Highlanders
p. 93 · Read in the full issue
Over 6,000 NG Highlanders Work on Coast
From Our Own Correspondent
Port Moresby. June 28.
CENTRAL Highland natives have been leaving Goroka airstrip, Central New Guinea, this year at the rate of 370 a month for service under the Native Labour Ordinance which came into effect at the beginning of this year.
By the end of June there was a surplus of recruits at Goroka —the first time this had happened since the ban on Highland recruiting was lifted early in 1950.
Last year, under the old Ordinance, they signed on for twelve months em ployment, taut this year the term, as with all other recruits, is eighteen months.
Figures for Highlanders in private em ployment during 1950 were: — Central Division . 1.302 Bougainville . . 122 New Britain . . 1,214 Gulf Division . . 78 Morobe ... 1,1.01 Manus 82 !\Jadang ... 1,06 b Milne Bay ... 42 New Ireland . . 205 REPORTS on the Highlanders vary.
Some employers say they work quite well and are the equal of coastal natives. But others say that they can run circles around the coastal boys at the art of dodging work.
Stories are told of Chimbus who sat down to sweep a floor, and who took months to learn even the simplest task.
Yet some plantations have had very good work quotas by these Highlanders, so it seems, as with other tribal groups, the mixture of good, bad and indifferent is much the same.
But good or bad, the labour output of 6.100 Highlanders in 1950 must have made some difference to the Territory produc tion figures.
Mr. Charles Sullivan, of Sydney, well known Islands merchant, plans to leave Sydney on July 19 for New Caledonia and Fiji. Thence he will go on to the United States and Europe, and he expects to be
in London in August. This business trip Vill occupy four or five months—-he will be buck in Sydney before the end of the year.
Mrs. John F. Womersley, of Lae, New Guinea, with her two young children will spend a year with her mother in South Australia. Mr. Womersley, a P-NG Fores try Department official, will join them towards the end of this year.