Papuan News

Dull Christmas Holidays

From Our Own Correspondent

Port Moresby, Dec. 31.

Excessively hot weather, followed by a cy clonic storm, helped to mar Christmas Day and the holidays in Port Moresby, though, as a whole, anticipations for a bright and merry time were fairly restrained in this part of the world.

Anyone who has the good fortune to be able to leave the territory for the season does so at the first opportunity. Many residents left the town for the hills, either to stay at rest houses or to visit friends on plantations, and those who were unable foregathered and persuaded themselves that conditions might conceivably be worse and thanked their lucky stars that Christmas comes but once a year.

Commercially Christmas was quiet, even tame, though to some extent the stores have recaptured a little of their former trade, since they have reduced their prices to meet those of the southern) firms. Economists hold the floor in Port Moresby and even those who have no need burble plaintively of the hard times and count their coppers before ventur ing on anything but the most ordinary ex penditure.

Copra, rubber, coffee and gold, the assets of the country, are all not bringing much wealth into the territory, and as the days of investments in Papua seem over for the present, the scale of living in the country has been lowered. Life is much simpler and people are living at bedrock and there is prac tically no social life —a healthier existence, no doubt, if a little corrosive to enterprise.

Father Macenoroe

Farewelled

Father Macencroe, of the Roman Catholic Presbytery, leaves by the Macdhui for a long holiday in Australia, on December 22. His friends gathered in the Presbytery to wish him farewell and to present him with a small gift and generally to express the kindly friendliness with which he is regarded by everyone in Port Moresby.

Little Sporting Activity

Sport, on the whole, is at a standstill, owing to the heat and the general conditions of the N.W. season.

The Cricket Club held it gala day, followed by a dance, and the Golf Club has closed its season, after the finals of the Fitch and Gutheridge Cups were played and won by Mr. Anderson and Mr. de Groen, respectively.

A club dinner was given at which the cups were presented to the winners by the Presi dent of the Club, His Honour, Mr. Justice Gore.

On Boxing Day, the Port Moresby Golf Club entertained the native caddies on the links to a “bunfight” and tournament. It was arranged in their honour in recognition of their consistently good work throughout the year.

Home-made clubs were used, of astonishing good workmanship, made by the caddies themselves, little boys from Hanuabada be tween the ages of 9 and 12. They all played an extraordinarily good game in the tourna ment and at the first hole of 350 yards one little boy of 11 was on the green in 2 and holed out for a 4—a performance which has not been beaten by our best players.