Pitiful

Australia’s £ Looks Pitiful In N. Caledonia

From R. W. Robson.

Noumea, Oct. 2.

THIS country should be a sort of Mecca for Australian tourists. It has a clear, pleasant healthy climate over much of the year; it is just sufficiently far inside the tropics to supply the real Pacific Island setting —its long northeastern coast is lush, colourful and lovely; there is absence of any evidence of disease; and in the quaint, old-world, particularly French town of Noumea, containing the most extraordinary racial mixture in Melanesia, there is something that the visitor will get nowhere else in the South Pacific, But the few Australian travellers who come this way usually flee the place, declaring that they will not recommend it to any friends who are not millionaires. The reason is the inability of the French to control their economic system. Their charges have to be experienced to be believed.

All visitors, irrespective of country, remark on the high costs. Aus tralians, because of their depreciated currency, feel it more than most.

The New Zealander or the English man gets 170 francs for his £; but the Australian only 140. Australia, of course, finds it possible to sell her products here, despite the natural inclination of the French to buy as much as they can from France; but when they want to travel in New Caledonia the Australians meet the other side of the picture.

In a cafe in Anse Vata, outside Noumea, I ordered a small bottle of beer for a local man and myself, and an “orange drink”, bottled in Australia, for his wife. The bill was 65 francs—exactly 10/- Australian.

The bottle of beer cost 6/-, the orangeade 4/-. Later, a Noumea wholesaler told me that he sold that particular beer to cafes at 18 francs per bottle. My cafe man made 150 per cent. That is typical—l ex perienced it in all directions.

I took a man to lunch in a f.a.q. restaurant. We both had some small local lobster with mayonnaise, and a small beefsteak with chip potatoes.

The charge for that was 200 francs (just under 30/- Aust.). I could not get a taxi in the town for less than 5/-. A taxi from the town to Anse Vata (where the South Pacific Com mission is, three miles out) costs at

least 10/-. The charges for airmail postage are fantastic.

The South Pacific Commission, at Anse Aata, has a staff of between 30 and 40—a considerable proportion of them young people, from Australia and New Zealand. They are well-paid, and they are provided generally with quarters and mess, at cost prices—and, for this purpose, the New Caledonian Government waives Customs charges. These people should have a happy time in this pleasant climate; but the Noumea charges for almost every kind of service and amenity are so ferocious that they are virtually isolated there at Anse Vata.

I remarked to some of the bright secretarial girls, there on an 18-

months’ contract, that they probable would be brushing up their Erenow conversation. I was told that, as though the Commission is suppose; to be carried on in two languages they are learning no French at all— they are driven in upon their oww social resources at Anse Vata, am rarely come into contact with tH; French people, or with Ne’e Caledonia generally. From the staß viewpoint, the South Pacific Conn mission might just as well have ii headquarters on tiny Lord Howv Island, off the NSW coast.

As Fiji well knows, a country cam not develop a tourist trade without plenty of good hotel accommodation in the chief town. Noumea in thsx respect is poorely equipped. The tw*

chief hotels in the town are much below tourist standard, but they charge very high rates. Out on beautiful Anse Vata Bay, near the Commission headquarters, is what is called the Biarritz Hotel—eight bungalows, each with three or four jelf-contained bedroom suites—2oo francs per day, with meals, taken in i little cafe, additional. Quite good; jut dreadfully expensive, and dread ially isolated, and no social amenities whatever.

I was anxious to have another ook at the beautiful northeast coast, luring my brief stay, and I planned o hire a car. But as soon as I nentioned such a hiring, the mer :hants bared their teeth hungrily and harpened their knives; and I went turriedly into reverse.

The people here, in their own lefence, give details of the high cost if everything—labourers are at fancy trices, artisians demand 300 francs ►er day. Nonetheless it is a crazy conomy; and, until it is altered in ome way, New Caledonia cannot xpect to get any worth while tourist raffle from the Sterling countries.

Next year, 1953, New Caledonia dll celebrate the 100th anniversary f its establishment as a French olony; and a small committee of jading Noumea residents plan, as art of the celebration, the inaugura on of a vigorous policy of en ouraging tourists.

They have their task ahead of lem. They have a wide and iteresting variety of tourist attrac ons to offer; but before the traffic an become valuable, they must solve le three primary problems of ccommodation, transport, and cur mey exchange.