Why No Ng Land For

New Enterprise?

Letter to the Editor WHY has the Government allowed the larger centres of Papua and New Guinea to fall into the hands of so called Town Planners? Who are such individuals that they should be allowed to hold up the go-ahead ideas of business people who would like to set up various types of business in the larger centres?

I could name a dozen or more people who would like to establish types of busi ness different from the existing houses.

They would not be competitors of firms now operating, but would be an added asset to the centre. I will state my own case.

I have been trying to get land at all the big centres, but have come up against the same old story: You cannot obtain land, as the town is in the hands of the Town Planners!

I have been working in New Guinea for 3 2 years, and I would like to obtain land for the erection of a bakery, at a place where no such business exists. But I am knocked back by the same old cry of Town Planners.

I have worked for 3J years in Bulolo, and I have not been pleased with the so-called bread. I feel I could turn out a product that could be honestly called bread; but I cannot even scratch a piece

of land to call my own, so as to erect the bakery and give good bread to the public.

In these centres plenty of building sites are lying idle, but all seem to be owned by some big company or other which does not wish to sell. Could the Govern ment bring in an Act to enforce the use of this land by taxing it solidly on un improved value?

I am, etc.,

George P. Smith.

Rabaul, 6/12/50.

Mr. Hugh Hickling, who was Resident Agent of the NZ Government in the Cook Islands over many years has now joined the administrative staff of the large Island of Niue.