Moresby's War-wonders Have Departed

You Wouldn't Know The

Old Town Now!

rOOPS who passed through Moresby when it was a military boom town would not know the old place now.

Its returning civilian residents will hardly recognise it if the recently drawn plan for a new town is ever approved and carried out.

In the office of one of the busiest offi cials here—the Director of Public Works (Mr. J. Lyons)—l have been looking at the plan of a future Port Moresby.

It provides for two new shipping repair basins and a new wharf to replace the present ramshackle facilities, opens up residential sites around a harbour front which was befouled with the sheds and shanty depots of the Services, razes one town block to put in a group of administrative offices—and goes one bet ter than many Australian cities by pro viding a civic square.

All of which, in the raw, frontier atmo sphere of to-day, looks somewhat ambi tious. All activity here may be qualified by the word “provisional” in the title of the Provisional Administration of Papua- New Guinea.

The one impressive amenity of which Moresby has fairly sound hopes is a club.

The spacious and pleasant premises built in 1944 by the Australian Army Canteen Services on the Ela Beach Road will soon be handed over —temporarily, at least— for the use of the civilian community.

But the Public Works Department has more urgent matters on its mind.

The most striking point in the problem of turning an erstwhile war-base back into a peaceful trading port of the tropics is that nearly all of its wartime develop ment is useless for civil purposes.

A network of wide and finely surfaced roads now leads nowhere. The great air strips which they served are deserted.

The vast maze of telephone communica tions is valueless. Much of its equipment cannot be converted, because it was de signed only for a short life.

Already one of the great signals feats of the war—the a telephone line over the Kokoda Trail to link Lae

through Moresby with Australia has been scrapped.

It required a maintenance team of 130 men to keep that line working over the Owen Stanleys. To-day, radio communi-

By Frederick Howard

Now Touring the Islands for Melbourne "Herald"

cation is cheaper and just as effective, it isnt worth repairing the broken sub marine cable between Moresby and Thursday Island. rE urgent municipal things are to ensure the town’s water supply, maintain its lighting and refrigerat ing power, patch its houses for habita tion, and keep the one or two essential roads from washing out.

Pre-war Moresby was far from being a well-planned tropical town. Too many of its homes were fibro-plaster shells, comparing unfavourably with the veran dah-shaded solidity of “garden city”

Rabaul. The planners now hope to give Moresby a new deal. In doing so, they must start from scratch.

They would have started with some advantage if the outgoing Allied forces had not removed or destroyed so much.

Here, as elsewhere in the islands, there is evidence of a destructiveness which may have some subtle explanation in the niceties of Lend-Lease accounting, but which does not make sense to the plain man.

The burning of sound timber and bitu men, the machine-gunning of parks of cars ; trucks and tractors into scrap metal, are among victory’s mysteries in these parts.

But there is no mystery about the abandoning of the causeway ■ which was built out to Tatana Island, in Moresby’s inner harbour, and Jhe decay of that island’s wharves and roads which re

ceived huge American war cargoes.

Moresby’s economic needs have shrunk back to the capacity of a one-wharf town.

Down at Papua’s eastern tip, at Milne Bay, a far greater wharf system is decaying. Throughout New Guinea, jungle and tide are gradually destroy ing works which costs millions, and which are not worth saving. rE Administrator of Papua-New Guinea (Col. J. K. Murray) has sketched in outline to me a possible future of hydro-electric power; of copra, coffee, cocoa and rubber plantations pro cessing their products with that power; of native agriculture being improved through scientific research, and a mil lion natives rising in literacy, health and technical skill.

It is a level-headed concept—a 50 years plan. Meanwhile, the man who voices it lives in an ancient Government House (sometime General MacArthur’s head quarters) where Papuan painters and carpenters are' frugally patching.

He lives simply. The one sadly battered car that was saved for him from the lavish transport of Moresby’s military days is now unusable. The Administra tor must go by Jeep when he tours hi* “capital.” There are plenty of jolts for him, and for every resident of these Ter ritories, on the road to reconstruction.