Australia’S Million-Natives Headache

Airways Chiefs Shrewd Observations On New Guinea

SOME shrewd and interesting observations on the present and future condition of Papua and New Guinea were made by Mr. Hudson Fysh, chairman and managing director of Qantas Empire Airways Ltd., in an address broadcast in Australia on July 31.

Qantas, controlled by the Australian Government, now supplies Papua and New Guinea (as well as Norfolk Island Fiji, New Hebrides and the Solomons) with most of their passenger and freight air services; and Mr. Hudson Fysh was recently in the Territories. The follow ing are extracts from his address: —

War And Its Effects

WITH the War and the Japanese invasion, realisation of the importance of New Guinea was forced on Australia, and particularly on thje Australian Forces who fought a game of hide-and-seek with death in the mosquito-infested swamps and jungle. In Rabaul alone there were at one time 128,000 Japs, whom Australia alone could never have unearthed from their elaborate system of tunnels and fortifications.

When flying along over New Guinea we see that the shores are here and there strewn for 500 miles, from Port Moresby to Rabaul, with sunken ships, stranded Jap destroyers and landing barges. At Rabaul the harbour is still full of wrecks, including a large Japanese flying-boat silhouetted just under the water. Pill boxes, old trucks, and the nose of a Zero or two can still be seen protruding from the fast-enveloping jungle.

Australia is a growing power centre, a bastion of the democratic way of life m this part of the world; and lying right

athwart its northern shores is New Guinea, with a population of some 7,500 whites, 2,500 to 3,000 Chinese and (at a guess) 900,000 natives, most of whom still live in a primitive stone-age state. Ex cepting Australia and Greenland, New Guinea is the largest island in the world —and one of the richest and most unde veloped.

Very great progress has been made in three years in the rehabilitation of the country following the War years. Despite all the difficulties - common to a dis turbed and re-adjusting world-things are really starting to move m New Guinea and great changes are under way.

Pioneering—And Paludrin

THERE is nothing drab about Papua A and New Guinea. They are vital, and make a strong appeal to all enterprising spirits attracted by develop mental work in a primitive country and amongst primitive people. The job which the white population is doing there is fully in the great tradition of the hardy Australian pioneers of last century.

New Guinea is a good colonising country. Much is heard about the ravages of malaria, but in many parts fever is now very rare. A wonderful new discovery has completely changed the pic ture. The magic word is Paludrin, a drug developed by Imperial Chemical Indus tries in England and introduced into New Guinea in 1947. Paludrin not only cures malarial fever, but is 100 per cent, effec tive as a (preventative, if the easily swallowed little pills are taken as pre scribed. Furthermore, there are no un pleasant drug effects as is often the case

Paludrin was the final thing necessary to make New Guinea a good colonising country.

Coffee and cocoa await exploitation, while tea, tobacco, rice and other such crops are being experimentally farmed.

Timber Possibilities

IN regard to timber, the pine forests at Bulolo are, of course, of consider able value to Australia with her soft wood shortage. There is also a quantity of cedar. Houses and furniture are being built in the Territory of these materials, principally pine.

Bulolo Gold Dredging Ltd., at their mills, have done a very fine job in de signing and prefabricating homes made from the Bulolo pine; and apart from comfortably housing their own staff these houses are now being shipped out to other parts of New Guinea, most of them by air. It takes about five DC-3 Freighter loads to transport a house.

At Lae I saw a nice house of 10½ squares nearing completion, which anyone would be happy to own in a warm climate, was flown down from Bulolo by Qantas and will cost about £1,200 completed, in

eluding air-freighting,

Air Transport: A Vital Factor

ONE of the most interesting things about the Territories is the predominant part which air transport has taken in their communications sys tern. This has been due to the almost impenetrable and mountainous nature of the country and the general difficulty of road making, and of road maintenance owing to tropical rains, You have heard of the magnificent work of Guinea Airways and the other pioneers in opening up the gold-fields by air, when even heavy equipment (suen as gold dredges) was all flown in. We

of Qantas, feel privileged to be set the task of carrying on this work in which we first became interested as the result of a business deal shortly after the end of the War, when Carpenter Airways were bought out and we established the Bird of Paradise Service from Sydney to Lae.

At The Outposts

OUR most recent development in this respect is the inauguration of a Catalina Flying Boat Service, at the request of the Administrator (Colonel J. K.

Murray) to cover points which cannot be reached by the land-plane network. Between the two types of aircraft, Qantas now covers practically the whole of the islands. Including the Sydney-Lae Service and other Island Services, the system

involves some 6,964 miles of unduplicated air route mileage. These local land-plane and flying-boat services and charters are carrying half-a-million pounds of freight a month, and about 500 passengers, and 5,000 lb. of mail.

In Papua I flew out on the Western Cata lina circuit and visited Lake Murray, near the Dutch border. This is a typical out post station and missionary post, where their mail and supplies used to arrive every three or four months. The District Officer and Resident Doctor came out to meet us in canoes paddled by natives to hand over the mail in a potato bag and receive in exchange a load of medical supplies and provisions, At our next stop, Kikori, it was canoes

again; but here we tied up to a mooring buoy in the fast flowing river. A load of 300 mud-crabs was taken on for Port Moresby.

From the lakes, marshes and rivers of the south-west and the Fly River delta area it is a great contrast to visit the Highlands plateau, across the Owen Stanleys in New Guinea. Here is open country dotted with villages, served by mountain streams, and flanked by mounts going up to 13,000 feet or more. It has an invigorating, healthy climate, above the fever belt, and its primitive inhabi tants are administered by District Posts.

It is these posts that are served from Lae and Madang by Qantas freighters, sup plies being flown in to Karowagi by Douglas freighters and distributed from there to the smaller landing-strips by Dragon aircraft.

Primitive men meet the planes at these stops. They are in their primitive state, many carrying bows and arrows and other weapons of warfare.

Warfare and head hunting seem to have been the principal occupation of these people, who had their sorcerers, but apparently little religion. Tribe fought against tribe and village against village, as in the dawn of our own civilisation, 2,000 years or more ago. The currency in the Highlands, and indeed in many parts of New Guinea, is still shell or tobacco.

A District Officer in the Highlands told us of the natives’ interest in football, which is being encouraged, but matches have to be watched carefully, and police boys sent to supervise each game. He had a Corporal killed —“arrowed” —at one only the other day. They start eleven a side; but often end up in a free-for-all, in which the several hundred spectators join, often ending up in a rush for bows and arrows, concealed nearby.

The District Officers are undoubtedly doing a very fine job with the natives, from these comparatively civilised high land areas to the remote jungles, where head-hunting and cannibalism are still at times practised. I heard of one party on the Sepik River who recently went into a village where a boy had just been eaten.

“A Problem, Indeed”

THE problem of New Guinea is a prob lem, indeed. It seems to involve all the reconciliation which is possible between the essential need to adequately develop the country commercially in the interests of industry, trade and food pro duction, and the safety of Australia — which is the ordinary law of self preservation. On the other hand, the interests of the native inhabitants must be considered. Still vastly primitive and, as I have so often heard expressed, “just like children,” their problem is a difficult one. Over-harshness and exploitation are not the answer; neither are over generosity, and the practice of something for nothing.