P-Ng Assistant
p. 22 · Read in the full issue
Administrator
AS was forecast in this and other periodicals, some months ago, Mr. Rupert Wilson (at present the Assistant Secretary of the Bank ing, Trade and Industry Branch of the Australian Commonwealth Treasury) has been appointed Assistant Administrator of Papua and New Guinea.
In the combined Territories of Papua and New Guinea there now are 12,000 Europeans, over 2,000 Chinese and at least U million natives. Huge public funds are be ing put behind developmental plans, and there is administrative and commercial activity on all sides.
The Administrator (Brigadier D. M.
Cleland) exercises supreme power, subject to the Australian Govern ment; and thus he carries an enormous load of responsibility.
The plan, presumably, is that he now shall have someone at head quarters to take some of the re sponsibility for financial and ad ministrative direction, allowing him more time for personal supervision “in the field.”
Mr. Wilson, 51, appears to have special qualifications in that direc tion. He has an excellent record.
He has been engaged in commerce; he was in the service of the Tas manian Government: he holds the Hawkesbury College Diploma of Agriculture; and, as Director of War Service Land Settlement, he had an important and difficult job in supervising the rural training of ex-servicemen and the employment of loans and allowances. He will take up duty in Port Moresby on July 22. (See “Commentary”).