High Cost of Living
p. 26 · Read in the full issue
Means More Resignations in N. Guinea
*JpHE wife of an Administration
Official in New Guinea says that the Administration is in danger of
losing its most efficient and experi
enced men—and for these reasons : LIVING costs soar while wages stay at minimum! The defence of Ad ministration officials throughout the Territory is to resign before they can no longer obtain credit, or to adopt the less dignified but better understood “strike” methods if something is not done im mediately to make salaries sufficient to meet the 100 per cent, rise in living costs over the past 12 months.
To reduce the cost of food would probably also prove a solution. Imagine living on £4OO a year with these costs to handle; bread 4/- a loaf; butter 3/5 lb.; milk 7/4 a tin; flour 25/- a bag; eggs 5/6 a dozen, and all other necessities on the same scale.
Bread and butter for a family costs over £2 a week. Eggs and milk would be about £1 and meat at a minimum cost would be £l, £4 are then gone out of £8 a week before one thinks of other foodstuffs, medicines, money for chil dren’s education and insurance and the care of native servants. How can a per son make £8 a week spin out when men without children find 'it impossible to make £l6 a week provide adequate com fort or savings?
I know of one man on £6OO a year who is not in a position to take his leave.
I know of others who can go on leave only provided they can find accommo dation with friends or relatives.
Believe me, too, women in the Terri tory are not working because they want relief from boredom, but because they cannot make their husbands’ salaries meet the cost of living.
There are rumours in the Public Ser vice of a proposed rise of 25 per cent, on salaries after deduction of the basic rate, mut few have faith that it will even tuate, and in anv case those in most need will benefit least. I expect there are few white men in the Administration who have not turned to outside means of providing money, sent their wives to work or have drawn, to the limit, on their capital.