From Notes Made in New Guinea

By R. W. Robson

Lae’S Amenities

rKEN around by hospitable Orme Denny, I was impressed with the amenities of the new Lae. The Returned Soldiers, at an expenditure of £lO,OOO, have got themselves a remarkably fine club house, on the Terrace overlooking Huon Gulf. All mod. cons., includ ing a magnificent dance-floor and a garden lounge. There is no paid staff. First-class service is supplied by member-volunteers, working on a roster.

The fine 9-hole golf course is now the Europeans’ most popular daily rendezvous—a delightful spot. The Club has a liquor license, and a modern golf-house is planned.

Queer Stuff In Cans

I MET the representative of a big Australian firm of meat-packers.

He was “spitting chips.” Some retailer had just shown him a line of canned meat. He dragged me along to see it. It was rubbish— scraps and bits and pieces, mixed with hide.

“Britain issued import licenses for Australian canned meats,” said my friend. “A lot of Australian packers of ho status rushed in for the easy money. They destroyed the reputation of Australian canned meat, and the market turned against them. Now they are trying to work the stuff off onto the Islanders. They are going to ruin this market, as well, unless the trade is put under some control. We old-established concerns, who pride ourselves on quality, are getting the backwash. Ask the Health Department. They are concerned because a lot of native workers get their wages in rations—and receive this rubbish.”

I asked the Health Department.

They closed the door—and opened their hearts. I suggest that it is time that meat-packers be made to conform to some standard of quality.

Raw Deal For Medicos

Historians win agree that much credit for the good work done in Papua-New Guinea by the Health Department in these post-war years must go to the New Australian doctors mostly young Central European men with good tnedical degrees, who escaped the Communist invasions, but could not ?et past the British Medical Asso ciation barriers in Australia, Health Director John Gunther’s luck was in. He had no hope of jetting qualified Britishers for his nedical services; but the European

loctors desperately need jobs—

md the Territories’ posts, with fair

pay and many privileges, repre sented a pretty good port in the post-war storm. The doctors have repaid all they owed Australia with excellent service.

But they are getting restive.

They bitterly resent the monopoly which the BMA maintains against them. They cannot be admitted to practice in Australia unless they have done a full three years’ study at a recognised University—the good service they have given in the Territories counts as nothing. They are not even allowed to use the

title “Doctor” when on leave in Australia. Yet their confreres who chose to go to the United States instead of Australia, are admitted there to practice after one year of hospital work and the passing of an examination.

It is time that someone defied the BMA phalanx and presented the case of the New Australian doctors to the Australian public.

Malahang Versus Nadzab

WHENEVER there is a dull moment in Lae’s hotels and clubs, the talk switches auto matically to Malahang versus Nadzab, and the argument grows bitter.

The plan is to close the Lae air

strip, and put in an international airfield somewhere close around.

Officialdom (which I think includes Qantas) favours the flat country at Malahang, three or four miles northeastward of Lae. It will be costly construction, but an excel lent site, accommodating the great air-liners which eventually will call there, en route between Asia and Australia.

The opposition wants the present Lae airstrip to remain, right on the edge of the town, and points out that, if an international airport is needed here, there is the magni ficent field built at Nadzab (25 miles up the Markham from Lae) by the engineers of the American- Australian Army. When the war ended, Nadzab could take the biggest bombers in any number, and fuel was pumped there through 25 miles of line, from Milfordhaven (Lae’s seaport).

Since the war ended, our bureau cratic planners have let Nadzab return to the jungle, and the broken-up pipe-line now enriches many a junk-yard. The opposition argues, however, that Nadzab could be restored to international status much more cheaply than Malahang could be built.

The Indomitable “Scotty”

rpHE popular head of Lae’s chief A bakery, “Scotty” McEwan, has gone South for medical treat

ment, and may go on to see specia lists in America. The fearful in juries he received in an accident— a brick floor fell on him when he was rebuilding his bakery after the war—have not broken his spirit.

He has been able to get around in a wheel chair and a car specially fitted up with control gadgets; but he has suffered a good deal, and now the surgeons are asked to make another attempt to restore power to his lower limbs.

Only Two Parers Left

I WAS interested in Rabaul to meet Bernie Parer, now the owner of a flourishing planta tion in New Britain. He told me there now are only two Parers left in NG—he and Cyril, a cousin, We talked of the old pre-war days in the Bulolo Valley, when every third man on the sidewalks of Wau seemed to be a Parer.

Ray, famous pioneer airman, and now living in retirement in Aus tralia, was the first Parer in. How many remember the tired crate which Ray, en route, landed on Ela Beach, • the first land-plane at Moresby? Two families—uncles, brothers and cousins—were not far behind him.

A Victim Of Office Wallahs

Inspector Steeples—whom I found sitting behind a tidy desk in the Rabaul police station—told me that

his status still is not defined. He was a police officer in New Guinea long before the war; he resumed duty after the war, and then, in quite recent times, it was discovered that officialdom somewhere had blun dered in keeping his record cor rectly, so that it was possible to challenge his legal status before the

courts. His standing as a police prosecutor is now all clear, but it still is possible, as a result of the muddle, for some junior officer to assume authority over him.

I suppose that if there were no bureaucrats to lose official files and fall over their own feet, there would be correspondingly less for us press men to write about. But that is small consolation for Inspector Steeples, an efficient officer who is not to blame for the sins of the office wallahs.

Untapped Timber Wealth

T7ILYING between Finschhaven J; and Lae, I noted a vast area of heavy forest, in which big trees were prominent, and asked why this wealth was not being exploited.

It appears that this is the timber area about which there has been discussion, and disappointment.

The Administration will lease it to timber firms on generous terms; but none will tender.

The catch is in the size and character of the rivers between the area and Lae. The successful tenderer must bridge them; and those wide rivers, running down from the mountains of the Huon Peninsula and liable to sudden, fierce floodings, not only menace all bridges, but frequently change

course through the coastal plain.

The solution seems to be the de velopment of a shipping port some where along the coast; but they say there is nothing of the sort between Lae and Finschhaven. Meanwhile, great wealth goes unexploited. .

Rabaul Returning To

Beauty

RABAUL still is far from being the pleasant, tropical town of pre-1942, but it is rapidly re covering some of its beauty. Fast growing trees, judiciously planted,

are shading some of the streets and hiding the wartime scars.

Decision to keep the town where it is has encouraged private build ing, and new structures are arising in many places. The traders and private residents say the same thing —a reasonable quantity of material now is available, both in local tim ber and in imported stuff, but there is a sad lack of building tradesmen.

There are a limited number of good Chinese and Malay tradesmen, but one does not get full value from them unless they are under effici ent supervision.

Finding Lae In The Mist

QANTAS pilots lately have had fun and games around Lae air port, frequently blotted out by rain-storms and heavy mist.

The Sky master in which I tra velled hovered over Huon Gulf for half an hour, sniffing at the clouds which blanketed all the land, and then Captain McNeill decided that he could take her in under it. I have done much flying, but I admit that as I stared out at the opaque ness, and thought of these black ranges right behind Lae, my toes began to curl up in my shoes. How ever, after a brief reconnaissance the pilot came in very low right over the centre of the Garden City, and landed easily. They seem to breed a special race of airmen for this most difficult terrain.

That Useful Hand

rE refrigeration motor at the Hotel Stewart, Lae, became snake-headed; and Miss Doro thy Stewart, characteristically im patient, took up mechanics. Where upon the recalcitrant machine caught her right hand, dragged it in among the belts, and mangled it severely. No bones broken, but Dorothy was going around in July with a much-splinted hand and forearm in a sling.

Only those who have lost the use of a right hand can have an idea of how awkward and embarrassing one’s condition may be. Dorothy displayed ingenuity in dealing with such matters as eating, dressing, writing, with the left hand; but she confessed to her intimates that the problem of buttoning a brassiere at the back defeated her. One or two Lae lasses went thoughtfully away, and tried various tricks, but they all confessed afterwards that, minus the right hand, it just can’t be done.

Old-Timers True

I HAD a happy meeting with old timer Bill Heydon, now living quietly with his wife in retire ment in Lae. I met him first in the bar of Mrs. Innes’s hotel in Salamaua, 20 years ago, when the miners used to come out over the mountains from Wau, and a specia lised bit of hell was let loose there —raw gold in exchange for hard

liquor. Bill still sees much merit in those times, compared with to-day’s conditions in the Territories.

A charming nld-timpr thprp in Lae in thl person of Mrs. AISI Bowring down from Pdip Oreek to say* farewell* to Tr son! Sytoty barrister T p Rowrincr After tVie

wa™ when 'she %

running a Red Oross dennt for the Yank? in New CaledoSL Mrs BoSrfng went back to her goldclaS on Edie Creek and shortlv afterwards, startled the Territory bv drawing the ono nri7e in «

are or'flvl

Europeans left in the dismal Edie Creek gorge that once produced millions in gold, but Mrs. Bowring, now 71, will not leave the comfort of her home there.

My first trip to Edie was made in 1932 on Fred Deckert’s Bitza—an old car cut down to run on the 12 miles of mostly perpendicular 2a ft.

“ ul f;^ ac k beiween Edie and Wau.

Frod sold the Bitza to a

Bowring,

with her £BOO of gold, as passenger B “ z s f&ilGd to get around a corner, and spilled Mrs - Bowring down a 100 ft.

P reci P ice - Most bones below her waist were broken, including her o & marvSlmi? inh ? en mar vellous job and to-day she around a 10-years-old.

Also in Lae was Robert Day once the mining monarch of the Bulolo Gorge. The gold is finished, but Bob goes marching on as chief of the Golden Pines Sawmilling Co. Ltd.

Somehow, his little company got a worth-while timber lease and, any day, you can see their timber-laden lorries on the Wau-Labu road. It is a pity that a few more of these enterprising “little fellows” have not been given a chance on the famous Bulolo forests. The big show, BGD in combination with the Government, is rapidly develop ing its new timber industry (mostly plywood) and expects to be near full production early next year.

How Lae Was Born

ONE day in Lae I stood in front of Mrs. Stewart’s hotel, and remembered Lae’s beginnings.

Guinea Airways, formed to fetch and carry for the Bulolo goldfield, would have nothing to do with Salamaua, the new gold field’s sea port—it was too close up under the mountains. So they formed their air-strip 18 miles away, on the flats at the mouth of the Markham.

When I first saw it, there was only the air-strip, a few shacks for the staff, and Henry Eekhoff’s trade store, right there on the shingly shore before the present new hotel.

Then, by remarkable coincidence, as I stood there, along the road came Henry Eekhoff himself— white-haired, and now a member of Messrs. Buntings’ staff. He had brought for me a letter he had recently received from an old friend, former Lutheran missionary J.

Schmutterer, now an old man liv

mg in Altheim, in Bavaria.

This missionary appears to have been the first white man to settle in this area. He worked among natives who lived in a village named after their little river. This was Rahe, but more commonly called Lahe. In his letter the Ger man says he called his mission station Lahe; and that this in time became Lae. So there we have the origin of the now flourishing little coastal town of Lae.

Men’S Fashions Change

INTERESTING to see how men’s fashions change in these Islands.

Time was when one dare not enter the dining-room in Moresby’s leading hotel at lunchtime without a tie, or at dinner-time without a coat and tie. Now the much-hated coat has been “wiped.” You may lunch in shorts and an open-necked shirt; and, if you have long sleeves and a tie, you dine without danger of having Mr. Morrissey’s Alsatian set at you.

This trip, I have not seen one topi. The sun-helmet was already in disfavour in Papua before the war, when Sir Hubert Murray strode around in his old felt hat and black, seven-league boots. Now, in both Territories, the only head gear are felt hats and light straws, like panamas. Handy and utili tarian, but much less like the popu lar conception of the tropics.

The coons (pardon, messieurs— the young native men) of the Lae area seem to have gone in com pletely for a new hair-do —clipped in a ridge from north to south, it looks at a little distance as if they all were wearing forage caps. On the other side of the range, one now rarely sees the fuzzy-headed Papuan; he is more and more going

for the European type haircut. Be fore long, when our press sob sisters write about “fuzzy-wuzzy angels,” they will have to add an explanatory footnote—fashion be long im e change now.

Not So One-Sided!

ONE must suppose that the highly paid bureaucrats at the head of things know what they are doing. But no one can blame the uninstructed Territorians if they sometimes express the emphatic opinion that the gentlemen down South are mad.

Take, for example, the melted down aluminium which the Papua and New Guinea Supply Company obtained from the collection of aluminium war-time scrap, found in the jungles. If sold in the United States, the company could have got £l6O Aust. per unit for this material.

But officialdom would not give the company an export permit. Conse quently, the company was forced to sell the stuff in Australia for £6B per unit. Australia got the benefit of nearly £lOO per unit.

Territorians are compelled to sell their gold to Australia at the equivalent of £l2/10/- per fine ounce. They could get at least £3B in the free market.

There are sulphur deposits in New Guinea, but Australia does not encourage anyone to work them.

The story is broadcast that the de posits are too thin to be payable.

But the deposits apparently were worked actively and on a consider able scale by the Japanese during their occupation. Sulphur is one of the most valuable materials in industry and in land cultivation.

Territorians believe the Government is trying to protect Australian

sulphur-producing interests.

Territorians say that in these ways, and in forcing the Terri tories to pay £lOB per ton on the beach for rice (of which from £2O to £3O per ton disappears into the maw of certain Australian middle men, never to be accounted for to either producer or consumer) Aus tralia is very thoroughly exploiting Papua-New Guinea. They say that the balance is. not nearly so one sided as the gfant by Australia of some £6,000,000 per annum to the Territories would suggest. Australia, indirectly, gets a lot of it back. fl Mrs. J. R. Rigby, of Rabaul, New Guinea, whose . Committee earlier -this year collected £1,231 for the United Nations International Chil dren’s Emergency Fund, has received a letter of thanks from Mr. Maurice Pate, Executive Director, at Head Office, New York. He said that the money from New Guinea is suf ficient to protect 67,000 children from malaria or to provide penicillin to treat 22,000 against yaws.