Magazine Section

Territories Talk-Talk

By "Tolala"

mHE arrival in Sydney of the BP liner 1 “Braeside,” on her maiden voyage out from Scotland, reminds old Islanders of one more change in old Pacific fashions.

Once upon a time all the ships with the draught-board funnel-tops had names of seven letters, each commencing with “M.'' There were Moresby, Montoro, Melusia, Marsina, Makambo, Mindini, Matunga, Marella, Macdhui, Muliama, Mangola, Malaita. But now we have Braeside, Bulolo, Burnside; Malaita and Mangola alone carry on the old tradition.

NO sooner do we hear elaborate schemes about New Britain’s new capital site at Rapopo than a real good quria makes officialdom raise its eyebrows and wonder whether Kokopo is any safer than Rabaul, where seismic disturbances are concerned. With all the talk about the danger of Vulcan or Tavurvur (or both) blowing their insides out, I haven’t heard of any precautionary measures be ing taken, such as installing seismo graphs or regular temperature-readings as were in vogue in pre-war days, all of which inspired residents with a certain amount of confidence and enabled warn ings to be issued. We ought io take a leaf out of the Dutch Government’s book, so far as seismic recordings are concerned.

The system in Java, in pre-war days, left little to be desired. And that is a land where eruptions and qurias are common everyday happenings.

Reports received in Sydney mentioned many houses shifting off their piles. This rarely happened in the old days owing to the special design carried out by the Ger man architects. Perhaps our more modern Housing Commission builders have not yet discovered their secret. * * * APROPOS of quria, a word incor porated in Pidgin, and taken from the Blanche Bay (New Britain) dialect, one sees it occasionally written guria, which is incorrect. The hard “g” is expressed by “q” in Blanche Bay writ ing as “g” has the qualities of “ng”—as in most Pacific languages.

By the same token, a number of words derived from that same dialect have been absorbed in general Pidgin-English such as “pur-pur” (flower), and often mis pronounced “pul-pul,” because some natives have a difficulty in pronouncing the “r”; “limlimbur” (to cease work, or to holiday) often mispronounced, by the uninitiated, in varying forms such as “limberlimber,” or “lieberlieber.” A pity it is to see native words so mutilated by Europeans as to lose their original sound altogether. The mutilation of “lavalava” has become so general that very few new comers to NG realise that “laplap” is not its correct pronunciation. It is not a truly local NG word, but was introduced by the early missionaries from Fiji. The mutilated form “laplap” is due to the general confusion of consonants among various tribes. A Rabaul native invariably transposes his “s” and “t” “Mata! Sea ’e ready.” (“Masta, tea is ready.”) While the Buka confuses his “d” and “r,” calling dynamite “rynamite” and diwai “riwai.”

Something should be done —sooner or later—to preserve the purity of native words. Some New Planning Officer might take a day off to work out some practical scheme.

INHERE is no doubt that this is a Planning Age. It has become an epidemic in social and political circles.

Its general acceptance (or toleration, if you so prefer it) is not by any means a guarantse of its success. The British Government had high hopes of its plan for food cultivation on a big scale both in Africa and Queensland, but latest word from these areas is anything but encour aging, and the ground-nuts and the sorghum crops are well below expec tations. Fortunately for the Planners in Queensland, the local farmers—without any fanfare of bureaucratic trumpets— came to the rescue and saved the situation. * * * A GRIM reminder of Ben Chifley’s grab on the unexpended moneys in the War Damage Insurance Fund came to my ears the other day, when the Taree (Manning River* Council sent out an SOS to other municipalities requesting them to co-operate in an endeavour to secure these funds for the relief of the flood-suffering residents in the Macleay River district.

Months ago, of course, Chifley transferred the £5 million-odd left over from War Damage and soaked it into Gratuities, or somef such account in his voluminous ledger, although many would say it merely went into Consolidated Revenue.

It’s a wonder to me that the Australian premium -payers made no demur over that action at the time. Probably because

“Gratuities” is a fund wreathed in senti ment and patriotism. * * * THE discussion last month (PIM, page 28) over the social recognition of half-castes takes me back to the old German days and the manner in which they determined official \ recognition ol persons of mixed blood. Each case was dealt with on its merits and was governed by the individual mode of living adopted by the half-caste: dress, food, education and habits. If the male was capable— mentally and socially—of serving the prescribed period in the German Navy then he obtained European status. The Germans—always sticklers for convention in those days—were, nevertheless, far more tolerant with regard to mixed blood than we were in pre-war years. Perhaps they could afford to be, owing to their assured position with the native people.

IT’S not so long ago that External Territories, when advertising for cadets and Patrol Officers for the Territories Service, substantially para phrased the old adage about the Field Marshal’s baton being in every soldiers’ haversack: that the attainable goal for every Patrol Officer was the top rung of the ladder —Administrator. But the Robert Stanley Richards appointment as Administrator of Nauru once again dis pels that illusion. If the policy of “only politicians get the plums” is to continue in External Territories, as it does in

External Affairs, then the Service will lose many of its more-promising servants. * * *

Ciharles Barrett, Frzs, Cmzs,

1 the Naturalist, recently returned from NG, discovered some valuable data on the flora of New Britain, com piled by one of the Sacred Heart Fathers, and fortunately preserved during the Jap occupation in a kerosene tin. If all the data collected by these mission Fathers could be published it would greatly add to the world’s knowledge, especially in matters anthropological and botanical.

Bishop Scharmach is himself an expert botanist, and his knowledge stood him in good stead when the Japs held the big end of the stick around Vunapope, and food and medicines were scarce. Charles Barrett could do the world a great ser vice by digging up a few more scientific MSS from these missionaries, and the publishing of them could give Silent Knight Hallstrom another opportunity of letting the world know more about New Guinea. Naturalist Barrett’s son, by the way, lives in the Rabaul district.