Highlands Opened To Recruiting

More Labour For Papua

New Guinea

From Our Own Correspondent

Port Moresby. Jan. 2.

IN an effort to improve the Territory’s native labour position, the Adminis tration has decided to allow natives

from the Central Highlands to be em ployed in any part of Papua and New Guinea.

Up to now, employers have not been able to take Highlands natives below 3,500 feet, which has meant that, except in a few cases, the natives have not worked out side the Highlands.

Their movements have been restricted, to protect them from diseases such as TB and typhoid, to which they are highly vulnerable. Under the new arrangement, recruiting is permitted throughout the Central Highlands, but it must be done by Government officers and the natives must undergo an immunisation course before leaving the mountains.

They must be employed where there is a doctor or medical assistant who can finish the vaccinations started in the Highlands.

Private employers who want labour from the Highlands must notify the de partment of Native Labour. The Depart ment will recruit the natives and have them immunised, after which it is up to the employer to collect them.

Private recruiters are barred because the Administration does not want any more people than necessary coming into contact with the natives before they are immunised.

It is considered that the opening up of the Highlands will go a long way towards solving the labour shortage.

According to official estimates, the Ter ritory needs another 10,000 native labourers. At the end of October, Papua had 13,653 native labourers and New Guinea 31,597, a total of 45,250.

Two new Assistant Conservators of Forests for Fiji, Messrs. G. W. G. Cottle and A. N. Loweth, arrived in the Colony in December.