Agricultural Enterprise

Treatment Of Pioneer

Planters

No Encouragement of Agricultural Enterprise

Letter to the Editor 1 N Australian Liberal MP, after a visit L to New Guinea, said in the House that it was deplorable that Australia id done so little planting there in the uritory since she acquired it.

If the treatment accorded by Australia two ex-Servicemen who became anters is any criterion, the lack of anting is not a surprising thing. These r o purchased virgin jungle in the early venties, planted a large area, and some •w managed to carry on when copra was low as £4 per ton. Although near 60, e of those men served with the Austra n Army in New Guinea in World War : and then he took his discharge there and went back to the overgrown planta in and soon, under incredible difßcul s, began producing copra. For some ree or four years, during the very diffi- It rehabilitation period, the two owners iduced considerable copra from their rd-won plantation—and the Govern :nt’s Production Control Board de cted up to £8 per ton from the proceeds each ton sold as a contribution to the ibilisation Fund. rhen, being close to the retiring age, ; two owners decided to sell out, and ? in more comfortable and healthier iditions, in Australia. When retiring, •y naturally asked the Australian Gov iment whether they were entitled to a urn of the monies that had been taken m them for (a) stabilisation and (b> operations of the Production Control ird (which has accumulated a substan surplus). The so-called Liberal Gov ment informed them that none of the bilisation Fund is being returned to planters who subscribed to it, and t the PCB profits will be distributed ntually—but not to planters who, in meantime, have sold out or ceased produce. So the two pioneers—who, ween them served in two World Wars, e 50 hard years to the Territory, and tributed substantially to both PCB . Stabilisation Funds—get nothing. ; it any wonder that, when pioneering enterprise are made the playthings politicians, the men in New Guinea ise to show any confidence in the ire and incur the expense and heavy »ur of planting up new areas? They take all they can out of the place le the prices guarantee some profit— , after that, the politicians and the >rists can have it. Can you blame n?

I am, etc.,

ney. 4/51.

Old Rabaulite.

Editorial Note

tE case referred to by our correspon dent is well known to the PIM.

Those two men toiled with, but h harder than, their native labourers, t through the depression years, and ehqw kept the planting going, and the alive. One of them took employment listant places, so as to provide some be necessary cash to keep the planta going. The other partner skin-dived ind more or less dangerous reefs, so o encourage his boys in the search for hus and green-snail shell. He made 5 up and down the coast in a crazy )e, and bought and transported coco ’• In an endeavour to keep the young [is tended, he made occasional very :h recruiting trips, to get labour for anc * a * ee) f° r his neighbours, then, when their palms did finally

begin to bear, copra was at the record low of £4 per ton!

The profits accumulated by the PCB have been made out of copra taken from the planters over a definite period. These Government bodies usually maintain large staffs of clerks. Surely it would have been easy to keep a record of the copra supplied by particular planters over par ticular periods, and credit them accord ingly with a proportion of the profits made by the PCB in handling their copra.

It seems most unfair that these two men should be deprived of the proceeds of their copra simply because they have sold out. As our correspondent says, that kind of bureaucratic action does not en courage any new planting in New Guinea.

Mr. Verco Cook a farmer of South Australia will leave shortly for New Guinea where he will undertake farming work for the Anglican mission.