a Business?

Is Kwato a Mission or a Business?

Mr. Norman Izod Returns To the Argument

Letter to the Editor T OOKING through Mr. Cecil Abel’s; reply in the July issue of the P.I.M. to criticism of the Kwato Mission, I can not let it go without a few comments.

He states that “the strong feeling in Eastern Papua regarding Kwato’s trading activities applies to only a very small minority who are directly affected.” This is not so. Ask the unaffected people, and a safe bet would be 10 to 1 against Kwato.

With regard to the Chamber of Com merce deputation to the Governor, Mr.

Abel implies that no such deputation ap proached the Governor. I was one of those appointed to meet His Excellency at the monthly meeting of the Chamber, from which I was unfortunately absent.

I had nothing prepared at so short notice and, in any case, was up against the difficulty I have mentioned before, i.e., lack of proof.

We consider Kwato competition unfair, and that the business, due to its associa tion with the Mission, gets all sorts of direct and indirect advantages over its rivals. We are absolutely convinced that this is so, and see it working out day by day, but an outsider cannot prove this and cannot obtain the necessary informa tion to do so. Therefore, although these injustices continue, there is no means of getting them altered and no convincing* case can be brought before His Excel lency. Mr. Abel naively says that “if facts are hard to obtain it is because Kwato has never been asked to supply them.”

Mr. Abel assures us that every penny and more of the Government subsidy is devoted to technical training, and that every gift in money or kind is devoted entirely to the object for which it is given.

This is as it should be, but it puts a very definite line of demarcation between Kwato’s Mission and Kwato Extension Association’s business. Myself, 1 fail to see how this line can be so sharply drawn, even with the best intentions.

To the looker-on, Kwato is much more of a mission-assisted business, than a business-assisted mission. Presumably the profits of the business should go to the Mission’s support and expansion. The surmise is that they go to the support and expansion of the business, and the business further receives indirect help from its mission association.

For instance, to which do the launches belong, mission or business? They have three launches engaged in competitive business for the major portion of their time. They were built at Kwato by the Technical Department, the labour used, native tradesmen and scholars under a white instructor, presumably paid out of the Government subsidy. Were the ma terials, engines, etc., paid for by the business or the Mission? If they are the property of the Mission, does the business pay for the use of them?

When the tourist ship Narkunda was here, Kwato had their latest boat in course of construction, and when the tourists visited the station, there was a notice on it to the effect that it was being built for mission work, but that lack of funds was delaying its comple tion. I don’t know if this had the desired effect in contributions, but I do know

that ever since then the boat has been used as a money-earner. It enabled Kwato to cut the Milne Bay freight rates to a point that precluded competition, and collect, roughly, £5OO per year with only a native crew to pay over and above the fuel bill! They have now laid down a 60ft. boat. Its cost to Kwato (mission or busi ness) will be equally low, built under the above conditions, and I fully expect to see this running as a money-earning craft in the near future. Rough on other boat owners!

If, on the other hand, it is sold, it will bring in an enormous profit. Rough on competing boat builders!

Another instance. For a recent fairly big job, Kwato’s quote was less than half that of a white shipwright, so they, of course, got the job. The work again was carried out by the Government subsidised Technical Department. Cost to Kwato insignificant. It is doubtful whether more than three or four of the tradesmen em ployed on the job were receiving as much as £2 per month. It is obviously a mere waste of time quoting against the prices that the mission-business tie-up make possible, and the annoying part of it is that it cannot be checked.

Their position is watertight, for Mr.

Abel says they are a philanthropic, non dividend paying concern, and that all profits therefrom go to the benefit of the mission, etc., etc. It is a Mission which is enabled to carry on by the activities of its business and profits therefrom. Outsiders think (but cannot prove) that it is a good business made good only by the pull and advantages that the Mission gives it, with profits going apparently to the ex pansion of the business.

In your leader of the P.1.M., August number, on “Missionaries, etc.,” you say: “It all depends on the point of view”; but the key of the trouble is not in what non-mission folk think of missionaries, or

vice-versa. The nucleus of the whole trouble is the spoon-fed conditions by which they encroach on business.

They insult us by talking of “healthy competition.” Competition is, of course, the life of business, but nothing will con vince me that the variety served up by Kwato is healthy. On the other hand, I consider it a malignant growth which is spreading unchecked. There is definitely no room for this kind of thing in such a small community as this. Every job they unfairly take from the tradesman, and every sale they make of goods or services, means a cut price or an exces sive profit.

Far from “the firms and individuals benefiting by the service that is being rendered to progressive business enter prise,” they find themselves in the posi tion of the British manufacturer com peting with the Japanese.

Australia raises a tariff wall against Japan’s products. Papua grants Kwato a subsidy!

I am, etc.,

Norman H. Izod.

Samarai, Papua, 21/9/’35.