Make The Japs Work

In New Guinea

A LETTER that contained much sound commonsense, written by Mr. Tom Flower, of New Guinea, was

published in “Sydney Morning

Herald” of September 6:

THE new regulations state that natives must be returned to their villages after one year’s employment, and that they must not be worked more than 44 hours a week. The first regulation is going to be very hard on the employer, as in some cases the natives are taught technical and skilled work, carpentering, tractor and truck driving, etc., and by the end of the first 12 months, when they are just becoming useful, the employer loses their services. The best way to overcome this difficulty would be to allow the employer to apprentice up to 20 per cent, of his total employees for technical and skilled work from three to five years.

Very few natives work more than 44 hours 'a week. The working efficiency of a line of 100 natives would only amount to 70, after deductions are made for sickness, malingerers, cook boys—one to about every 15 natives—garden boys growing food for them, in addition to the ration issue as set out by the Govern ment, and medical boys, who are taught to dress wounds and look after the sick.

In my business of logging and saw milling I have to employ 100 natives to work in the bush, and the same work could be done by 10 Australian bushmen.

The old cost of ‘native labour worked out at about 2/- per day, or £3 per month, but with the new regulations this will be doubled, and 30/- a week for an untrained boy of 16 years is more than many of us earn at the same age.

If the Government considers it wrong for us to work the natives, I have a suggestion. There are thousands of Japanese in New Guinea, and with the Government’s permission to work 100 of these and a few Bth Division prisoners of war to act as overseers, I would be quite content to carry on my business under these conditions. In Europe the Ger mans are being employed to build the devastated countries, and I can see no difference.

We are not seeking cheap labour, but only the right to continue and control our businesses as employers that many have given the best years of their life to create and establish.

Editorial Note

HIGH-RANKING officers, just arrived from New Guinea, tell us that active preparations are being made there to house, guard, feed, hospitalise, and finally ship away at least 150,000 Japs who are expected to surrender there.

Meanwhile, the Territories of Papua and New Guinea face a frightful economic problem in restoring a huge amount of property destroyed by war. The cost is bad enough—but the difficulty of finding labour is much worse. Mr. Ward him self declares that the grealt majority of native labourers urgently need a long spell in their villages.

Is there any reason why these Japanese should not be forced to labour on the task of restoration and reconstruction* just as they forced so many white Aus tralians and New Guinea natives to work? If this use of prisoners is right and proper in other places, surely it is better to employ them in this way in New Guinea, instead of maintaining them for months in comfortable camps while

awaiting transport.