Machines to Replace

Native Labour Apparently The Only Solution to N. Guinea's Labour Problem

IT is estimated by “old hands” in Papua that the cost of native labour —that is, wages and food —is now three times greater than pre-war, and that if the Papua labour pool was maintained at the 1939 figure (about 12,000) the addi tional cost to Papua alone would be over a quarter of a million pounds.

Before the war, the weekly cost of a boy’s ration in Port Moresby was about four shillings. A boy’s ration to-day costs 12/6—when it can be obtained. The basis of the ration is still rice and meat.

Rice—which now comes from Australia— is four times the pre-war price; meat over twice as much as in 1939.

In addition there are many extras such as wholemeal, peas, beans or lentils, sugar, tea, animal fat and canned tomato juice where fresh fruit is un obtainable.

Ultimately, it is the native who suffers from these increased prices. Europeans prefer to pay their boys at the rate of about 15/- per week and have them feed themselves —a method of passing the re sponsibility that defeats the Australian Government’s aim to boost Fuzzy-wuz zie’s intake of calories.

Away from Port Moresby it is at pre sent virtually impossible to buy rice or trade-meat, a fact that constitutes a fine means of anti-Administration pro paganda.

“No got rice; no got meat. Lap-lap ’e sikis fella mark,” says Trader Tom; and, when Brown Brother complains, he can reply with a shrug and a certain amount of truth: “Fashion belong new fella Gov’ment.”

IT is stated by officers of the Native Labour Department that there are now 6,000 natives working either casu ally or by contract in Papua. Of these, over 3,000 are working for the Adminis tration. The whereabouts of the other 3,000 is a mystery to planters and others who are short-staffed. ‘No native working for the Administra tion can be “indentured”; and generally it is the job of the official in charge of native labour to endeavour to induce employers to try so-called free labour.

In actual practice both methods seem, to amount to the same thing. No legal action appears to be taken against a native who breaks his contract and where formerly he was taken to court and fined and made to make up the time which he had undertaken to work, now the contract is simply terminated and the labourer is permitted to go his merry way.

The signing-on, or paying-off of labour, of course is no longer in the hands of the various District Officers, but is done by a Native Labour Department whose specialised function it is. There seems no great enthusiasm on the part of offi cials appointed to this thankless job of go-between for bereft employers, the spoilt and/or bewildered natives, and Native Labour headquarters in Port Moresby.

So far the powers-that-be in Port Moresby have shown no signs of learn ing by experience, and, while asking for increased copra production, are going ahead with their policy of signing off Angau boys in the mistaken belief that “good employers will always get labour.”

If they are right in this contention, then it is interesting to note that when the signing-off debacle hit Madang only re cently, the two hardest-hit organisations

were (1) the Admniistration itself; and (2) the Roman Catholic Mission at Alex ishafen.

THE natives in Papua, on the whole, seem more normal, more willing and more cheerful than those on what is now called “the other side” the former Mandated Territory. There they are sullen, unsettled and are either un willing or too bewildered to go to work.

Possibly in time these natives too will settle down to something approaching the old order, but it is problematical whether the European who formerly de pended upon their labour will stay the distance.

One effect of labour shortage in the two Territories is that the old myth that

Europeans could not work here has been exploded. Men have found that they can do anything, from building houses to lumping cargo; and the wash-boy position is such that returning miners and planters can now discuss the rela

tive merits of rival soap-powders and the best way to get a neat crease in a pair of khaki pants.

IF European enterprise is to continue in this country, then European enter prise must accept the challenge of Authority and solve some of its problems without the aid of native labour —which, if the present regime continues, must be an ever-increasing headache.

According to one official source, the “desirable accommodation” for labour should include everything from septic tanks and ironing rooms to “chapels for each of the various denominations.”

That any official should have set pen to any such pipe-dream document in a country where at present every Euro pean is living in temporary quarters built of native material and tarred paper, is as out of place as it is ridiculous. But

it is at least a fingerpost to the future, In such a future the happy man will be he who can do without labour or employ Mechanisation to an ever-increasing de g re e might go far towards solving the labour problem, and there are indications in the Territory that this process of supplanting men with machines is now under way.

Electricity, refrigeration, washing machines, hot water services for dom estic purposes; cultivators, bulldozers, earth-moving equipment—all can, and no doubt will, play their part in rehabi litating industry. Unfortunately, the only valuable industries in the Terri tories at present are rubber and copra, Latex can be—and is on at least one plantation in Papua—collected by jeep, But no one has yet invented a machine for cutting copra.