Some Vivid Descriptions By An Independent

Deplorable Conditions In The Wardist

Territories

Some Vivid Descriptions By An Independent Visitor

The most dismal picture yet painted of the Papua-New Guinea Administration appeared in the Melbourne Herald of March 31. It was from well-known journalist, Osmar White, now visiting the Territories. ext^ acts ,f rom the article, in which he describes conditions in Port Moresby:— A HANDFUL of ill-equipped, halftrained civil servants are living in sisal paper houses and working in offices built from junk, muttering the same lament. The old danger that too little would arrive too late has arisen again in a different form.

The ghost of frustration that haunts this place was vividly conjured yesterday by the man who took me down to inspect the harbour equipment. Jerking a thumb at the old T wharf, now shivering and creaking in the first boisterous breezes of the south-east season, he said: “Jap planes raided this town more than 100 times, but thanks to Jackson, and men like him, they never hit the wharf. Now it is falling down of its own accord—thanks to dry rot, white ants and bureaucrats!” ♦ * But, most of all, Moresby is unhappy of eC “a 0 -N o ew k GZea W^ re he h a e d e T d erri Th y oi r-apua incw yumea is neaaea in. o? P hTrdwo P rfwffh n a S pen ° Ut oi nara worK with mu „ .. , , .. .

The collection of ramshackle humpies at Konedobu, where the Territory’s important business is transacted has become known as Belsen. ’ The Administration mess is “House Pig.”

All Chifley’s horses and all Chifley’s men can t drag enough timber, corrugated iron, fibro-cement and nails through the redtape swamps to accommodate decently more than a small percentage of the 2,500 people now living in a town that housed 600 before the war

What Moresby Housewife

Paid On March 30;—

5 lbs. sirloin of beef .. .. 16/8 Eggs 5/7 doz 4 lb. loaf bread 2/8 Butter 4/6 lb.

One cabbage 2/1 to 3/9 Since there is no local cobbler, shoes must be sent by air to Cairns for repair.

When they come back, Customs officers solemnly assess the value of the leather used in the repair, and charge duty on it.

Bread is the price of pre-war fruit cake because a canny Treasurer in Australia, remembering that no income tax is levied on salaries in New Guinea, gets his pound of flesh anyway from export tax on Australian flour—and the rate on one ton of flour is £25! * * * THERE can be no stability in the labour position here until supply problems have been solved by provision of increased shipping services; until wharves and cargo storage buildings have been repaired or replaced; until houses have been established. reSt ° red ' “ d '° Cal agriculture Either prices must be forced down, or salaries raised, until the man doing a job of work in NG gets as much return for his effort as he does in Australia. * Ihe fault cannot be attributed to the de S H?ie PUbliC rf SerVantS ; *l° doubt l here are drones and incompetents among them,

as there are in any public service—and personal loyalties, which so often override public morality, make them hard to shift —but by far the greater percentage of departmental administrators in the New Guinea service are honest men, with a realisation of the importance of the work they are doing.

They love this country, and believe that it is destined to become great and wealthy.

They are bitter because the policy they have to administer is unreal, ill-defined, and contradictory—because their reports and requests and suggestions, however urgent, are either mutilated or misinter preted—or vanish into the pigeon-hole jungles of the Department of External Territories.

Editorial Note

YOU are asked to note that the fore going was not written by what has been called the “temperish PIM,” but by an independent journalist who probably never has seen the “PIM.”

The points that have been made bv Mr.

White, especially in relation to the de terioration of Administration morale, are the points which we have tried to hammer home to Canberra, for more than a year.

While the Territory’s Socialist Minister has been wallowing in political feuds and Timber Lease fandangos in Australia, his half-baked scheme of Territories develop ment has been falling to pieces. The men placed in Port Moresby to do an im portant job have been more or less de serted, and have been unable to defend themselves against criticism because they are gagged by their administrative obliga tions.

The Territories in 20 years have known a score of Ministers, Liberal and Labour, and scarcely one of them has been worth a pearler’s curse. Mr. Ward, by compari son, seemed a godsend—he had ideas, some capacity for planning, and the energy and the determination to imple ment his plans. But, because he tried to apply Marxist principles to a region that can be developed only by private enter prise and rugged individualism, Mr. Ward has been a calamity greater than all the figurehead Ministers put together.

THE deplorable conditions observed and reported by Mr. White are the out ward signs of the Wardist economic fallacies and political muddling. Papua- New Guinea will never be an inspiring place to examine until Canberra takes a leaf out of the British Colonial Office bcok and, having selected competent and trained men for a highly specialised job, leaves them alone, free from political in terference, with full authority to carry out that job.

It is an utterly ridiculous thing that Papua-New Guinea should continue to be made the plaything of the uneducated Ministers and economic rat-bags so con sistently spewed up by the political machines. Why should trained and edu cated administrative officers, honestly eager to do a creditable job, be left at the mercy of such people? Why should decent Australian women, who are ex pected to maintain a good status in a black man’s country, be asked to keep house on a beggarly £5OO or £6OO per an num, while the unchecked bureaucrats push the prices of essential foodstuffs to the figures quoted?

We always have regarded the Wardist regime as a joke. Now, it is beginning to look like a tragedy.