Magazine Section

Territories Talk-Talk

By "Tolala"

A PORT MORESBY press message tells us that native cricketers from that capital want to journey to Australia next year and clash willows with Aus tralian teams. The report says that next to Mr. Ward, Bradman is the most im portant person in Australia in the eyes of Moresby native cricketers.

This announcement follows close on the heels of another press statement from the same locality that Australia has placed a ban on native servants accom panying their white employers to Aus tralia.

It looks as if the old-time ban, in troduced some years before the war, is being revived, though for the past twenty-odd years it was never abused.

Yards of red-tape had to be unwound before a native was allowed out of the country and then it was usually only to assist married women with children.

The biggest trouble arising from native employees going to Australia usually arose from wandering boat crews, who found too much time on their hands and too much money in their pockets, with far too little control over their movement?.

These are the ones who got into joints and dives and on their return relate weird and wonderful tales of their ex periences around the village fires.

Native cricketers, like native servants, should be kept well out of Australia for everybody’s benefit. * * * SPEAKING of itinerant Islanders: a New York cable service recently thought it worthwhile news to re port that Pastor Salau, a “son of a re formed Solomon Island head-hunter” arrived in New York by the “Mauretania.”

He is being shepherded around the globe by Pastor Stewart, of the SDA Mission.

Of SDA native mission teachers I can only say that I know well the perfect hospitality those clean-clothed natives extend to the weary European traveller along the jungle ways. When tired and footsore, after hours of tramping, re cruiter, trader or scientist mee's up with a respectful teacher with a white toothed smile (betel-nut is tabu to them) who turns on a welcome meal in a comfoit able house.

Pastor Stewart can be proud of the pupils of his church, whether in the city of sky-scrapers or the bush-villages of Bougainville. * * * NEW YORK cables again feature New Guinea. This time it is none other than Jane Todd Wallace, who was well-known around the Keravia and Rabaul districts for many years as a pain-in-the-official-neck.

She is carrying on her work now with UNO, as a self-appointed guardian of the supposedly down-trodden native Both she and her late son, Tom, filed hundreds of complaints to the League of Nations, alleging cruelty and what-not towards the natives, but few, if any of their charges were proved. If nothing else, the lady is consistent in her crusade, though her data must be a bit out of

date. She left Rabaul with the other evacuees in December, 1941, since when she has not returned.

One of her charges to UNO refers to a nine-year-old native who deserted, “was hunted for, arrested by a police-boy with fixed bayonet, handcuffed and driven on foot many miles through jungle to the native prison at Rabaul where he was severely flogged, imprisoned and then re turned to his cruel master.”

Sounds like an extract from “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

The allegation that “slave labour” exists in NG is, and has been, all my eye and Betty Martin for many a long year.

But still you never can tell what im pression may be made upon susceptible Soviet reps, at UNO, who are looking for any peg upon which to hang their adverse criticism of Australia’s administration in NG. ♦ * * GOLD output in NG is having a hard tussle to reach anywhere near the pre-war level.

At present, BGD is the backbone of the gold industry—as it always has been.

Osmar White, well-known author and war correspondent, hands the Company a bouquet in a special article in Sydney “Daily Telegraph.” He calls Bulolo “the only New Guinea town which decently houses its Europeans. Private enterprise re-built Bulolo. Elsewhere most people have to live in slums built of war-time junk,”

THE same author gave a very good summing up of the NG position for the readers of his paper.

They are his own observa tions, made on the spot, but they could easily have been culled from the columns of the “PIM” during the past three or four years. ♦ * ♦

Sir Geoffrey Taylor,

visiting processor to Aus tralian universities, wants to know how New Guinea natives sail their out-rigger canoes into the wind. There fore he will go there and find out for himself. He says that his interest is personal, not scientific.

Sir Geoffrey is Yarrow Research Professor in Cam bridge for the Royal Society, is an expert on the atom bomb and aeronautics and is the in ventor of a special light weight anchor with many times the holding power of ordinary anchors. Sir Geof frey’s anchors held the in vasion harbours on D-Day.

He is a keen yachtsman and invented his anchor because he got fed up with pulling up the 110-pound conventional anchor on his yacht. He tested the invention in all weather around the Irish coast for two summers before it went into large-scale pro duction.

Bits And Pieces: Gov.-Sec., Mr. Bob

Melrose, is having a very well earned rest. His health has not been good. . . . Bos Adelskold, after leave in the big smoke, flew back to TNG at the beginning of this month. , . . Larry Hy land, of the WRC staff at Rabaul, had a three months’ holiday in NSW and Victoria. Now he has returned to Rabaul.

Mrs. Hyland is living in Melbourne. . . .

Miss Betty Wall, of the Rabaul European Hospital, has announced her engagement to Mr. Ambrose Thomas, of Rabaul. Wed ding is scheduled for October next. . . .

Mrs. Jim Vernon, of Lautoka, Fiji, is stay ing with her parents in Sydney. . . . The APC’s oil drilling at Upoia has reached 1,344 ft. and at Hohoro 1,114 ft. . . . Miss June Rodgie, formerly at Concord Repat.

Hospital, left last month for Port Moresby where she will join the local hospital staff. , . . Mrs. Bruce Rogers left last month by air to join her husband at Madang. . . . Frank Everard has taken up a sheep property in the Bathurst dis trict. . . . Governor-General McKell leaves on July 25 for Papua-New Guinea.

Mr. Sydney Harley Johnson has been admitted to practice as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea, according to a recent gazette.

Mr. and Mrs. H. L. Gerrard, of Suva, are at present on a visit to Sydney. It was feared, when the visit was made, that Mrs.

Gerrard’s eyesight was in danger; but she has had a reassuring report from a Syd ney specialist.

Mr. Hugh Greig, the last of his name on Fanning Island, showing a hue old gun of solid brass which must have been used by an old-time Yankee whaler. It is fitted with a swivel and had a double trigger action, with two hammers and two powder holes, to ensure against any mis-fires. Mr. Greig thinks that “ may be the gun loaned to his grandfather, William Greig. to defend himself against any monkey-business by the notorious Bully Hayes. It looks very like a gun for throwing harpoons, and, if so, must have been one of the first models. —Photo by Brett Hilder.