Just One Tax And He Leaves!

Letter To The Editor

SO we are threatened by an invasion of Unionism into New Guinea and Papua? So Taxa tion is to be introduced into the Territory?

Listen!

On the De Grey I used to fork a saddle 14 hours a day, seven days a week. There were three of us handling 1,200 square miles and 10,000 sheep. Which is 400 square miles and 3,330 sheep to each man.

A lot for one man to look after.

Really three men’s work.

In the city two civil servants were sitting at desks in chairs much more comfortable than my saddle.

They had demanded and got a 40 hour week which they convinced themselves they earned by their mighty labours with the pen. They refused to admit that they produced nothing, did nothing. They con tinued to sip their cups of tea and arrange their pins and paper-clips and eye the clock.

A thousand miles away the dirt ingrained into my skin because I never had time to wash. I grew a beard because there was never time to shave. But I had to carry on, producing three men’s labour because there were two civil servants in the city producing

nothing, and someone had to earn their pay, which came to them via taxes.

I asked myself what was my chance of eradicating these parasites? Of sacking three quarters of them and re-drafting them into productive occupations?

One chance in 9 million.

A man would have to get to be Prime Minister to do it, and maybe not then.

Better to get out to some place where these pests did not prevail.

So in 1953 I abandoned Australia to the New Australians and de parted for New Guinea.

And the Territory suits me fine.

Here on my miniature island the block of land which I manage is planted entirely with coconut palms right up to the furthermost heights.

The block of native land adjacent is jungle, as it has always been, except for a scattering of palms along the beach that more or less planted themselves.

I am on the go from sunrise to sunset. My kanaka friends sit through the days in the shade chewing betel-nut.

I possess a camera, a rifle, a radio, a sewing machine, an out

board motor. They own a couple of guitars and their laplaps. You would think that this connection between prosperity and industry on one hand, and indolence with penury on the other, would be obvious even to their simple minds.

But not so.

Most parts of the Territory— including this island—have under gone at some time a phase of Cargo-Cult, a belief by the natives that all the wonderful things the white man possesses are really sent down from heaven by the natives' ancestors, destined for the natives, but nefariously intercepted by the Europeans. (Over)

One of the primary tasks con fronting the Administration is educating the native to the realisa tion that prosperity follows only as a consequence of industry.

Yet before they have had a chance to digest this, Union secretaries are going to arrive and introduce to them the grand old wharf-labourer doctrine—that is, that they were right the first time and that all the good things DO just waft down from heaven after all. All they have to do to earn them is to sit down and smoke and leave it to their Union secretaries.

A contract has bound me to this isolated island for the past two years. For two years I have not been able to see a picture show or visit a grocery store. The ship comes once a month. A bit grim in that respect, perhaps, but the life has its compensations.

For instance, there is no taxation —yet.

However, will I be prepared to endure those hardships when there are no longer any compensations?

And the anwer is “No!”

Already at the first threat of taxation my eye is roving. But— and this is the crux of my indignation: this is what prompted me to write this protest—where do I shift to this time?

Antarctica?

I am, etc.,

Mayflower.

New Guinea, August 30, 1957.

t Mr. P. G. Roberts, District Officer on Christmas Island, before and during the H-bomb tests, is at present in the United Kingdom on leave. He travelled on the aircraft carrier HMS Warrior. Mr.

Roberts remained on Christmas during the tests and did not go, to Fanning Is. as was previously stated.

t Two cable ships have been engaged in laying the Los Angeles- Honolulu section of a trans-Pacific telephone cable. The vessels have been working from opposite ends of the sector and when they meet the two lengths of cable will be spliced. The present trans-Pacific cables are suitable only for tele graphic communications