Territories Talk-Talk

By Tolala

[OSTALGIA is one of those de- I lightfully painful ailments, that pulls at the heart-strings and es you beautiful mental twinges, often inflict it on myself by >wsing through the pages of old lies of the PIM. It would seem ‘ Editor enjoys the same afflic n for he has started a column— -0 You Remember?” which will, doubt, prove popular. I thumbed ■ough a six-and-a-half year old lie and came upon: “. . . Out of Government and Military ap ntees wished upon Papua and w Guinea . . . [he] had the unique tinction of finding favour in the is of harassed Territorians. With the limited scope of wartime ulations and red tape he gave umed planters a fair deal.” Who s he? None other than ‘Donald ECinnon Cleland. This was written en he received his CBE and was >wn as Brigadier. latest reports he seems to be 1 living up to that reputation, hid talking about putting the ck back. In the Editor’s Mail ; (Jan. PIM, p. 17) a correspon it asks the name of the Scan avian ship in the Rabaul harbour en the Japs invaded the place, was the Hoersten, a modem ship 7,000 tons and credited with a ied of 17 knots. hid, apropos of Editor Robson’s tation for the lifting of the iron tain on the Fall of Rabaul, I ;iced in an old PIM issue where • present PMG Anthony, took up i cudgels in the House, but ifley was against “raking over ashes.”

Minister Hasluck recently evaded i issue by saying; “It is the job the historian to hold inquests past events and to allocate, res isibility for past mistakes. That not the job of a man in public airs.”

Veil, he should know. Paul Has k, before he entered political life, s Honorary Secretary of the stern Australia Historical Society six years and for a couple of its a Lecturer in History at the iversity of WA, to say nothing the writing he has done on poli al history for the Australian icial History of War 11.

Jut there seems a tacit under nding between the two Austra i political Parties that the iron •tain shall not be raised on baul. I suppose that when an ier decade passes and the wounds /e healed, someone’s biography 1 divulge the sorry details.

So Flo and Jack Gilmore are try ing to give tourism a boost in the Madang area with their new pub.

Good gatherings for Mine Host and Hostess!

It will not be the first time that they have catered for the weary wanderer or the thirsty traveller.

Back in the twenties they were run ning the Kokopo Hotel (and what tales could be told of that caravan serai!); later they were at Wuna wutung, and later still at the Rabaul Hotel. But the spot where they lived in the Duke of Yorks — at Mioko —and dispensed Islands hospitality, is the ideal place for the tourist, with its golden sands and swaying palms, submarine coral gardens and lapis-lazuli-coloured waters.

There’s money in scenery and changed environment —providing there is comfort thrown in. And one important aspect is that it is all new money. Not the same old pound note that has been circu lating among the locals for months, taut brand, spanking new dough.

Delicate Ground: Reports reach ing me from New Britain indicate that there is a move afoot in one of the village Councils to change the old native custom of inheritance from the matrilineal to the patri lineal system. The inspiration comes from officialdom.

The old Mandate policy was to in terfere as little as possible with native custom if it were not in con flict with law and order. Surely this is a somewhat radical step in these early years of Europeanising the New Guinea native, and must have a tendency to add further to his present social confusion.

Playing with Fire: The Rabaul Town Advisory Council is rightly concerned regarding amendments to Regulation 80 of the Native Admin istration Regulation which lifts the control of natives within the town area between certain hours. The impatience of Administration offi cials in native welfare matters can have very dangerous consequences.

Is it because present officials want ALL the credit for westernising the native, leaving no work of guidance for posterity? I can’t help thinking that a lot of this acceleration, where native policy is concerned, is more for the edification of Lake Success than for Papua-New Guinea.

There was a time when no one could step ashore in TNG without either a return-ticket or a landing bond, which eliminated the pos

sibility of “insufficient means of support,” which I notice was the charge against a man in Rabaul re cently, and for which he collected a month in the boob. A regrettable incident in a black country.

What! No numbers? Recent For Sale advertisement in the SP “Post” directed readers to So and So’s ad dress: “. . . STC Plats. Paga Point.

Bottom Flat. Look for the striped blinds.”

One of the best illustrations of our present cock-eyed world to my mind was a newspaper item headed “Bulolo Homes for NSW” and tell ing of four pre-cut houses being exported FROM Bulolo ON Bulolo for an “open-cut coal-mining pro ject in NSW.” A nice situation, surely, when New Guinea exports houses to NSW!

Incidentally, a two-bedroom, pre cut house was constructed at Bulolo by one European carpenter and two native helpers in 78 hours. It will probably take them 78 days to do the job in NSW.

Anticipating trouble? Said Ad ministrator Murray in a “special New Year message to Territorians”: “. . . they [the natives] will appre ciate that there would be not only no advantage for them, but only the greatest possible loss, in tying themselves to a people opposed to our ideals.”