but the system repays itself in time in more than one way. Once there is a controlled road, the telegraph wire is a natural sequence, and so the interior is linked with the coast.

We have been a small community on this ship at very close quarters, and have got on together wonderfully well. Now there appears to be a little rift in the lute. For one thing, almost every one is affected by the close, moist, muggy, intense heat; several have fever, and no doubt the Troppenkoller, which gives title to one of the Baroness Frieda von Bilow's clever novels on the German African colonies, has its counter-