New Britain Notes

Rain Labour and Radio Com munications All missing!

From Our Own Correspondent

Rabaul, Sep. 17.

RABAUL has had no rain for six weeks.

Practically the only water supply at present comes from the shallow wells that the Japs sank during their occupation. This water is not good.

The Administration apparently intends to do nothing in the matter of a per manent water supply. The excuse is that Kokopo will some day be the residential centre.

If the Administration really intends to make Kokopo the Administrative centre of this island then an enormous amount of money is being wasted in erecting buildings in Rabaul.

Until this week it was possible to re sign native labour after an indenture term of one year if the natives in question were willing to do so. The introduction of a new ordinance now expressly forbids this and the natives must be returned to their village after one year for a period of at least three months before again being indentured.

This strikes the severest blow possible at industry in these islands and will be a disaster to many producers who are trying to rehabilitate their properties.

Every endeavour possible has been made by various New Guinea public bodies to avert this disaster, but the Australian Government has refused to consider their appeals. rnHE Administration, at an enormous JL cost, is installing radio-telephone centres throughout the Papua-NG Territory. The cost involved will run in to well over a quarter million pounds.

These radio-telephone centres have, how ever, proved a failure wherever they have been installed. Inexperienced operators and the management generally are to blame. There is no reliable means of inter-island radio communication other than that of the few radio stations that were recently taken over by the Overseas Telecommunication Commission from the Amalgamated Wireless (A/sia) Ltd.

The Administration radio stations, commonly known as the RTC are in variably out of action and, in some cases, it takes weeks to get a message trans mitted over the system. According to re ports, the Administration proposes that this system shall operate exclusively throughout the Islands.

Investigation by a reliable authority on installation of an efficient system of radio-communication is overdue.