Notes By The Wayside

From R. W. Robson in Papua-N. Guinea

loresby

Up buildings completed, new rs in course of construction — e barren, seacoast village of Dresby is literally leaping on to city-hood. *ave Street is now shaded lealthy trees, lined with buildings. A modern cop, modernly equipped, Dn the solid motor traffic tt Street aplomb, shops and offices cluster in the double square formed ter, Douglas and Cuthbert ■eets, and the waterfront, in the two years since I ast has been phenomenal, why leave your rather im little capital, just when rot it into really attractive I asked the Administrator, her Cleland looked at me dshment. ted to the local newspaper, zed on his desk. Startling ge headings announced that had reported that, if and I was found in Papua, the rative centre must be moved >m Moresby. Sogeri was in bnour examined the front

page with obvious interest, and seemed amused. He explained that a Committee of experts had “ad vised” the Port Moresby Town Council, which is itself an “advisorv” body. J One gathered that the Adminis tration was not committed in any way by the experts’ report—and was not likely to be.

Even as I talked to His Honour, our voices were half-drowned by the noises of carpenters, adding yet another building to the mass of single-storey erections which now constitute Konedobu.

PRO May

Say Something

In a bright and breezy corner of busy Konedobu I met an old news paper friend in a new guise, and all a-bristle—Kathleen Vellacott Jones, now Public Relations Officer to the Administration.

Incidental to the imprisonment of Patricia Robertson for a breach of Post Office regulations—a thing which stands to the everlasting dis credit of the Administration—the Public Relations Office came in for some sharp criticism through PIM ; and although she was personally absent on leave at the time, the

lous an d hardworking Y J dld not take it kindly.

The Administration does not shape or influence the work of my Section, in relation to news an nouncements,” she declared. “If only half of what Stuart Inder wrote in your journal were true, I should not occupy this desk for one minute,” she declared.

I told the indignant officer that the columns of PIM were wide open for her reply—and all concerned are hereby warned that, if high official dom permits, something pretty fizzy will presently be published on the subject of the PRO, its merits, and the demerits of its critics.

Cadets For

Screening

Under a new system, by which lads seen as possibilities for train ing for the Administration service are screened by top Departmental heads before they are finally chosen, Education Director W. C. Groves left Moresby on November 29 to inter view aspirants in most of the Aus tralian capitals.

He went straight from the con ference room of the Education Ad visory Council, whereon the voices of the various Mission chiefs sounded a variety of clarion notes.

I thought “Bill” Groves looked tired and strained; and, surveying the picture behind his huge Depart ment, I did not wonder at it. How would you like to be faced with the problem of providing a medium of instruction for a primitive native community which (this is the latest official calculation), speaks over 500 different languages; of trying to re concile the views of half a hundred “educational experts” (including a dictatorial Minister); while know ing that High Officialdom’s demand that native standards of life be raised cannot make any real pro gress until some degree of literacy is introduced?

Basic Problem

I have read carefully every Min isterial pronouncement in recent years on the subject of native education; and I can find mighty little commonsense and no con sistent policy in any of them.

There is much babbling about in fant dietetics and raising the status of native women and the need for cultivating the pride of the Mel anesian in his nativeness, and so forth. But, as far as I can discern —and I am looking around in dustriously, on this trip—the two Territories have not in 25 years raised by very much the proportion of village children who are on the

0 literacy. And there can be 1 social and political progress nless and until the mass of natives are literate in simple i. a colossal task; and in my i, the Canberra Czars have [ it from the wrong end. In- Df defining an end-result to ieved within a certain time, e general methods to be fol and compelling the Mission where necessary to adhere to leral plan, they have provided amount of money for educa nd left the spending of a leal of it to the Missions.

Mission seems to have its leas —which are not neces hose of the Administration, ing the history and the great ments of the Missions, I am burry to condemn. This is al Territory’s most difficult ;ricate problem. The Admin n has shown an extraord ffuctance to get to grips with l in the fact that, while a ndred natives are getting a ry education, hundreds of ids of village children are ng taught simple English, nany people are saying that ssion tail wags the Educa r 0 •

ience’s

s.rm )efore the last war, two girls veil known Hides family, of were married—Gwen, to ■ Ryan, of the Burns Philp and Joyce, to an oil company e, who carried her off to all distant countries. :her day, Mrs. Bernard Ryan inch to half-a-dozen oil s, temporarily in Papua to le oil search. She told a of Geology about her sister ho had married oil and con ntly had lived in South and Asia and Africa, where is she now?” asked or. algary, USA,” replied Mrs. well,” said the geologist, “I )m Calgary. My home is in Street.”

Joyce lives in Sixth Street, iry,” exclaimed Mrs. Ryan; exchange of some further med to indicate that Joyce’s m sometimes played with

scientist’s dog.

is reported last week that re now about 170 million 1 the United States).

Again

? Sapphire Creek, not far rt Moresby, I noticed some among the ruins of what i the equipment of a copper

“Yes,” said my host. “It looks as if the ore may be worked again on a worthwhile scale. The world de mand for copper is growing, and the price keeps on rising.”

SapsLrrc^eek-B e oS«ess\ S nle? are!

ro e years°ag e o d “ a Wb Way ' about

The Greed Of

Growing Moresby

The Rouna Falls hydro-electric scheme—which once was planned to give all Port Moresby and dis trict an unlimited supply of light and power—is coming close to com pletion; but the indications are

that it is not now to be the boon that once was legislated for.

The trouble is that- the Port of°flf] S rJ J >op . ulation has grown out the al T Sll * ce the war > while old t ßlVer 15 stUl the “me are 11 n£t^? n k COnstruction ’ there are plans for three turbines- hut ™ ly e t noUgh . water seems ?o be in t° run two turbines. And the wiU give 6 ’ ooo kUo - S™~ w £- lch V 3 a PProximately what nungry Moresby now receives and consumes from its present dielel engined equipment.

The only ay to Provide more water over Rouna Falls, all the time, would be to build dams higher

(Continued on Page 161)

to hold the floods, or to divert Brown River —an additional ex ;e that no one will contemplate, le up-river Sogeri planters, who hoped to get a power supply i Rouna, now are rubbing their s doubtfully, and wondering ther the time has not come to et Rouna altogether, and get clan together into a community pr-and-light scheme of its own.

— Bustling

I Booming

t stands out as the NG city ustle and timber and jeeps, markable quantities of timber coming in for shipment from r and west —from the new er-cutting areas beyond the River, and from the great ply [ mills of the Bulolo. t the eggs are not all in one it. There is emphasis on agri re. Tough, hardworking Aus ins are taking on every area [can get along the Markham U, and their plans embrace thing from poultry to peanuts, t cattle ranches are being ;d. The market? They are not png—as with all things in a-New Guinea, God and the tnment will provide. i jeeps! This must be the sst town in Christendom. Hav seen the proportion of these [-waggons in the enormous 5 k congregation of cars outside refreshment houses, one knows I the world’s jeeps go in the r of their disintegregation. [ are not all war relics, of s—in fact, many are of the rn Landrover type—but it is Ishing to see them around in L after the world has mostly tten this famous transporta ievelopment of World War 11. Lae district roads are not f as bad as the übiquitous jeep [suggest. It is just that jeeps t>cal conditions—one of which, urse, is native drivers.

U)oks

ward I human energy pulsating in lace is remarkable. Lae strikes as the pioneering centre of ry industry. In Moresby, In lalism is heavily overlaid by ilism—inevitably, in the cir ances—but in Lae, good old :e Enterprise really is going with the bit in its teeth; and ucracy is merely a benevolent,

j 8 force in the background,

s long-distance planning ;s out into the Bulolo Valley e pine plywood and agricul are taking the place of the dwindling gold) and over the

Ramu Divide into the Highlai Lae regards the Highlands i own —ignoring the pretensioi Madang, now boring in on the with strong shipping claims, says that once the Markham is through, the road transpon from Goroka, and the shorte voyage south from Lae, will counter Madang’s present adva in the short flight from Mada Goroka.

The road is nearly through ugly steams still to be brie and Lae and most observers that Lae has the ball at its Madang, however, is not of opinion—Madang, soon, will 1 Goroka-Ramu-Madang road own—and the two ports sure] compete for the Highlands tr Meanwhile, Lae runs and in a spirit of energy and optin a pretty thing to see.

These sweat-soaked lads c in from the Busu forests, witl native teams and their los lumber, somehow remind i Salamaua of 25 years ago, wh wearied gold-men came tra out of the jungle from Wai their lines of carriers, and packs of gold, and a thirs almost lifted the Allan Inn< off its concrete foundations, ferent generation, different p but the same tireless energy by the sacred hop-vine!—th( unbelievable thirst!

Rabaul Prepares

To Race A score of horses are groomed intensively for the meeting of the Rabaul Tur on its racecourse in the sha Mount Vulcan, alongside Harbour. President M. B. Fo a committee at work, and th( ing will be at least a famou occasion.

They put 2,500 yards of £ on the track recently—whi goes to show the activity of t. milling industry hereabouts.

Incidentally, the Rabaul Club and the Port Merest Club (the latter kept going enthusiasm of the Sogeri planters) are the only two clubs now alive in the South Islands. Suva used to have club, but it died in the wa and no one seems to have th< to revive it. (What about the Club i W. Samoa?— PIM Ed.)

Petrol in a Bag

Plane-loads of Territorial to Goroka on December 15 a of Vacuum Oil Company, to the beginning of the much-p plastic-bag service. It is a i teresting development, whic to have grown out of an

ng Douglas Gore Brown, Vacuum resentative here.

Tie great trouble in supplying Highlands with oil in bulk was drum. It could be carried in— lough an awkward load —but it ply did not pay to carry it out, jty. So now they have devised (plastic bag. he bag, folded up small, goes into [aircraft, easily. It is connected i pump and, as it is filled with rol, it accommodates itself to the le’s shape. At its destination, it mptied by a pump, as it lies in 'plane—and then folded up small [ returned home. With that em. air transport may even beat [cost of oil-drum systems in led countries where lorries fate.

Pey in Drums the same token, there still is iey in the oil-drum recovery ness. Theo Mason, of Lae, who [ now at Erap, has put into ■ation a system of gathering ty drums at Gusap (up in the Hands), dumping them into the fr waters of the Markham, when [river is high, and collecting i again down at Nadzab. i empty drum, up at Gusap, has alue; but its economic status is ■ed by the time it gets close to boast. id there still are unbelievable sands of serviceable petrol is lying around the former rican-Australian airports in the pam-Ramu region. You should what they are doing with them prtain Lae workshops—slicing in two, crushing them fiat, and ping them away most profitably trap.