Notes By The Wayside

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

Australia’s Northern

Neighbours

I was surprised to find that even men who take little interest in politics display hostility when the name of Indonesia is mentioned.

“We don’t want them bastuhds on our frontier,” said a plain Aus tralian artisan, rolling his eye west wards, when I said something about Indonesia’s claim to Dutch New Guinea.

There is a regular plane service between Lae and Hollandia, and seemingly good relations exist be tween the Australians in Eastern NG and the Dutch in the west.

They told me that an Indonesian military attache who came through was courteously but very coldly re ceived. “Too smarmy and asked too many questions,” they said. “Wanted to know how much we paid house boys, and how many native soldiers we were really training.”

Similar officials from America and from Siam, arriving about the same time, were treated with great cordiality.

Health Director

In Good Shape

It was a pleasure to meet Dr.

John Gunther, who has been away for so long undergoing medical treatment. He was a pretty sick man in 1955 and, when I saw him last, he could—in avoirdupois—have doubled for Marley’s Ghost. But the cutting and patching (as he called it) was a complete success; he has added a couple of stone to his weight; and the Gunther energy and drive are sparking again on every cylinder.

After ten years of planning, and frustration, and re-building, the De partment of Health really is be ginning to show interesting and ex citing results. (PS; The new Wau Hospital, for example, is an interest ing—and pleasing—sight; and the reported price, £BO,OOO, is un doubtedly exciting!)

Native Scholars and

Social Reactions

When the northbound plane left Brisbane, five of the two dozen

schoolkids “going home for Christmas holidays” were New Guinea natives.

An old planter beside me breathed heavily, and did not seem able to take his eyes off the New Guineaites, who wore school blazers, caps and shoes. The behaviour of the five native lads was admirable, in all respects.

At Moresby and at Lae the European youngsters were greeted

with whoops by their respecth families mostly complete wit Mum, Dad, the family car and tl household dog. The native bo; sat quietly on a form, in a immobile line, until an Admin stration or Qantas official to( charge of them, and sent them c their way—to villages, somewhere “What happens to those ki< during the holidays?” I asked Territories man.

“Mostly, they have a pret miserable time,” he said. “Som times, the missions take them i and they continue to live Europeans, as they have done schools, down South. But tl majority just sink back into villa life —the blazers and the she disappear, and they eat out of t community pot, and sleep on mat.

“Upsetting sort of thing, sendi: them out to Australia, in this ws and then expecting them to retu to native life, afterwards.”

One could write a lively treat: on the subject; but the foregoi: is enough.

High officials keep quoting t numbers of these “scholars!:

holders” who are being sent South to Australian secondary schools for special training; and quacking about the system as if it were a triumph of planning and organisa tion. Actually, it is a combination Df cruelty and stupidity.

There is nothing wrong with the idea of making high-grade educa tion available to these young natives —they are entitled to all they can get. But the social aspect seems to be completely ignored— yith woeful results.

The scholars are admitted, in the hospitable fashion typical of Australia, to European communities iown South, and expand quite nappily in that atmosphere. But yhen they return to Papua and tfew Guinea, where a line must be irawn between communities, they nave no real social contact with Europeans. Little imagination is needed to see how this social mis ntting is going to produce political ;rouble.

The sooner adequate secondary schools for natives are established in the Territory, and this ndefensible rystem of shipping mything up to one hundred natives South each year for educational gaining and social disillusionment, ;he better for the Territory.

Trees for Goroka’s

Bare Hillsides

A few miles outside Goroka, District Commissioner Seale showed me Yufiyufi Nursery. Here, under cover, were thousands of seedlings —coffee and Klinki pine—planted in the wet last February; and almost ready for transplantation, in this wet season, onto native holdings. The coffee is to go onto some 15 acres, owned by natives, and to be cared for and harvested by them.

The pine-trees—which flourish in this region—will also be planted out, as part of a general scheme of afforestation. (This is not con nected in any way with Mr. J. B.

McAdam’s Department of Forestry, which nobody loves—but that is another story).

There are 14 such nurseries in the Eastern Highlands; and, as a result of the good relations between Administration, private planters and the natives, the effect of propaga tion and planting should be marked in this fertile but now rather bare Valley in a few years.

I was interested to notice that the lines of pines and other trees, which the indefatigable lan Downs planted on the hillsides behind the District Office some three years ago,

now have their heads well above the kunai rubbish, and give promise of changing the landscape.

Macßobertson’s Plantation Near Lae With neat planning and much

lard work, Mr. Keith Noblet (formerly of Bulolo) threatens to :urn the new Macßobertson planta in, Wanaru, near Lae, in New juinea, into the show place of the iistrict.

The well-known Australian con ‘ectionery manufacturers purchased his plantation, as part of a plan ;o grow their own cocoa, about two

years ago, put Mr. Noblet in charge, and —what Is most Important—pro vided him with plenty of powered agricultural machinery.

There were about 700 acres in the original plantation; another 250 acres have been since added; and already 300 acres are planted under healthy young cocoa trees. The older plantings—some of them sadly torn by the artillery fire of World War ll—have been mostly rooted out, to make way for young trees.

Four Square Gospel

For P-NG

There seems to be no end to the sects which come to Papua and New Guinea, seeking a share in the task of saving the indigenes’ souls. It is reported in Lae that a party from the Aime Semple McPherson sect, the Four Square Gospel, is arriving there soon to establish a branch of its religious organisation.

Tea Industry

Yet May Come

An interesting Englishman has been touring around the lower Highlands lately, examining the experimental tea plantations.

Lae Territorians, perennially optimistic, see significance in the

IT'S OFFICIAL: Mr. Jaroslay Malik, who has been a resident of Port Moresby for a number of years, became an Australian on January 18.

He is shown reading the certificate that pro claims his new status.

Photo: Papuan Prints.

facts that he comes from a tea growing place in India, and that both India and Ceylon Governments now are proceeding to tax the British tea-planters out of existence.

The New Guinea Highlands, at certain levels, can grow excellent tea; and Australia and New Zea land, just south over that horizon, annually purchase fantastic quant ities of tea. All that is missing is the skilled labour, to pick and cure and pack the leaves.

BP’s in PM Go

Ultra-Modem

On Monday, December 3, at least half of Port Moresby found business in Musgrave Street, and occasion for a peep into the new Burns Philp store. To me, an unskilled observer, it seems to rival and even to beat the best that the Islands have to offer.

Until after the war, the BP store in Port was the well known turreted building at the corner of Champion Parade and Musgrave Street. Then a new building was erected, up Musgrave Street, adjoin ing the turreted building; and another new building nearly opposite, across Musgrave St. The BP establishments, two or three years ago, moved into the new buildings.

Since then, the turreted building

has been lavishly reconditioned and remodelled, and the main store now has been moved back there —but the hardware and one or two other sections remain on the northern side of the street.

As BP’s own not only the three main buildings referred to, but also the two hotels, the Port Moresby

Freezing Co. Building and the build ing which houses the cinema, it can be said that Musgrave Street, except for the two banks at the inter section with Douglas St., is entirely Burns Philp.

The new store is laid out in modern fashion, and is the only big establishment I have seen in

the Islands with a full-blooded punkah system. The big hanging drapes, which are agitated by small motors, have been decorated most effectively by a local artist, Rudolf Caesar. (See photo, on this page.)

Money And Friends

And A Moral

Of the many men who made whacking fortunes on the Morobe goldfields 25-30 years ago, few now survive—and among them is W. G Money, now living very modestly in Lae.

“Bill” Money, a man of most generous disposition, at one time had perhaps one hundred thousand pounds, and at least one thousand friends. The money and the friends somehow became entangled—a n d now “Bill” has neither. Someone told me he wrote off about £70,000 as “loans made and irrecoverable.”

“Bill” went to live South late last year, but could not stand the climate, or the politics, or some thing, and returned to Lae.

Will Oil Be Found

In Papua?

It will be found that in 1956 the associated oil companies spent not less than £3,500,000 on the search for oil in Papua.

I do not know what the total ex penditure to date will be, but I wouldn’t guess less than £20,000,000.

There is no sign of a slackening in the search. The Australasian Petroleum Company maintains a huge base in Port Moresby, and an organisation that services vast equipment out in the jungle behind the Gulf of Papua, where endless bores slowly are building up what apparently is a geological or geo physical pattern.

The drilling goes on, and no one now believes that it is blind stabbing.

No less than six helicopters now provide the necessary transport from salt-water to the chosen spots in the dense jungle—no more of that terribly expensive and exhausting road-cutting and bridging. The scientists choose the spot; a ground party of native labourers clears away a patch of jungle; houses and drilling plant and food and amen ities arrive by helicopter; and down goes another feeler.

Get that picture into focus, and make a bet as to whether they will find oil in Papua. (The only way you can bet, of course, is to buy Oil Search shares at about four times their nominal value. The price soars at the slightest provocation. When some one thought he’d discovered oil in West Australia a couple of years

ago, those 5/- Oil Search shares went immediately to £6—although West Australia is thousands of miles from Papua and Oil Search Ltd. is not interested in WA, anyway).

t Two tons of coffee beans were shipping from Western Samoa by the February Tofua. They will be transhipped at Auckland for Aus tralia.

The fancy-goods section of BP's new "old" store. Port Moresby. See story page 46.