Delay and Frustration
p. 128 · Read in the full issue
In Developing Rabaul
SPEAKING at the May meeting of the Rabaul Advisory Council the District Commissioner, Mr.
J. K. McCarthy, said that there obviously were not enough business sites available in Rabaul to satisfy the demand, and that it would eventually be necessary to create two main streets for business pur poses.
He said that the local Land Board had been set an almost impossible task in allocating blocks of land.
During the last sitting of the Board, 44 blocks were available, 126 applica tions were received and 88 of them were for four blocks only, in the business section.
The Council has made a sugges tion that, in future, where blocks do not go to the highest tenderer, same preference be given to widows, and other deserving people.
Editorial Note
Few people are likely to disagree with the District Commissioner, in that there are not enough sites available. Why not make them available, then, without further de lay. It is now two years_ since it was decided to retain Rabaul as the administrative headquarters of New Britain. In the past twelve months there has been some new building and most of it, both com mercial and domestic, is attractive.
But the overall picture in Rabaul in May, 1954, is still one of raw untidiness. It is, with the possible exception of Santo and Vila, New Hebrides, about the most unfinished looking town of any note in the whole South Seas.
It is expected that within the next year, a big improvement will be made —particularly if building land is made available and people are given some encouragement to build upon it. But at the moment there are still large areas covered with weeds, rubbish and war-time debris.
Most of the wealth of Papua and New Guinea comes out of the area of land immediately around Rabaul.
Comparatively little wealth comes out of the increasingly attractive town of Port Moresby—or even from behind the modern town of Lae. This state of paradox cannot be altogether explained away by the fact that Rabaul’s future was a matter of uncertainty until June, 1952.
The Fono of Faipule (Samoan Par liament) has requested the Samoan Government to establish a Cocoa Board for the protection and assist ance of cocoa producers in the Territory. There now will be Boards for the three main agricultural in dustries —copra, bananas and cocoa.