The Real Hurdle in Papua-New Guinea

rall Australia’s needs in tea, rubber, rice, cocoa, coffee and fibres (which now are imported from non-Australian countries) were pro duced in Papua-New Guinea, those Territories would have six more major industries to add to their two old-established industries of copra and goldmining.

If P-NG had eight instead of two major industries, Australia might be relieved of her present embarrassing obligation to subsidise P-NG annually to the extent of some £6,000,000 per annum.

P-NG now has rubber fairly well established, and cocoa production is increasing. Both are about where they were before World War 11, when they were introduced without any heavy persuasion from Australia.

Australia needs the goods. P-NG is eager to produce them. Australian Government and P-NG Adminis tration now urge their production. In a circular issued widely a couple of weeks ago, Territories Minister Has luck indicated that high authority will do anything within reason to encourage private enterprise to go in and establish these and other new industries.

Then why, in the name of commonsense, has so little been done either to stimulate the old industries or establish new ones, since the Japs were thrown out of NG seven years ago?

THE answer lies in “politics”, with all that that unpleasant word connotes. After the war, P-NG was handed over to the most bigoted of Australia’s Socialist Ministers, E. J.

Ward; that gentleman created a set up that was much more concerned with pampering natives and attacking “profiteers” than in establishing a sound economy within the Terri tories; with the result that the Territories, until now, have been in an industrial and economic sense partially paralysed.

At the moment, there are maybe 10,000 Europeans busy in P-NG; but the products of the country do not nearly pay for their maintenance — that is done by the £6,000,000 more or less given to the Territories by Australia, and the £1,000,000 which the oil companies are spending annually on drilling. P-NG literally is rolling in money; but it is the Pacific’s outstanding example of a cock-eyed economy.

Canberra is very strongly appeal ing to private enterprise, in the shape

of big domestic and overseas com panies, to go into P-NG and organise big-scale production of aluminium (for which hydro-electric power is promised), sisal hemp (of which Australian fibrous plaster manufacturers want 10,000 tons a year), cocoa (now in short supply, and wanted by Australian confec tionery manufacturers), as well as coffee, tea and rice. High officialdom indicates it will go a long way to assist European enterprise; to en courage native village communities to produce rice, passionfruit and kenaf fibre. A good deal along those lines already has been done by District and Agricultural Depart ment officials.

But neither air-liners nor ships are being overcrowded by the emissaries of private enterprise, headed for P-NG. Why?

THE reason can be very briefly stated: Unavailability of land, labour and transport, and the un certainty of the political future.

Petty officialdom, with its head in the Socialistic clouds, and encouraged in the early days by the Ward- Murray regime, created a feeling of frustration in every direction, and the suspicions then aroused are not easily allayed.

The Minister says that “a Land Settlement Board has been set up to co-ordinate the work of land settlement and development”. What a useless, empty phrase: The Ward- Murray regime insisted, in an ex aggerated sense, that the future land needs of the P-NG natives should take preference over every other consideration; and everyone knows that if anything definite is done in the only way that will really en courage enterprise and the permanent establishment of big industries— namely, by making large areas of good land available very cheaply on a fixed tenure —the howls of the Socialist Wards and the fantastic O’Byrnes would echo through the Parliamentary corridors and start the election-conscious Government somersaulting and scampering for cover.

There is plenty of good land available in New Guinea—millions of acres more than the primitive natives will need for a century or more. But let the timber men who sought leases in 1949-51, and the RSL men who last year tried to plan settlements of coffee-growers tell the world what happens tc appli

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ants for land! In a general way, iere is no land for settlement. lOWEVER, let us suppose that a hard-boiled official with com lonsense does take charge, and does lake land available. The next hurdle labour.

The combined effect of wartime Dnditions and the Ward-Murray ‘gime was the demoralisation of -NG native labour; it is far more (pensive and much less efficient lan in 1939-40. Industries sufficient ► maintain the present P-NG xmomy (which now is based on overament subsidies plus oil search inds) would in any event require labour force bigger than can be ipplied by the H million natives, ithout destroying their communal :e.

On paper, there is no reason why ch industries should not be worked ' indentured Asiatic labour. But :perience has shown that invariably e repatriation provisions break >wn, and the Asiatic labour settles . (Examples already seen in New uinea, New Caledonia, New ebrides, Fiji, Tahiti.) The only answer to that is the rly, rapid training of natives so at they will assist European plant g enterprises to adopt a high gree of mechanisation. years, and even to-day, the coconut planting industry was avely handicapped by insufficiency shipping. As part of its hate mpaign against European enter ise, the Ward-Murray regime olished private ownership of ships, d tried to carry on with a fleet med by the State and operated by >ck-watching civil servants, with dressing results. The non-Socialist )vernment invited private enter ise back into the demoralised field transportation; but private ship pers still are shy and suspicious d the industry is far from making complete recovery. Dependable pping, as well as good roads, is iential to any worthwhile industrial velopment.

But, even if given land, labour d transport, private enterprise— tether big company or individual ■servicemen —is not going to invest >ney and years of hard work in :w Guinea if, following some ction upset, another Eddie Ward going to come along and re roduce Socialism, accompanied by mns of hate against all profiteers a exploiters.

Indeed, private enterprise may not have to wait for another Eddie Ward. The Customs Tariff Inquiry now proceeding in P-NG has all the earmarks of a Ministerial plan to impose taxation of incomes. Such a change would give the coup de grace to any chance of developing P-NG by private enterprise.

No pioneer development worthy of the name ever has been or ever will be achieved except under conditions permitting the pioneers a rich personal reward. Would the in credible hardships of the Morobe goldfields ever have been surmounted, had not men been driven on by the hope of making fortunes? Would men have made the effort to establish plantations and trading stores in re mote and unhealthy jungles if they had thought their incomes would be scrutinised by an implacable tax collector?

New Guinea can be developed by private enterprise—but only if private enterprise is given the fullest oppor tunities to gain (and keep) rich rewards. Most worthwhile effort is motivated by human selfishness. If real development is wanted, it can be secured only by harnessing the profit motive to the cart of human pro gress.

In other words, give private enter prise a real franchise in Papua-New Guinea, and protection against future Socialist interference, and leave it alone. Maybe, the Bulolo Timber Plan (partnership between the State and a rich and powerful private

Company which supplies the operat ing force) is the solution. But the ideal js the encouragement of effort by the individual planter, miner, timber-getter; and in that respect the Bulolo Timber Plan is not ideal.