The Yellow Peril In

Papua!

AUSTRALIA’S Pacific Territories have suffered an invasion by yellow men from the north, and yellow journa lists from the south —and both are hard to bear.

While the Japs have been dropping bombs, “our special war correspondents on the North Australian front”—cow re porters in peace-time—have been shooting masses of blurb into the helpless folk in Australia.

They perhaps can be forgiven for telling Australia’s generals how to win the war —“New Guinea must have more inter ceptors”; “it is imperative for New Guinea to stand”—they have to send something to their bawling news editors; but when they begin to rhapsodise about Islands conditions, they become a sort of irrita ting entertainment.

One gentleman, for instance, refers to the proclamation which put Port Moresby under military rule, and proceeds:— “It would have been the end—even had the Japs not done some bombing first—of the heyday of the Islands, the long afternoon cocktail parties, the visits of rich planters, the easy, well-paid life of the white man in the tropics. For to day, the Islands are no longer glamorous.

The palm trees, the natives with frangi panni and hibiscus in their hair, the flowering poincianas, and the coral are still there. But the atmosphere is gone.”

That “easy, well-paid life” —how about it, Mr. Loudon, or “Gappy” Fitch, or Mr.

Frame, or Mr. Jewell? “Glamorous Is lands” —he should see Port after a six months’ drought! “Natives with frangi panni and hibiscus in their hair”—we really must be coarsely Australian, and say “Gripes!”.