Angry Padre On The Warpath

How Church Was Tricked Out of Its Site In Lae

IN the_ language of the proletariat, the Anglican Church in New Guinea has been “double-crossed” by the Papua-New Guinea Administration; and the Rev. W. E. Moren, priest in charge of the Church of England in Lae, has denounced the Administration in plain and forthright language.

Here are the facts, as published by Mr.

Moren in his monthly Parish Newsletter, dated June 6: In 1934, the Church obtained title to land in Lae, whereon to build a church.

After the war, the Administration pro ceeded to make anew plan for the town of Lae. In February, 1948, it appealed to the Church, and other landowners, to surrender their titles, so as to assist the new planning. The officials assured the Church that there would be a town plan in operation within three months.

Naturally, the Church agreed.

Three months passed. There was no sign of a town plan. The Church, now anxious to get on with its building plans, asked if it could have a temporary lease.

The Administration begged the Church not to take up a temporary lease, as that would be “embarrassing”. But there still was no plan.

Failing to get satisfaction from the officials at Lae, the Church applied to Moresby. Moresby did not even answer the Church’s letters. Then the Church got angry, and then Moresby said the matter was one for Canberra. This was in conflict with a letter which the Church already had received from the Minister.

An Acting-Minister went to the Terri tory, and was appealed to. The Church again was asked not to embarrass the Administration.

Then the town plan was published; two mission leases were advertised as available. Neither represented what the Church wanted—the positions were not quite right according to the new plan— but the Church reluctantly applied for one, and got it. The terms showed that the land was granted “by administrative act”: it could have been so granted at any time during the previous frustrating period of 14 months.

LAST month, the Church learned, to its dismay, that the town plan had been scrapped; and anew one, which completely altered the situation of the Church’s lease in relation to the rest of the proposed town, had been substituted.

“Our site, therefore, has become simply three acres of land on the fringe of the outskirts of anew town plan,” says the Padre. “In a real sense it is not the site we applied for. Thus there comes’to an end 14 months of administrative evasive ness, temporising and questionable con duct . . . When that grant was made it was already known in official circles that the plan under which we had applied had been superseded ... Let them re call that we lost our chance to build in 1948, when we surrendered our land on their advice and for their convenience.”

The Padre goes on to point out that this incident is symptomatic of the con ditions in the Territory. “What do we

find here? Persons are being pushed around, kept in the dark as to their future, denied any say in self-determi nation. In short, persons are being treated more as if they were things.

“Furthermore, far from the decencies of personal living being ensured, our living conditions are a shocking scandal.

In the scandal of our material environ ment the real wealth of this Territory— the courage, the civic virtues, the enter prise of people—is itself decaying. Every where there is frustration, misery, and a growing apathy.

“To dissipate material wealth is bad business. To dissipate spiritual wealth is criminal folly. Had there been a plan to create frustration, apathy, and misery, and the destruction of civic virtues, it could not have succeeded better than the methods of this administration through three-and-a-half years of town planning.

“Territorians have taken this sort of thing since November, 1945. The time has come to stop ‘taking it’. The time has come to act. The challenge in this situation is to assert ourselves as per sons, with rights, and with responsibility to self-determination.

“There are men and women here who desire nothing more than that this Terri tory shall once again be worthy of Aus tralia. There are officials yet who want

to see the work of Government a credit to their country, “We need leadership. We need the means of expression. The apathy is not so far advanced yet that we can find neither. The situation to-day in this Territory is a challenge to public-minded men and women to get together, and determine action.”

Editorial Note

Most people who know conditions in Papua-New Guinea will understand and sympathise with the Padre. But his re proaches, cast in the general direction of Port Moresby, should go farther and deeper.

The fault lies not with the frustrated

and silent Administrator at Moresby, but with the Minister at Canberra, whose political associations created for him such a situation that he has been kept danc ing attendance on courts, and judges and Royal Commissions during 1948 and part of 1949. He will be back, on the job, any time now, full of fierce invective and blistering phrases—none of which will hide the fact that the Territories for the better part of two years, in a most critical period, have been drifting helplessly before wind and weather.

There surely is frustration throughout

the Territories—but in no place is it felt more keenly than in the private offices of Moresby’s high officials who are trying to do a creditable job.

The Rev. A. Kroenert and Mr. A. 11.

Orr, Baptist Missionary Secretary, left Brisbane recently by the motor vessel, “Malaita,” to pioneer anew mission field on the Central Highlands of New Guinea.

Mr. Kroenert, who is 28, is an ex-service man. He was trained at the NSW Baptist Theological School and School of Pacific Administration.