Magazine Section

Territories Talk-Talk

By "Tolala"

NEW GUINEA, in post-War II days, has had a Ward, a Spender and now Hasluck. We hope.

HE has had considerable experience with UNO, therefore he should have all the necessary answers to Trusteeship matters. Whether his outlook on Terri torial questions will be influenced by his UNO activities in New York remains to be seen. He has been a journalist, and Mem bers of the Inky Way usually enjoy the happy faculty of being adaptable. His UN duties were varied: from Director of the Post-Hostilities Division to Acting Repre sentative on the Security Council of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Paul Meernaa Caldwalla Hasluck an nounces that he hopes to tour the Ter ritories soon. That was on May 21. It will be interesting to hear what his im pressions are of Up There, and also what Up There thinks of him. Like many others. I would have preferred a man with some personal knowledge of the people, European and Native, whose des tinies he will control.

THAT was a timely “plea for the ex hausted European women of NG” (PIM, May) and deserving of sup port from every direction. More especially in these days of high fares when a greater part of a family’s savings is spent in get ting out of the country, then getting back again. And in many instances the leave is compulsory—or else.

Back in the German days, the Govern ment had a sanatorium at Toma, up in the hills back of Kokopo, or Herbertshohe as it was then called. It was a favourite spot in which malaria patients could re cuperate and enjoy the luxuries of cool nights and fresh meat and milk, for in those days refrigeration was unknown and nearly everything in New Britain and the surrounding islands came out of tins.

A chap named Hoerstmann was in charge and he did a good job of work.

When the Aussies came in 1914 the gov ernment was not interested. Australians, as a rule, like to live the hard way.

But later, several government officials erected their own week-end homes in the Toma district.

Over on the mainland of NG the favourite convalescing station was at Sat telberg Mission Station, and a very nopu lar place, too, in the ’2o’s and ’3o’s.' It’s a wonder to me that some of our up-and-coming air companies have not established a NG highland resort.

WOOL sales from the Central NG Hall strom Experimental Station do not seem to indicate that the Silent Knight Man will be included among pre sent-day wool barons. Average price for the 16 bales was only slightly over 56d at the Sydney wool sales the middle of last month. Top price was 105 : id alb for a bale of AAAH XB.

SO the abandonment of Rabaul is on again and Administrator Murray is “urging all possible speed” in this regard. It is 14 years ago exactly (May 29) since Vulcan burst out of Rabaul Harbour on that sunny Saturday after noon and the cry of abandoning the town started a few days later, it has been

repeated at irregular intervals ever since. Billy Hughes came up in the first official passenger plane to arrive in 1937 and started plugging for Salamaua; then came the Capital Site Commission who selected Lae; and so it has been going on.

Despite all this urging, which has been going on now for over a decade, I’ll still have a few bob on Rabaul being the centre of commerce for a good few years yet— as I said last month.

TALKING of volcanoes and the like: When I read the report of the al leged Bougainville outbreak last month the years slipped away to a time when I was scratching through the country in back of Arigua and Mabiri properties on Bougainville, and came across hundreds of acres of dead trees with the ground covered with grey volcanic mud —a relic of some previous volcanic eruption in those parts. Too far, in my estimation, to be from either Balbi to the north, or Bagana in the south-west.

REPORTS in Sydney newspapers fea tured the fact that some oil fuel got mixed up with the water supply of the Malaita when she came down from Samarai last month. Most of the pas sengers, it was stated, were forced to drink lemonade the rest of the trip.

Sounds a bit screwy to me. The tastes of Malaita passengers must have changed a lot in these post-war years. I have made a few trips on her and the favourite beverage was always beer, despite the tee total propensities of Skipper Bill Wilding.

New Guinea folk must be losing their punch.

THIS modern thought of racial equality, which is possessing so many of our present-day politicians, can be car ried too far. Mr. Clive Evatt, who is NSW Chief Secretary, recently stated that regu

lations denying abos the right to have intoxicating liquor have been temporarily repealed, and if successful, will be re pealed altogether.

That is a dangerous procedure with which to experiment; it is to be hoped that the new Territories Minister has no views of a similar nature.

IN pre-War II days one might see occas ionally tripping along Mango Avenue in Rabaul a rather leggy lass, with pleasant face and two long fair pig-tails hanging down her back. You knew then that the Hemings from New Ireland were in town for she was young Gill Heming.

For the last two Empire Days in Syd ney' Gill has held the centre of the stage in the tableau staged by the Royal Em pire Society at the Trocadero. for she has been chosen to represent Britannia.

You can imagine into what an attractive and dignified young lady the pig-tailed lass has developed.

Gill works on a Sydney newspaper and has already reached the stage where she writes special articles under her own name.

Once again young New Guinea makes good. I am tipping that we shall hear a lot more about Gill and her journey along the Inky Way.

YOUNG European men in NG were “very eager’ f for feminine companion ship reported Capt. E. A. Barr, the Government Stevedore who arrived at the end of May in Sydney from NG by the Bulolo. He went on to say that there were “two European men to every woman on the island.”

Presumably he meant, “every European woman.”

These newspaper interviews, when the ships come in from the North, are often dangerous encounters and create untold embarrassment to the interviewed when

he or she sees what he casually spoke of in cold print, with large glaring head-lines.

Capt. Barr’s remark on the obvious recalls to my mind the early days of the Expro Board in NG when all the staff consisted of returned servicemen from the First War, and an edict was issued that their wives could not accompany them to the Territory.

The disproportion of the sexes, in the European community then, was more like 100 males to one female. And that was something to moan about. The diggers formed a branch of the RSL and the ban on wives was one of the first complaints sent south to the RSL HQ. Shortly after wards the ban was lifted. 1 HEARD over the air on May 29 that a missionary agricultural expert was leaving for NG “to teach natives how to be self-supporting.”

Of all the silly, stupid statements made that appears to be about the limit. If there is a race of peonle who are econo mically, socially and politically self supporting then it is the Melanesian native in his natural state, before he has been contacted, or contaminated, by Europeans. There is plenty of scope to teach him hygiene and to raise his stan dard of living certainly, but not self support.

Personally, I would welcome the incul cation of some of the principles of primi tive NG natives into our present-day system of so-called civilised living in Aus tralia, with its snarls and strikes and sabotage and where no one is “self supporting.”

I have seen, 40 years ago, heathen natives possessed of far higher ethical standards and more humane in their treatment of their fellow-men than many

of the 1951 residents in the heart of Syd ney.

Contact with Europeans is usually the cause of the native losing his self-support.

IT was good to hear that Harry Downing had had a spot of promotion with a double job in Norfolk Island (PIM May, p. 15).

Wherever he is Harry will be the ever obliging personality which has made friends for him over a wide expanse of NG. He is probably the most popular man in the Department.

I first came in touch with him in the middle ’2os when he had just completed a trip through the Morobe district with Cecil Levien and had come back to Rabaul with some excellent photographs of his trip. He is one of the best photo graphers who ever snapped a shutter in NG. At that time he was attached to PH Dept. A good cove.

BITS AND PIECES: Margaret Cilento recently held an exhibition of her paintings in London. She returns to Australia by Stratheden in July. Her Daddy, Sir Raphael, meanwhile, has had an interesting series of his articles pub lished in a Sydney newspaper. He wrote on Middle East Politics, and was very il luminating. . . . Mrs. J. W. Campbell, one time of Buka Passage, has married again and is now Mrs. England. She left for England in Orcades recently for a few months’ tour.

Mr. and Mrs. F. Leydin returned on May Bulolo after having spent three months leave in Australia. Mr. Leydin is business manager for New Guinea Goldfields, Ltd.