One Suit—No

Shirt !

Pacific Evacuees and the Australian Clothes Ration

rj\HE indifference —often amounting to X cruelty—of officials in their attitude towards the plight of people who arrive in Australia as refugees from Pacific territories invaded or threatened by the Japanese is well illustrated in the treatment experienced by people from Papua or New Guinea at the hands of the clothes-rationing authority.

Clothes-rationing is based on the assumption that the person granted the ration already has a fair average ward robe. and that all that he requires is normal renewals of his wardrobe. Obvi ously. therefore, people who arrive in our midst after having lost all their clothes owing to wartime circumstances beyond their control, should expect some special treatment —that is. a special ration allowance of clothing so as to bring their wardrobe up to a normal average.

But the officials who administer clothes-rationing have other ideas. They apparently recognise that ship-wrecked sailors, refugees, and similarly distressed people are entitled to some special con sideration —but the special consideration is extended with so niggardly and par simonious a hand that the people are more distressed at the end of their appli cation than at the beginning.

The Pacific Territories Association took up the matter vigorously with the War Organisation of Industry officials who, prior to June, administered clothes rationing. But these officials were not helpful. They talked and argued and protested—but hand out a permit for a reasonable amount of clothes to people from the tropics who were facing an Australian winter with practically no warm clothes at all they would not. mHEN the responsibility for clothes ± rationing was nassed over to another set of officials, under the direction of someone called “Deputy- Director of Rationing”. This gentleman, being approached, nromised all sorts of reasonable things; but, when the unfor tunate refugees from the Territories “came down to tin tacks”, they discov ered that the special allowance of cloth ing prenared for them was woefully inadequate.

There was nrofitless argument between the Pacific Territories Association and the official in question. Finally, the Association received an intimation that an evacuee, whose present stock of cloth ing was less than the minimum ward robe (which officialdom listed) could make an application for a permit to bring his wardrobe up to that minimum.

NOW, the following is the minimum stock of clothing prescribed by the official —1 two-piece suit; 1 extra pair of trousers; 2 pairs of underpants: 2 singlets: 4 pairs of socks; 2 pairs of pyjamas: 1 pair of boots; 1 overcoat.

It will be noted that this list refers only to men. The Association was informed that, in respect of women, the schedule “would bp in like proportion”— whatever under Heaven such a phrase may mean.

It will be noted, also, that the so-called minimum wardrobe makes no provision for items which surely should be con sidered necessary, such as shirts and

hats and (in winter) waistcoats or car digans.

The Association, regarding the so-called wardrobe as not only inadequate but ridiculous, has made a further appeal to the rationing authority in Melbourne.

The harshness of this official attitude is on all fours with the treatment being accorded to New Guinea and Papuan evacuees in practically all other direc tions. The refusal of the authorities to pay war damage compensation for what clearly is war damage is referred to else where in this issue.

If every evacuee from New Guinea and Papua were granted permission to obtain a reasonably adequate wardrobe by the rationing authorities the total amount of clothing involved would be so little that it would not affect the general rationing position in Australia one iota.

Members of the Association who may wish to purchase a limited number of blankets at a reasonable price should at once communicate with the secretary.

Rev. R. S. Walker, Methodist mission ary at Cakaudrove, Fiji, for several years, now is serving at Murwillumbah, NSW.

He and Mrs. Walker arrived in Sydney from Suva at the end of May, after wait ing in NZ for a passage to Australia for several months.