Hallucinations Plus

Letter to the Editoi IN a recent article in the “Sydney Morn ing Herald,” the Minister for the De partment of External Territories. Mr.

E. J. Ward, appears to have made some wild statements regarding the supply question in New Guinea.

As Mr. Ward has not visited the vast tract of land north-east of Papua, known pre-war as the New Guinea Mandated Territory, it must be difficult for him to understand the difficulties of distribution.

He further intimated that if supplies were low he felt sure that the Admin istrator would have written to him. This statement to me seemed ludicrous. The only way the Administrator could know of events in the New Guinea territory would be to make a personal visit or, better still, to live on “the other side.”

In Port Moresby there has been refrig eration for many months and supplies of fresh foods are shipped there more regularly than in other ports.

But what of the position in ports which are not so well served?

Let us examine the milk situation. First, we get no cow’s milk. Secondly, the last stores of malted, powdered, sweetened condensed milk came to one port of two hundred-odd residents early in September. This was far below the quota and for the last two months the two stores have been unable to supply even nursing mothers, pregnant women, or children with this very necessary article of food.

The meat position is worse. As there has been no refrigeration to date, meat other than tinned has been non-existent for about three months.

Supplies of flour, butter, eggs, apples, oranges and the like have over the last four months become so depleted that it is almost impossible for women to bake.

Expenses are high and on the few occasions when meat is procurable it costs 3/4 per lb. for chops, 2/- per lb. for liver, and anything above 12/6 for small joints.

Butter is 3/9 a pound and apples can be 6/- a dozen.

Yet our happy Canberra visitors assure us that living here is so low, and that they pay so much more for pine-apples than we do. As a ground for comparison, pineapples are ridiculous. It would be much more to the point if we compared the cost of bread. In many parts of the territory residents pay more than 2/- a loaf* for this basic commodity. The equivalent of such a loaf would cost, in Australia, fivepence.

I admit I only live in the Territory and that my only way of knowing I am short of essential foodstuffs is to experi ence the shortage. I may be suffering from hallucinations. This, too, may be a wild idea but I fancy—l said “fancy”— that Mr. Ward gets a much larger salary and allowances to cope with the cost of living, in Canberra, than husbands get in New Guinea.

I am, etc.,

Joan Stevens.

New Guinea, December 16, 1947.

At the recent opening of a new LMS village church at Solo Solo on the east coast of Upolu, Western Samoa, one of the largest crowds which ever gathered for such an occasion attended the func tion which lasted for a week. More than £7,500 in contributions were collected and the enormous crowd consumed moun tains of food, including over 7,000 kegs of salt beef, large quantities of biscuits, bread, tinned meat, pigs, fowls, etc.