New Guinea

Costly And Inefficient Shipping In

Outstanding Example of Socialist Government Control

From a Special Correspondent

Madang, September 24.

IT is rumoured up here that the “Mal aita” which has been in dock in Syd ney since 1943, when she was damaged by a Jap torpedo off Port Moresby, will be back in commission in October, and will take over the Sydney-Port Moresby- Lae-Madang run. The “Montoro” will go on a new schedule which will take in Port Moresby, Samarai, Rabaul and Buka.

With labour conditions in New Guinea and Australia as they are at present, these ships will not be able to complete the round trip under two months. This will give Port Moresby and Samarai a ship every month and the other ports a ship every two months.

Both ships will, of course, be run by the Commonwealth Shipping Board.

The “Bulolo” has now been sold to the British Admiralty and will not be seen again in these waters; there is no indications.as to when or if any new ships will be available. . - There is, in fact, no inducement for Burns Philp or anyone else with ship ping interests tied to Australia, to pur chase new ships or to improve services.

Consequently, New Guinea is receiving to-day? the most inefficient shipping ser vice in her history.

Australian Unionism notoriously has an antipathy for coloured labour; but the “ Montoro” is, nevertheless, now worked by an Indian crew, although pre viously she had only Australians. rhe Indians, with the limited facilities avail able, probably do a better job, and more cheerfully, than Australians of the pre sent era; but the general standard of service to New Guinea is poor and, if the running of this ship is any criterion of Government control, then the sooner the service reverts to 100 per cent, pri vate enterprise, the better.

IT can be said that the “Montoro” is an old 'ship and that “conditions” (what ever that all-embracing term may be interpreted to mean) militate against pre-war comfort. It might be instructive, however, if the Shipping Board could see something of the Union Company service provided from Auckland (New Zealand) for Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. Over a year ago, this company, although their ship was hopelessly overcrowded, was maintaining a service that was almost at pre-war standard.

By comparison, the New Guinea ser vice, 12 months after the end of the war, is pitiful. There are, for example, now no facilities in any of the New Guinea ports for attending to ship laun dry.

The “Montoro’s” linen would remain soiled if it were not for the good offices of the District Officer, Madang, who has made it his personal task to hunt up a few boys to do the job. At this moment, hundreds of pillow slips, towels and sheets flap furiously on long lines in the District Officer’s backyard. If this were not so, presumably the southbound pas sengers would be using the unwashed linen of the forward journey.

“Montoro”. has no forced-draught sys tem of ventilation; but she has a number of inside cabins which in the tropics be come miniature sweatboxes. /Formerly, the cabins were made approximately

habitable by electric fans. Now these fans are gone. They have been removed. it is alleged, for the use of the European crew of another Australian ship. “Mon toro” to-day, of course, is carrying more passengers than ever before.

The food is adequate; but it is Aus tralian austerity food, and cooked and served with little imagination.

THE creature comforts of passengers, however, can be dismissed as rela tively unimportant. The major pur

pose of the New Guinea service was and is to bring food supplies and materials to New Guinea; this is more than ever necessary to-day when the Administra tion, the natives and the Europeans are struggling to rehabilitate themselves.

Without a reasonably efficient service between New Guinea ports and Australia, the best efforts of the whole community must wither and die.

Formerly, all ships in New Guinea ports were worked by private labour lines. To-day all stevedoring is done by the Administration with any labour that is available.

Consequently, it is slow, badly directed and untrained for the job. Two shifts are worked —from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. with an hour’s break at noon; and from 4 p.m. until midnight with an hour’s break at 6 p.m. Formerly the shifts covered the full 24 hours.

Labour on the ship is excruciatingly slow; and anything up to half an hour

elapses after meal breaks for the wheels to begin to revolve once more. Boys, it is alleged, cannot be spoken to roughly, for fear that they will walk off the job altogether.

How ship’s officers, who formerly saw this work going with a swing and a song, can stand to-day and watch the creeping paralysis that now passes for stevedor ing work in the Territory and not ex plode is one of the minor mysteries of this age.

Cargo is unloaded into and loaded from lorries, native driven, and trans ported to the sheds or ship. Here, again, there appears to be chaos, and there are long breaks when work ceases in the holds waiting for the lorries to come up.

It took six days in Port Moresby on the present trip of the “Montoro” to un load about 2300 tons of cargo; in Madang it will take the same period to shift about 1800 tons.

If, in theory, government control of shipping is a desirable thing, the ordin ary man in the outpost can scarcely be expected to see it these days. He only knows that he receives less at higher cost; that the freezer is bare, there is no beer, and the personal effects he shipped months ago when he himself came north, fail to show up. The theories of higher political thinking in terest him not. He judges by results, which are few, at the present time, in this country.

If, as alleged, the Big Firms with their shipping monopolies, exploited him be fore, then he is willing to be exploited again, and quickly.

Shipping rates on coastal vessels (run by Burns Philp & Co., Steamships Trad ing Co., and W. R. Carpenter’s on be half of the New Guinea branch of the

Commonwealth Shipping Control Board) have recently been doubled.

The reason for this move is another profound mystery, as those services already running in Papua are believed to be making a handsome profit, and operating companies are believed to be well satisfied.

The operators are paid on a cost-plus basis —that is, they receive about six per cent, of all freights, expenses, including payments to crew. Consequently, the more the operators spend in maintaining the service, the more profit for them.

This is one way of maintaining Govern

ment control —but it can scarcely be called an economical way of operating any business.

“As no New Guinea native labourer can be signed on for more than 12 months for mining, and 18 months for alluvial mining, this means that no employer can get more than 11 months’ labour, owing to the time lost in getting to place of employment” writes Mr. W. G. Young, of Samarai. “This point was not made clear in my letter, published in your June issue.”