New Guinea's Little Ships

Lost £727,000 in 6 Years

SPOKESMAN for the Australian Parliamentary Socialists, Dr.

Evatt, is howling because Aus tralian Territories Minister Hasluck has sold more of the 20 little ships which the Socialist Government, in 1946, bought for the New Guinea coastal trade at a cost of nearly half a million —by June, 1952, they were written down to £372,000. (See Smallships News, this issue).

Last year, the Minister sold seven of them, and now he has sold an other 11—and he expects soon to get rid of the remainder. Complete figures are not disclosed—the total return from the sale may be £300,000.

Evatt calls this “a deliberate act against the interests of Australia and the assets of Australia.”

In 1951-52 the line made a loss of £202,485. This made the total loss on the operation of the line to June, 1952, £727,065. Little wonder the Minister was happy to get rid of it!

The way in which Socialist Gov ernments rush into this kind of enterprise is something at which sane business men never cease to marvel. It has just been disclosed that the British post-war Socialist

Government, in partnership with

the Queensland Socialist Govern ment, squandered altogether some

£2,500,000 on the Peak Downs food producing scheme A which, like the infamous East African peanuts wa // e ihe T^ re PCl rn o£ n nublic a cS; n . tne directors oi public com- P® 11165 were guilty of such conduct, they probably would be gaoled, or tor n a P art b >' the shareholders. But Ministers can get away with it. The taxpayers just pay, and pay.

flThe Rev. Henry Robinson, one of the best known Methodist Min isters in Papua-New Guinea before

ft. Z

he has been minister at Deniliquin, Nsw M Rnhinsnn wn* pvnrMintpd Mr. Robinson was evacuated during the war but returned as an Army Chaplain. On his return to the Territory he will take charge of the Dobu area, Papua.