ips.

It was soon evident to the Australians that this was intended to be a
German naval station and military post of great importance. Enough
munition, and accommodation for troops were there to show that it was
to be the jumping-off place for an attack on Australia. Such armament
could never have been meant merely to impel _Kultur_ on the poor,
harmless blacks with their blowpipes and bows and arrows.

Every Australian is determined that these of nature's children shall
not come again within reach of German brutality, but that they shall
know fair play and good government such as the British race everywhere
gives to the "nigger," having a sense of responsibility toward him that
the men of this breed cannot escape. It would almost seem that the
Almighty has laid the black man's burden on the shoulders of the
Briton, as he was the first to abolish slavery, and no other people
govern colored peoples for the sole benefit of the governed.

In every British colony other nations can trade on equal terms, and
millions of pounds sterling are squeezed from the British public every
year to provide for the well-being of native peoples, worshipping
strange deities and jabbering a gibberish that would sound to an
American like a gramophone-shop gone crazy! While other nations make
their colonies _pay_ for the protection they give them, the British
people pay very heavily for the privilege (?) of sheltering and
civilizing these far-flung, strange peoples. No true friend of the
black man can consider the possibility of handing him back to the
cruelty of Teutonic "forced Kultur."

The most heartless of Japanese gardeners could never twist and torture
a plant into freak beauty more surely than the German system of
government would compress the governed into a sham civilization.
Australia would fight again sooner than that a German establishment
should offend our sense of justice and menace our peace near our
northern shores.

The western half of New Guinea (and the least known) belongs to
Holland, and it was in the waters of this coast that the Australians
whose story I am telling were living and working when the tocsin of war
sounded. These sons of empire were registered under a Dutch name with
their charter to work there from the Dutch Government, yet when they
heard that men were needed for the Australian army, they dropped
everything and hastened south to enlist. The long-obeyed calls of
large profits and novel experie