The Month In Moresby

From Our Own Correspondent

£70,000 Fire; Loss Of Rubber

Pt. Moresby, Jan. 8

TWO spectacular fires occurred in Port Moresby during December.

On the 21st, about 10,000 super feet of timber went up in smoke at Hanua bada; and a week later 2,200 bales of rubber were burnt in a waterfront storage shed blaze. The loss, exclusive of damage to the building, was over £70,000.

The first fire occurred when a Works and Housing crew were cutting a length of iron pipe from the disused oil pipeline at the eastern end of the Hanuabada village. Seepage oil ignited, and flames and smoke immediately engulfed the area.

The blaze raced through 10,000 super feet of stacked timber —most of it bearers and joists for the new Hanuabada village —and licked towards eight recently com pleted houses. The Fire Brigade pumped its tank of water on to the fire and then returned to town for a fresh supply, since it has no pump for getting water from the sea. Meanwhile, an emergency call went out for the Civil Aviation fire truck, from the airstrip, and everything was set for a village-destroying fire, when a lucky squall of rain pelted down and saved the situation.

Amazingly not even the walls of the adjoining buildings were scorched, though a canoe nearby was heavily charred.

Suggestions went round the town that a special pump and hose should be added to the fire fighting equipment, to get water from the sea, and this was still cropping up in conversation when the next fire started.

This broke out in the early evening on December 28, in a storage shed piled with baled rubber, new copra sacks and some other merchandise. Good work by the Fire Brigade kept the blaze from spread ing: but luck again played a big part for, normally, a strong north-west breeze is blowing around that time during the pres ent season. That night, however, there was no north-west wind. Not far away were large stocks of petroleum products, and a shed piled up with paint and other highly inflammable goods.

The remains of blackened and partially melted rubber, and charred bales of copra sacks were being checked when this re port was written, and it appeared that there would be some salvage.

The building itself is a steel frame building with sheet iron walls and roof.

Only odd portions of the steel frame of the walls are buckled by the intense heat of the fire, and can be repaired. The roof, however, sagged like candles set on a hot stove, and some of the centre girders looped to within a few feet of the ground before they cooled and the iron hardened again.

There was both good luck and bad about this fire. The 2 200 bales of rub ber were to have been shipped to Aus tralia in a few days, but it was a marvel lous piece of luck for the town that the north-west wind was not blowing. If it had been, the whole western portion of the waterfront might have been burnt out and the Moresby Hotel across the road at the back of the shed would have

been endangered.

In the Hanuabada fire, also, the weather was a. saving factor, for only a few feet away there was a stack of 50,000 super feet of timber just delivered from Wau.

Not a stick of this was even smoke stained, thanks to the absence of wind and the presence of rain.

AN overseas authority on cocoa produc tion is making a survey of potential cocoa areas for the Administration.

He is Mr. D. H. Urquhart, a former Agri cultural Director for the Gold Coast in Africa.

He has already visited the Gazelle Pen insula and the Talasea area in New Brit ain, where he says the soil and climatic conditions are excellent for cocoa pro duction. He is now visiting Bougainville and will later go on to New Ireland.

After inspecting experimental cocoa plots at the Government Agricultural Station at Kerevat, he expressed the view that the cocoa was of a very high quality, and its growth and yield was equal to or better than anything being produced in other parts of the world. This included

cocoa crops in West Africa, Ceylon, Trini dad and Malaya.

However, Mr. Uquhart gave a word of warning about the number and variety of insect pests which are attacking new growth and pods in the Gazelle Penin sula.

The Search For Timber

TIMBER was , one of the factors which took Mr. C. R. Paterson to the Ter ritory in December aboard the con verted Fairmile craft, the Northern Star, of which he is part owner. Mr. Paterson has business interests in Northern Queensland and, while in the Territory, he hopes to arrange for timber shipments to that State, and also he is interested in the possibility of obtaining a timber lease on one of the emergency permits.

Others on the Northern Star were Brig adier R. Kindell, Commanding Officer of the Eleventh Infantry Brigade at Towns ville, and Group Captain Carr, AOC,

RAAF North-eastern area. Accompanied by Mrs. Kindall and Mrs. Carr, they were on a holiday cruise with special in terest in deep-sea fishing.

Holiday cruises are just business routine for this luxury craft which operates in the Barrier Reef tourist trade. Arriving at Port Moresby just before Christmas, the vessel went on to Samarai and'Lae, and expected to complete the cruise with in a month.

To Grow Rice At Mekeo

Mr. W. Cottrell-Dormer, At His

own request, ha-s been transferred from the position of Director of Agriculture so that he can devote his full time to the development of the Mekeo area. He is now an Agricultural Officer, Grade Three, with headquarters at the Bereina Experimental Station in the Mekeo.

Mr. R. E. P. Dwyer is Acting Agricul tural Director until the vacancy is filled, and rumour has it that he is well in the running for permanent appointment to this position. He was previously Assistant Director.

Mr. Cottrell-Dormer also took another important step during December when his marriage with Miss Kathleen Healy took place on December 19 at Port Moresby.

Mrs. Cottrell-Dormer belongs to a well known Port Moresby family and has spent most of her life in the Territory. They will live at the Bereina Station, where a new house for their use is now nearing completion.

Mr. Cottrell-Dormer’s keen interest in the Mekeo people and in rice-growing will now be unhindered by the demands of other departmental duties; and if he can turn the rich agricultural lands of the Mekeo into the rice bowl of the Territory he will have a No. 1 achievement to his name.

Medical Official Is Praised

IT is seldom that compliments come the way of Administration staff members; but Mr. L. R. Healey, European Med ical Assistant at Lumi, in the Sepik Dis trict, has collected a lot of praise from Health Director, Dr. J. T. Gunther.

The doctor says that Mr. Healey’s work has brought about a big improvement in the health of the Lumi natives, who are still very primitive. He has some tribes now taking anti-malarial drugs on a regular schedule in their own villages, without supervision, and native women are attending his pre-natal clinics. Village Aid Posts have been set up right to the edge of uncontrolled territory, and his next scheme is the establishment of a small farm colony for lepers.

Mr. Healey is just the type the Territory needs—a young man full of energy and initiative, a good mixer with his European

contemporaries, with a. first rate capacity for winning the confidence of the natives.

He likes his job, and he likes outposts, and he is fortunate in having a wife who Is prepared to share his enthusiasm for remote stations, and who, even with a family of three young children, is pre pared to accept the isolation of an out post job.

This month Mr. and Mrs. Healey, who had a brief Christmas holiday in Wewak, will be returning to Lumi, south of Aitape.

Mrs. Healey’s “holiday” included a spell in hospital where her third child was born, a tiny, but healthy, premature baby. The two older youngsters are fine, sturdy chil dren, who spent a good part of their young life at Angorum, on the Sepik River, which undeservedly has not a very high reputation among Administration members as a residential spot.

Fatal Accident

A FATAL sawmilling accident occurred at the Works and Housing sawmill in Port Moresby on December 5, when a departmental employee, Mr. I. B. Taylor, was struck by a piece of timber. He suffered internal injuries and died two days later in the General Hospital at Port Moresby. He was a single man, from Queensland.

Minister And Public Service

Are Irritated

THE tenacious stand by the Public Service Association over the increase in working hours has scored a vital point for public servants. During the protracted discussions on the question the Minister for External Territories announ ced that a Public Service arbitration sys tem was to be established, and an Ordinance for this purpose would be passed within three months.

Mr. Spender made this statement to a delegation of public servants who waited on him in Canberra recently to discuss a number of matters at issue between the Department and the Association.

Mr. John Irvine, Secretary of the Asso ciation, who was one of the delegates, reported that Mr. Spender stated bluntly that many matters referred to him should be dealt with in the Territory, He did not consider they should be referred to a Minister of the Crown as, logically, they should be settled on the spot. The dele gation was told that more authority would be established in the Territory to deal with such questions.

This was certainly good news for the PSA, which has seen far too many ques tions side-tracked by repeated reference to Canberra.

On the matter of working hours, the Ministesr refused to change his decision on the increase, but said he would accept an arbitration on the ruling. This, for the PSA, was the whole crux of the matter, for their protests were mainly based on the unfairness of a decision in which they had no voice.

After Mr. Irvine had reported the out come of the delegation’s discussions in Canberra, the general meeting, called to hear his report, voted a motion of “No Confidence” in the External Territories Department. It is quite probable that a lot of Territory residents outside the Ad ministration staff feel the same way about the Department.

“District Commissioners”

DISTRICT Officers now have a new title—that of District Commission ers—a change foreshadowed last June in Mr. Spender’s policy speech on the Territory in the House of Representatives.

ADO’s, however, are still Assistant District Officers.. The new title of District Com missioner came into effect on December 23. (Continued next page)

Death Of W. R. A. Parker

AN Administration Officer, Mr. W. R A. Parker, died in the Rabaul Hos pital, on January 5, after a short ill ness. He was only 39. He was an Assist ant Agricultural Officer in the Rabau area, working mainly on the promotior of native copra production. He joined the Administration staff at the end of 194( and was stationed first at the Agri cultural centre at Aitape and Sogeri Previously, he had been employed by the Production Control Board at Samarai, am was with the RAN as an intelligence officer at Rabaul before the war. He escaped after the Japanese landing, and three months later, reached safety witl other service personnel and civilians.

Mr. Parker is survived by his widow, i stepdaughter and two other children.

Attempted Suicide

IN Port Moresby, on January 5, an em ployee of the Native Labour Depart ment, John Perrin, 23, was arrestee and charged with attempted suicide. Perrii was found in the Administration SingL Officers’ quarters at Port Moresby, lyinj unconscious beside a revolver. He ha< a superficial bullet wound in the face, th( shot having apparently struck a nervi along the cheek which rendered him un conscious. He made a quick recovery ii hospital, and on discharge was arreste< and charged. He was remanded for eigh days in custody.

Visits By Vlp’S

ANOTHER top-flight oil executive ha visited the Papuan oil-drilling sites He is Mr. Harry W. McCobb, a Vice President of the Standard Vacuum Oi Company of New York, who arrived a Port Moresby on January 5 for a five days visit to the drilling areas. He thei flew in a special plane to Dutch Ne\ Guinea.

Two other industrial magnates, Mi Boex, Managing Director of the Britisl Aluminium Company, and Mr. Watsor Chairman of the New Guinea Resource Prospecting Company, visited the Terri tory this month. They inspected potentia sources of hydro-electric power, coverini some of the ground travelled by Mr. C. ] Viccars in November. Mr. Viccars, repre senting a firm of British Consultini engineers, was acting as technical adviso to Mr. Watson’s Company.

Letter Boxes At Last

THE installation of private-letter boxe at the Port Moresby Office will elim inate a lot of waste time and mud inconvenience to the general public. Un til the boxes were put in, mail deliver; time always saw a. crowd of people stand ing around waiting until the mail wa sorted. The lost working time to indi viduals and private firms was considerable and could not be avoided under the pre vious outdated system of mail distribution Fifty-one boxes are going in on tin first lot, and others should arrive fron Australia within the next few weeks However, lack of space at the Post Offio will make it impossible to meet the tota demand for private boxes, and a lot o people will still have to idle about tin post office whenever the air mails conn in.

The present post office building is en tirely inadequate for the needs of a com munity of 4,000 Europeans; but with tin priority needs of housing and other con struction jobs, there seems to be littli chance of the post office getting into i new building for some years yet.

Rabaul and Lae, in due course, will als< get a quota of private boxes, but th( delivery date depends entirely on th. vagaries of supplies from Australia.