Are You Strained? Do You Drink?

A statement that residents of Papua and New Guinea drink alcohol to excess, probably “because of environmental strain”, made by a British Medical Council doctor (Dr. R. K. Macpherson) has caused some sour comment in the Territory.

Territorians are of the opinion that they are not strained; that they drink because they like to; and that they don’t drink too much, anyhow.

Dr. Macpherson spent some months in the Territory a couple of years ago. As PIM remembers him, he was a gentleman of pleasant but austere habit who liked walking; a native of Australia, we think, but long resident in the UK where his spiritual home was Edinburgh.

As such, he no doubt was eminently suited to the task of re porting to the Commonwealth Government on living conditions in the Australian tropics.

So far , as Territorians are concerned, he was just another of those galloping experts who write long reports that no one acts upon.

By environmental strain he apparently meant that living and working accommodation in P-NG is inadequate and unsatisfactory: that clothing is not generally suitable; that there is not enough air-conditioning in offices and homes; and that public servants, living” 0 th 6 tropics ’ should be “instructed in the art of tropical .i Dr ;, Gunther (Assistant Administrator in P-NG) said flatly that the consumption of alcohol by Europeans in P-NG was however OSSIV6 ‘ H 6 favoured more g eneral use of air-conditioning, Spoken like a true Territorian, Doctor.