effect would be to increase the number of requirements among the natives—to give them an inducement to steady labour and systematic cultivation. Hitherto tobacco has been current coin among the natives, and only so long as they were in want of this would they work, consequently their labour could never be depended upon. At Port Moresby, however, and elsewhere, the introduction of a meal of rice, as payment for a day's work, was appreciated, and proved a far greater incentive to steady and reliable labour than tobacco.
The system of land tenure in New Guinea is generally admitted to be a complicated one. Those who have hitherto written and reported concerning it have almost without exception regarded it as an organized system of tribal ownership; but although the natural boundaries of the tribal district are always known to each member of the community, yet it seems probable that there is no idea of tribal ownership as it is generally understood.
The actual ownership of the land appears to be based upon the basis of kinship. The land is divided into divisions and subdivisions, owned by groups of individuals, who are all more or less connected by kin. The number of individuals in these groups is variable. The group may have dwindled down to one representative, or it may have indefinitely increased. Each member of this family group regards himself as having a distinct interest in the land appropriated to his kinsmen; not only, however, can no one member alienate the land without the consent of the family group, but each member will claim to receive a share of the profits of the sale of such land. The sense of individual proprietorship is very strong, and extends to particular trees, and even to the fruit upon these trees, &c.
The position and action of the chiefs will vary in proportion to their individual influence and power. If the land to be disposed of belong to the family group, of which the district chief is also the patriarchal head, he would be the most prominent figure in any transactions with the land; but if the land in question belong to a different family group from that to which he himself belongs, and he has no voice by virtue of kinship with them, then his authority and power as district chief will, with reference to this land, be almost nothing. It is exceptional to find a chief strong enough to negotiate independently for the disposal of the land belonging even to his own group. It is, therefore, still less common to find him negotiating with regard to land in which, from want of relationship to the owners, he has not himself any share. However vague these distinctions with regard to the interests of chiefs and of members of family groups in land may appear to Europeans, they nevertheless seem to be pretty well defined and understood by the natives themselves. As a practical illustration of the strange
