Administration

Canker in Territories' Administration Pessimistic Review by a Leading Planter

Letter to the Editor MANY planters, suffering under low copra returns (the in-store price, at Port Moresby, Papua, for sundried, is £6/16/9 per ton!) blame the big firms.

But these firms take the risk of ship ping and realisation, just as we take the risk of investment and production.

The complaint is more deep-seated.

It is the combines, who take no risk, and win most of the profit. They bleed not only the producer, but the consumer of margarine and other copra products.

It is the operation of these huge com bines throughout the world that will cause war after the present war is over Planters are beginning to ask why the Government does nothing to protect them from the man-eating copra com bine.

Living in a Colony under the demo cratic Government of Australia, plant ers and miners wonder also what democracy means, as they have no vote or say in the squandering of the reve nue collected from them. The bureau cratic official picks all the plums from revenue for his house, his pension and his very long leave. The planter is lucky if he can get a holiday every three or four years, but the official gets short leave every 21 months, and long leave of six months and twelve months at intervals. Then, when tired of holiday taking, he takes his retirement pension.

Time and again, Papua has been on the verge of bankruptcy. But, with a subsidy of £40,000 to £50,000 per annum from the Commonwealth Government, and speculative oil and mining com panies popping up at times to help reve nue, it has managed, with a little finan cial juggling, to escape.

In the case of New Guinea, the dog ged perseverance of mining engineers, miners and planters, and their discover ies of gold, plus the German plantings of coconuts, helped New Guinea to afflu ence. But this affluence has been dis sipated by the Administration, not in assisting mining and planting, but in trying to achieve the same results as Papua. So far, the price of gold has beaten it.

If oil is not discovered in Papua, the subsidy from the Commonwealth Gov ernment will have to be increased to about £lOO,OOO. Gold will keep New Guinea going for a period, but the life of most mines is about twenty years or less. By that time, the coconut estates, New Guinea’s only other asset, will have died of old age. Nothing has been done to replace this very wasting and un profitable asset. The same conditions apply to Papua—its coconuts and rub ber also will have died of old age. The real asset of the country, the native, is also a wasting asset. He has been so pampered and spoiled that in some parts he has become unworkable. In other parts, he is rapidly dying out. However, this is a very delicate subject, and best left alone.

It has recently been rumored that the Papuan Government is considering a tax on rubber. I would like your readers to refer to the “Pacific Islands Month ly’s” list of rubber prices and note the years when the industry was unprofit able, and every rubber-planter had to borrow to keep going. Planters have not yet made good that deficit. How unfair to tax them just to find funds to meet shortage on the Pension account.

The following is an extract from the “Papuan Courier”:— “The report just published of the Super annuation Fund Board for the year ended on 31st December last shows total pensions paid during 1939 were £12,582 to 11 officers, roughly an average of £307 per head. Contributors numbering 146 paid to the fund £3,452 during the year, while the taxpayer contributed £7,450.”

These Islands will provide rather a nasty blister for Australian taxpayers of the future. The present taxpayers have been subscribing about £40,000 to £50,000 per annum for about 25 years. They should be getting a dividend, but they never will and the capital they have subscribed can be written off, as there is so little to show for it—except about 40 or 50 middle-aged men, sitting back

in Australia on fairly fat pensions.

In Papua, we are supposed to have an Agricultural Department. But it is only a name-plate on the door of the Lands Department and a number in the telephone book.

In New Guinea, their able Director of Agriculture built up a first-class service from nothing, and trained his own men, and gave them the opportunity of gain ing tropical experience in other coun tries, with the idea that one day New Guinea would be able to supply all Aus

tralia’s tropical requirements. Now. for

some reason, his operations have been curtailed, and I consider he and his staff have a real grievance. I am told the curtailment is not for economy, but is due to departmental jealousy.

In the foregoing, I have tried to show that there is an absolute lack of inter est and initiative by officialdom in its job—otherwise, how could they make such a failure of an agricultural para dise? Finally, what are they going to do about it? To sum up:— No improvement can take place until planters, miners and other settlers have some form of representation to check and advise on Government spending and other matters. When all is said, it is these people who supply the revenue.

Agricultural experts must be appointed to Papua and given a free hand to examine the potentialities of the Territory and make recom mendations.

The Agricultural Department of New Guinea must be freed from petty restrictions, so that it may set about the development of tropical products required urgently by the factories of Australia. I allude particularly to the rich valleys in Central New Guinea.

An Agricultural Bank should be formed to assist in developing new crops and expanding the areas of rubber to at least the requirements of Australia.

A thorough investigate of the combines and their subsidiaries controlling copra should be made, especially to ascertain if, with the present low price, the working man is getting the benefit in his purchases of margarine, glycerine, soap, candles, etc.

How much of the £50.000,000 grant to be made for colonisation by the British Government is te be set aside for Papua and New Guinea?

I am, etc,,

G. A. Loudon.

Port Moresby, Papua.

February 15.