Oldest Inhabitants Can Be Young

Hallen W. Evans retires After

36 Years In The Territory Where

One of the most exclusive old-schoolmates’ associations in the world is about to lose another of its foundation members to retirement Down South. He is Hallen Evans, who retires this month after 23 years’ service with the New Guinea Ad ministration and after 36 years in the Territory.

BECAUSE of the peculiar history )of the Trusteeship (ex-Man dated) Territory of New Guinea, e does not have to be particularly long in the tooth to be reckoned amongst its oldest inhabitants and ; clutch of small children who ended the Rabaul European mol when it first opened in 1922, d who have remained on in the rritory, can now count themselves this category. ► Amongst the youngsters who nt to that school with young Hal ms were Marjorie Hawnt (now s. Charlie Blake), and her brother mund —both of whom are still in w Guinea (as is their mother, s. Jessie Rawnt); young Tom ts, now an ADO somewhere in ' Sepik District; and Eva and rma Cassell — Norma, now Mrs. rry Starr, of Lae, and Eva also rried and in business in Lae.

When Mr. H. Beilby Evans, chief accountant with the Expropriation Board, took his family to live in Rabaul, in 1921, there were no more than half-a-dozen Australian men living there, and not many re white children. Like most Ex > Board men of those days, Evans, r., soon was out on his own, nting and trading in Bougain e and here young Hal joined him m school in Australia somewhat lier than anticipated. By then Depression was upon the tropical rid and copra was not worth ting.

Hal Evans learnt his planting the •d way and by the time he was was overseer and recruiter for ?enhafen Plantations Ltd. This ipany had been set up in the ly 30’s in the first flush of a ee enthusiasm that antedated present Territory boom by 20 years. Land was acquired from the J C. I. H. Campbell in the high ntry behind Raua, about 25 miles th of Buka Passage, but for some son—probably the wrong type coffee was planted—the venture ed and the company went into lidation in the mid-thirties. •y that time Hal Evans had joined ministration (1934) ; he became a Native Labour Officer and later Interpreter in the Supreme Court, a he had during the famous

Schmidt-King trials of the mid thirties. He was an expert in Pidgin; and understood two native dialects.

He married Miss Linda Henry in 1939 (there are three children, Patty, Lynne and Hallen, Jr.), and he was in Madang when war broke out. He served with the NGVR, was invalided out, spent some years in New Zealand and returned to the Territory in 1945 as part of Civil Administration, Salamaua.

In February, 1946, Civil Adminis tration was extended north of the Markham and later that year Evans went to Madang, to become one of the new regime’s newest creations —District Labour Officer.

The District Labour Office ceased to function in 1951 and he went to an even newer branch of Adminis trat i o n endeavour —Native Co

operatives. As Co-Operatives Officer for New Ireland he was able to put to good use the talents he had acquired in the hard early years in Bougainville—particularly his know ledge of the native villager.

It was a period of boom for NI native co-operatives, but that they got from low gear to high so smoothly is a feather in the cap of the man in charge of them. As an old Territorian he appreciated the early European prejudice against the movement, but commonsense handling broke most of it down. He was a man who believed in what he was attempting to do —at the same time realising the limitations of the native people whom he was there to serve.

Hal Evans, a very old hand by his middle years, has gone to a sort of bus-man’s retirement in Sydney— he has. joined Ventura Trading Com pany, which has New Guinea and other Islands connections —and New Guinea will probably be seeing him again. But now, for the first time since 1921, he will be on the out side, looking in—looking in at a New Guinea that has little resemblance to the sleepy German Territory the Australians took over from the League of Nations 36 years ago.

His first 1921 impression of Rabaul concerned the Chinese labourers in their coolie clothes and hats who went to the ship to collect laundry. Another vivid picture is of the port doctor going out to the ship,

rowed in a Naval gig, by police boys wearing the old sailor-boy hats.

Everything was done Navy fashion.

Rabaul, to a youngster’s eyes was a fine sight, with the dozens of immaculate white-painted schooners and ketches at anchor. Types 0.ship rare in NG these days.

To-day’s Burnt Wharf—the old relic near the swimming-pool that survived the Jap occupation—was then Main Wharf. Main became Burnt in 1923, and the whole town turned out to see the conflagration.

There was virtually no motor traffic in Rabaul then, but the Germans had constructed rail lines leading from the wharf to the three main stores—the German New Guinea Co. store, Burns Philp’s, Hernsheims at Matupi Farm (where Bird-of-Paradise skins, with their plumes, were on sale) —and up Namanula Rd. to the native prison at the foot of the hill.

Goods from the wharves were pushed along the lines in trucks by calaboose labour.

Native Co-operatives did not come into the German scheme of things —so probably it is a fitting com mentary on the change that over took the Territory in 36 years that Hal Evans ended his career in the Territory teaching the natives to run their own businesses.

One of his most cherished possessions is a letter from the late Sir Beaumont Phillips, Judge of the

Territory High Court, written in June, 1937. “Monty” Phillips had been in charge of affairs after the Rabaul eruptions; Evans was one of a small party of men entrusted with cleaning up the town after the

evacuation. Phillips wrote (in part): “You rose to the occasion mag nificently and notwithstanding your youthful years, carried oul your special duties with the coolness and expertness of an old hand.”