Government Taking Staff

From Private Firms

THE manner in which staff has been leaving the private trading estab lishments in the Australian Terri tories, and joining the Public Service, has been causing directorial headaches at the head offices in Sydney. ■ The Big Firms have been sending clerks and salesmen (at about £8 per week) to Papua and New Guinea, to carry out the work of re-establishment; but, when the latter get there, they find in a good many cases that they have little difficulty in getting £5OO per annum and other privi leges from the Administration, as native labour overseers and in similar jobs.

The trouble is that the Administration, now most lavishly endowed with Austra lian taxpayers’ funds, can engage staff how and when it likes; whereas the pri vate trading firms, being still under the necessity of showing a profit on their transactions, must plan and pay according to their resources. Perhaps, under the conditions which ruled BW (Before Ward), when the firms were making good profits, it would have been possible to pay more liberal salaries. But it cer tainly does not appear possible now. when most of the money circulating in the Territories comes from Government funds, and private enterprise is discouraged and trampled upon by the bureaucrats.

Miss Elizabeth Exon, daughter of Mr, and Mrs, F. Exon, of Suva, Fiji, left Aus tralia recently by flying-boat to spend her vacation with her parents. She has been at school in Geelong, Victoria.

Mr. F. W. G. Annand, Brisbane, was re cently elected a director of Solomon Islands Rubber Plantations, Ltd., in place of Mr. A. R. Archibald, who has retired.

Mr. Annand is an executive officer of the Brisbane Permanent Building Society and holds the military rank of Colonel.