Northern New Guinea

Notes

By “Mossie”

RECENTLY an old Luluai told me this version of the famous trip of Exter nal Territories Minister Ward to Papua-New Guinea during the war.

The “Big King of Sydney” (E. J. him self) arrived by plane at a Government station. All the government officials and local tul-tuls, luluais and doctor-boys were gathered there to see him and hear him address them. Unfortunately, he could only “talk place” (that is. speak Austral-English) which the natives could not understand.

However, a translation was given by a Patrol Officer as follows: “Now the good time for the natives had arrived. The Government would open hospitals and more schools in which all natives would soon learn to speak proper English. Pid gin was a bad language and had to be abandoned. Then when they could all speak English the good time would really have arrived.”

Perhaps this explains the sudden en thusiasm manifested by the Sepik natives for learning straight English which was mentioned in a recent issue of the “PIM” and their belief that when they have mastered it they will come into their new Heaven on earth.

"Wewak News''

RECENTLY a few issues of a roneoed Pidgin-English publication came into my hands. I don’t know when publi cation began or when it ceased—my copies were spread over the July-December 1946 period but the editor seemed to be District Officer H. L. R. Niall. of Wewak, and the paper appeared to have a bene ficial effect on the natives for whom it was written. It cleared up a lot of rumours which are always current here, and encouraged natives to express their opinions and to make suggestions.

The paper was read solemnly and with ceremony in the villages where the written word is understood, and in some places special buildings were made in which to house it. In many villages, of course, it could not be read at all. although it was kept there also, rather like a magic charm, and its contents guessed at or imagined.

Perhaps there were too many “letters to the editor” and the editor could not stand the strain; or perhaps some higher up intervened; but the paper now seems to have come to an untimely end.

Organised Recruiting

BULOLO Gold Dredging Limited has a well-established recruiting station at Angoram. on the Sepik River. Boys are recruited from this head-quarters and, in due course, will be returned there when their time is finished.

Over 500 Sepiks have already gone to the goldfields area, and there are still hundreds waiting in the villages to be picked up. Although they are permitted to make a contract for only 12 months, most of them .hope that the government will permit them to extend their period of labour and not force them to return to their vilages at the end of the year.

Mr. E. Knight has been in charge of Bulolo recruiting on the Sepik, but he will leave shortly to open another station for BGD in Wewak.

Among prospectors back on the Sepik are Messrs. W. Forrester, L. Smith and R. Cooper.

Father Glover is Back

rE Rev. Father Glover, who distin guished himself in 1942 by helping to evacuate residents from inland

New Guinea by air, and who subsequently joined the AIF as chaplain, is back on the job again, with flying headquarters at Alexishafen.

The mission there now has two planes —a Tiger Moth and a twin-engined De Haviland Rapide. At the beginning of April, Fr. Glover flew the Rapide to Cairns, via Mount Hagen, with Monsignor William van Baar as his passenger.

The Bootless Sepik

■VTEVER before has the Sepik River been ll so devoid of boats of all kinds. And while this state of affairs remains it will be impossible to effectively patrol this vast area, which contains about 50,000 native people, nor will it be possible for one Medical Assistant to attend to

all the medical needs of that large com munity. Although the Lik-Lik Doctor in question has worked out an excellent sys tem of regular patrols by native medical tul-tuls, who bring in the sick in canoes, regular patrol by Europeans is essential.

Recently, when a missionary on the

Sepik was stricken with malignant malaria, Medical Assistant L. R. Healey made a twelve-hours’ canoe trip in pouring rain to go to his assistance.

It is useless to talk of improving the lot of the Sepik people until such time as there is reliable boat transport on the river. The native impression at the pres ent time is that all the Australian boats were sunk by the Japs during the war.

"Free" Labour

IT is rumoured that the Government has made a proposal to some plantation owner’s that “free” natives be per mitted to work the plantations on receipt of one third of the gross profits, plus free housing, garden facilities and free medi cine.

Plantation owners are wondering why they call it “free” labour.

The French nickel collier “Notou,” of 2,500 tons, left Newcastle on August 12, 1940. Four days later she was sunk by a German raider. The only passenger on board was M, Paul Vois, Noumea manag ing director of the Societe le Nickel, who had been unofficially conferring with Australian authorities in Sydney on economic maters resulting from the French collapse. M. Vois had an unhappy time before reaching France, where he remained for some time in German cus tody, and he has now published in Paris a book about his experiences as a prisoner on the German raider. The title of the book is “Prison Flottants” (“Floating Prisons”).

A Communist deputy in the French National Assembly declared that between 1934 and 1944 the Bank of Indo-China realised a net profit of over 550 million francs on a paid up capital of 120 millions.