The State of the Territories at Present

From a Special Correspondent

Pt. Moresby, Oct. 29.

MANY people are clamouring for permission to v return. They would not be so eager if they could have been with me to-day in ’ calls upon the manager of the Commonwealth Bank and the Production Control Board. Here is how the whole situation can be summed up in . , .. „ , .

A} 1 £ i uP lan^ tlons ■ in Papua, being without labour, have closed down for six months. In Bougainville, and other places north, it will be 12 months before they ca £ start operations.

This Administration is not concerned with the planters and the output of copra and rubber, but purely with the welfare of the natives as they see it.

Gold-mining is last on the list of priorities for native labour.

The Production Control Board (Government-owned and directed) controls all stores and produce in the Territories, and it looks as if it i$ here to stay—or until Government policy changes. (It charges 1/9 for a tin of meat, and the new scale issue is four tins of meat per week!) The only way in which a man can be employed here is to get a job with the Government or the Board.

Every boat over 25 tons comes under Government control, and this order is for one year at least. You can buy your own boat, but you cannot ship independently —you must carry cargo in accordance with Board directions.

The new Administration officials are arriving in dozens—4o in one party!—but they appear to have no orders, and nothing to guide them and nothing seems to be done about it. They are supposed to take over at 3 p.m. on the ' 5A5T '* It is reliably reported that negotiations are in progress at Canberra for the Administration to buy 1,000,000 super, feet of timber from Russia, for new construetion hereabouts. Nothing, apparently, is being done to make use of the local timber, and some local mills have ceased cutting. nvTV 01 DrD „„ ¥ ONLY 2 2 PER CENT. OF LABOURERS

Signed On Again

fITHE position in relation to native X labour at the end of October was that, of the entire native labour

force, 2i per cent, had agreed to make new paper. Most of the balance had decided to go home—and they now are being repatriated by boat and road, Those who remained are mostly boss-boys and technicians. Personal servants are hard to get now. I know one man who is paying his personal boy 17/6 per week!

It was generally expected that the Aus tralian authorities would lose no time in encouraging the re-establishment of the New Guinea gold industry. After all, Aus tralia must urgently need dollar exchange, and there is no surer and quicker way of getting dollars than buy jn g them with gold , .

But little, has been done to encourage th o gold-miners. In fact, as no gold mining can be done without labourers, anc * as , Ward has turned the dis approval of his countenance upon gold mines labour for natives-which is re garded as being too tough for Brother Fuzzy-Wuzzy gold-mining has been de finitely discouraged. In the. view of }Y a f d Zi sin ’ 18 ore I f n P9 rtant that Fuzzy-Wuzzy shall be sent singing aor ° ss u the kunai r i d f£ s ’ 4 h£ J n , g i2 d shall be dug out of the Bulolo and the Watut.

Bgd To Recruit Labour

-QARTIES from the various gold com- Y panies have been up and around here for months, examining the damage and making plans; but when it came to getting assistance from Canberra in re-establishing the industry, there has been nothing doing.

Finallv—so it is renorted—the Merest ftnd best-managed company got fed up.

Canberra was informed by Bulolo Gold Dredging, Ltd., that if it could not get facilities for the re-establishment of its business in New Guinea, it would remove its eig ht dredges and enormous other equipment to another goldfield—Pato, in Colombia, South America—where another associated company, Placer, Ltd., has large dredging interests.

Whether this threat had or had not the es i re( j effect no one can say; hut it j S reported to-day, on , good authority, that BGD has been given permission to seek new labour in the Buimgs and Warla districts, and that the task of re-estab

fishing the BGD industry will now proceed.

The news has given general satisfac tion. If the “big fellow” is to be per mitted to recruit labour, Ward-ism can

scarcely withhold the same rights and privileges from the little fellows. And there are dozens of “little fellows” im patiently waiting to get back to their various leases.