Month In Fafua-N. Guinea

From Our Own Correspondent

Fort Moresby, April 30.

SAMARAI citizens had a slight shake-up on April 15, when the town ex perienced a sharp earth tremor. The Mission folk at Kwato had a double dose, me violent tremor and a less noticeable me a Quarter of an hour later. All were :elt just before midnight. Nobody has •eported any damage. rERRITORY native co-operatives were represented at the recent Queensland Co-operatives Congress when the Papua and New Guinea Registrar of Co iperatives, Mr. C. J. Millar, and two Papuans put the Island viewpoint to the neeting.

Tore Loko who is a native co-operative nspector in the Gulf Division, and Elliott Elijah, a Trobriand Islander, were the lative delegates. After the Congress the rerritory party went off to inspect Queensland co-operatives, and were away ibout two weeks. [f/HILE the Territory is still importing W all its requirements of sugar from Australia, Queensland and American ugargrowers are again scouring the new Guinea area for sugarcane breeding stock.

Mr. C. C. Hughes and Mr. J. H. Buza ott are conducting the search for Queens and growers, and tall rangy Dr. John Varner is up here for the Hawaiian Sugar ’tenters’ Association. There is no guess work about their quests for both Queens and and American sugar industries have teen getting basic breeding stock from tew Guinea’s wild sugarcane for many ears. Dr. Warner recalls that Hawaiian (tenters sent their first expedition in 928, and others in 1930 and 1937. Queens anders were first here about 55 pears ago.

PORT MORESBY is slowly emerging from its happy-go-luckless post-war stage. The new building regulations, <ut into force some months ago, have hecked the eruption of sub-standard wellings, and now the Public Health lepartment has an inspector checking up n existing residences.

His survey covers sanitation arrange aents and the general condition of esidential properties. In some sections f the town he is going to be a very busy aan for it is no secret that some folk who ave made plenty of complaints about the emporary ‘buildings provided by the idministration or Commonwealth Depart lents, have been the worst offenders in espect to untidy and unsanitary premises.

FN dealing with the matter of tenders L for the new Port Moresby and Lae Hospitals, the Commonwealth author tes have wisely got out of the strait acket of routine.

Realising that the best hope of speedy ompletion of these urgently-needed jobs > by purchase of mass produced pre abricated buildings, firms are being ivited to submit suggestions as to build ig materials and methods of construction, ased on the output of their individual actories. Normally, tenders lay down igid requirements as to materials and onstruction. This time, however, the nly specifications laid down by the Com lonwealth cover the general layout of he hospitals, the actual number and size f buildings, and structural standards.

Even so, it will probably take about two ears before the hospitals are ready for ise.

Both are to be Base Hospitals with tetive Medical Training Schools attached, nd patient accommodation for all ections of the community.

By the time this report gets into print

tenders will probably have been called on both projects. While the conditions at the Port Moresby Hospital are certainly not good, those at Lae are much worse, and for this reason the Administration will urge that priority in construction be given to the Lae Hospital.

TRYING to break the bottleneck of staff shortages, the External Territories Department has been advertising for Territory staff in metropolitan papers throughout Australia.

The bait for typists is £635 a year, in cluding all allowances, and for surveyors

£1,130 a year plus another £25 for married men.

The advertisements also invited appli cations from police officers, storemen, medical assistants, clerks, linemen, and accounting machinists. Judging by the avalanche of employee-hungry firms advertising for staff in Australian papers, the Administration is going to be lucky if its fishing in southern waters yields the desired result.

WHILE the recruiting figures for the Papua and New Guinea Volunteer Rifles are not spectacular, they are much better than many pessimists pre dicted. By the third week in April there were 77 recruits in Port Moresby and 32

at Lae, with a few others awaiting medical examination.

Neither total is very impressive but the general standard and the low average age of the recruits—somewhere around 24 puts a very encouraging angle on Territory recruiting.

Recruiting starts in Rabaul on May 5, and should open at Wau and Bulolo very shortly.

Another interesting angle is that the girls are anxious to get into military uni form, and it is perhaps even more interest ing that Regular Armv officer, Colonel N. P. Maddem, CO of the PNGVR is equally keen to see a part-time women’s auxiliary unit established. He has asked Northern Command for approval to recruit a Territory section of the AAMAS.

BY the end of June Territory Public Servants should have a bit of a wind fall as the Public Service Com missioner, Mr. E. A. F. Head, has set that as his deadline date for the com pletion of adjustments and payments under the new classifications.

To speed up the detailed work involved in finalising this job he has four staff clerks on loan from the Commonwealth Public Service. They expect to be in the Territory about three months, and that should give the local boys a chance to get down to hard facts on the relative advantages and disadvantages of the two services.

A VISIT by the French naval sloop Francis Gamier from April 17 to 20 set Port Moresby residents brushing up their knowledge of French. There was the usual exchange of diplomatic courtesies between the naval ship and government house, and for the sloop’s rank and file there was a bus trip to Rouna and a dance in the new Red Cross Centre.

Fortunately dance steps are pretty much the same in any language and the naval lads and the local lasses made quite a success of the evening.

The Francis Gamier is on its way back to Toulon for a refit after two years’ duty in the Pacific.

ANOTHER RAAF Dakota has come and gone after dropping around 100,000 pounds of rice for the Ilimo evacuee camp.

The air-crew ran into a spell of bad weather when they arrived in the first week in April, and made several trips without being able to even sight the camp due to heavy cloud formations.

Later the weather improved, and the rice drops were resumed with as many as three trips a day.

Meanwhile private charter services are constantly moving in other big consign ments of supplies to Kokoda for transfer by jeep-track to Ilimo. This shuttle service is running up a stiff bill for the Administration, and, so far, nobody can definitely say when the evacuees will once more be self-supporting. The first food :rops are in, and sweet potatoes should mature in three months. Taro takes ibout nine months, and the area also jrows a small quantity of rice.

At the present time the over-all bill ;or foodstuffs, general supplies and air transport is costing the Administration iround £4,000 a week for the Lamington wacuees. No figures have yet been re eased on the total cost to date for Lamington emergency services but it is mown that it will be a staggering total.

OVER the past few weeks the Works and Housing Department staff problem has received a big lift with he arrival of five more civil engineers, aking the total from eight to 13. Nobody leeds to feel alarmed on superstitious grounds for three more engineers are due ihortly, and several more will be coming dong later.

This, of course, does not entirely solve he Department’s problems, for if trained nen were available there is work enough or 50 more key personnel, including ngineers, architects, technicians and upervisors. However, the position has mproved recently in regard to supervisors, ,nd present prospects are that the Apartment’s programme in the coming inancial year will show a marked increase ver the present schedule. The only nag which might snarl up this optimistic irogramme is the financial angle, or at east, that is the viewpoint of one key fficial who perhaps is unduly optimistic n the question of both labour and aaterials.

Up to now the Department has never een able to spend all the funds allocated 0 various jobs simply because there was lobody to tackle them.

PVURING April the tanker Bishopdale \J arrived at Port Moresby from the Persian Gulf, and discharged its otal cargo of 10,000 tons of fuel oil into ulk installation tanks. rHE shadow of present world unrest fell across Anzac ceremonies in the Territory this year, for both at Port loresby and Lae, army uniforms of r olunteer Units were back in evidence.

The Dawn Service against a back round of World War II graves at the tomana War Cemetery was well atten ed, then at 11 o’clock the Anzac March 'as held along Ela Beach to the Mem rial Gates with veterans of both World yars leading the parade. Native ex ervicemen all wore their service medals diich have just been distributed through ut the islands.

Then came about 75 newly-recruited lembers of the Papua and New Guinea hlunteer Rifles marching with remark ble precision for men who have had less ban 20 hours’ training since enlistment, 'ollowing them was the first detachment >f the Pacific Islands Regiment, just nder a score of New Guinea campaign eterans who have re-joined the Army nd will become instructors for post-war ecruits.

Both the CO of the PNGVR, Colonel f. P. Maddern, and the OC of the PIR, lajor W. Shields, turned out very smart nits and this despite the fact that both re working non-stop to establish nhtary camps amid the junk and jungle rowth which has accumulated in the reas they have been allotted.

At Samarai a group of local RSL members and other citizens made the nighttime trip to Milne Bay for the Dawn Service at the Monument on the fringe of Turnbull Airstrip, which marks the first Allied land defeat of Japanese forces and the most southerly point of the Japanese advance. :; :: :: THE Oro Bay evacuation camp which originally accommodated up to 1,200 natives from the Mt. Lamington area was closed late in April. Weeks before

small groups of evacuees had moved back to Popendetta to build a staging village for the women and children. When these were finished and the family groups all transferred to Oro Bay, the men of the tribal groups moved on again, this time to the Awala-Wasita area to set up more or less permanent villages.

All this movement must necessarily be “temporary” until the volcano sets a fixed pattern of activity.

Most of the Oro Bay natives came from

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villages scarcely affected by the Mt.

Lamington eruption but they are located just inside the possible danger zone. As yet they are not allowed to go back and settle in their old homes, but land has been obtained for them nearby. Not only are they much more likely to settle down in familiar countryside, but they can make food-gathering and food-growing trips into their old garden areas.

The old folks, women and children will be moving over the Popendetta track to their new homes as soon as the men have the houses and village sites cleared.

There is a similar movement from Ilimo.

The Administration has a private con tractor salvaging the wartime telephone line between Lae and Finschhafen. The salvage materials, copper wire and steel poles, are to be used for re-establishing the Lae-Wau telephone line and also the Rabaul-Kokopo line.

About 50 per cent, salvage is expected from the Finschhafen line which has sur vived deterioration remarkably well, al though quite a lot of line has been pur loined near native villages. And since this was eight-pair line, even a 50 per cent, recovery will give enough for the normal two-pair line on the Wau and Kokopo connections.

The only really tough snag is that neither job can be started until more linesmen and other staff are obtained from Australia. As the Commonwealth appears to be equally short of skilled men, it might be a long wait before tele phones are again ringing in Wau and Kokopo.

AN auctioneer in Lae, Mr. R. W. Tebb, has just received notice of returns on a shipment of wool sent to Aus tralia through Lae last August. This was the first clip from Romney Marsh sheep imported into the Territory by Mr.

Donald McKinley, of Mumeng, in 1949.

The fleeces weighed an average of 11 lb., and this is believed to be the first wool ever sent to Australia from the Territory.

ATUFI native, Imanga Aimbari, was found guilty in the Supreme Court at Port Moresby, in April, of having unlawfully assaulted Jack William Grimmer and caused him bodily harm.

The assault took place at Itikinumu Plantation, near Sogeri, on April 12, where Mr. Grimmer is a member of the staff. The native was sent to jail for 18 months with hard labor.

DURING liis recent visit to the Terri tory, Mr. J. R. Halligan (Secretary of the Territories* Department) ad mitted that Thursday Island pearling interests had asked to be allowed to em ploy Kiwai natives on their boats. They want 140 a year, and Territory employ ers are quite concerned about the matter.

It is pointed out that there is an acute shortage of labour in the Territory, par ticularly among natives suitable for man ning coastal craft. Further, employers want to know what is likely to happen if the Kiwais are allowed to go, and re ceive the minimum monthly wage of El 2 10/- now prevailing at Thursday Island.

Before the war pearling fleets at T.I. were allowed to employ Kiwais. Mr.

Halligan says the matter is under con sideration but as yet no decision has been made.

AT long last the protracted negotiations for the purchase of the Port Moresby golf course from its native owners have been finalised.

The 40 acres were purchased for £1,035, which will be shared out among around 500 natives. This land deal was held up for six years while claimants to owner ship settled their differences.

The property, of course, was purchased by the Administration, and will be leased to the Golf Club.

A PROMINENT member of the native community at Port Moresby, Ahuia- Ove, died on April 23, and with his passing much of the history of his people was irretrievably lost.

He was somewhere in his middle 80’s and had served several of the early Lieutenant-Governors of Papua. He was also a hereditary chief of his tribe and and had all the old Motuan capacity for remembering involved land inheritances and tribal history.

Ahuia was one of the first Papuans to become literate, and joined the Gov eminent service in the latter years of the last century.

Right to the last he was still very active, and despite numerous warnings

because of the possible danger to his health, insisted on going out on fishing trips. He also walked to church every Sunday morning. His brain was keen and alert, and he could remember, with amazing clarity, details of complicated land purchases made half a century ago.

It is a great loss that no written record was ever made of the historical know ledge possessed by this outstanding native leader.

MAY 9 will be celebrated in Port Moresby as Native Day for the Commonwealth Jubilee Celebra tions, and the tentative programme indi cates that the local Papuans will cer tainly enjoy the occasion.

They will turn out a fleet of decorated trucks to open the day’s proceedings, and with the native flair for decoration this should be well worth seeing.

Then there are sports, speeches and finally a native picture show. Even on a routine work day most Papuans manage to get a lot of fun out of life, and what they will do with a special holiday of their own should really hit the highspots.

The Europeans throughout the Terri tory will start their series of Jubilee cele brations on May 24 with a programme drawn up in each community. In Port Moresby there will be an Empire Day parade by members of the PNGVR and the Police Force, and a Girl Guide pro gramme at Government House in the afternoon and early evening.

MR. W. GRANGER, who has been with the Agricultural Department since July, 1947, as Chief of the Animal Industry Division, is resigning and goes back to Australia some time in September.

THE Qantas Drover—the new Aus tralian-designed and manufactured three-engine aircraft—is back in the Territory after an extensive check.

This was made following several months on test flights over commercial routes from Lae. urngineers found that the machine had stood up very well to its test commercial flights in New Guinea.

The Drover is now based at Port Moresby, and a second Qantas Drover is to come up shortly for operations from Lae.