[?] The Major Make

A Comeback

lend of May, Major Don

:t metaphorically hung up

een Pacific Islands Regi

ueret and went back to his

ion near Vunadidir, New

and perhaps to Papua

juinea politics.

years ago—shortly after the ific Islands Regiment riots Koki and Port Moresby—Don went on active duty with .ment as liaison officer. His * that of adviser in native ;o the Australian officers of 0 were doing only a short duty in the Territory. ■n’t all one-way traffic, how- Ir. Barrett said in Port » in May, that the two years just completed in the Regi me the most valuable he’d 1 in the Territory, as it had him to get to know the of every part of P-NG.

MR Came With Him

he gets back to work on Ration —about 100 acres of ited cocoa and coconuts img into bearing, and a acreage of Robusta coffee— In’t be homesick. He calcu it by 1961, all the labour on the place will be ex l their families who will a share-farming basis once 5 18 m full production, t t be missing the PIR pipe ther—he already has a k&nd of his own estab the plantation. There were ’s and three drummers at t> with probably more to sitors to the Toma Valley to come need not be sur-

Mitinued on page 142)

Major Don Barrett.

prised if they hear the skirf the pipes coming from behind 3 nearest clump of coconuts; or they are piped up the road onj Barrett plantation to the tune Road to the Isles or Cock O’ I North.

He Disagrees

Don Barrett says that he I agrees entirely with Mr. Jc Hohnen, MLC, who in a lettefi The Sydney Morning Herald on B 9 put the case of Big Business

Titory. Mr. Barrett believes e future of the Territory lies small man whose interest is i. mid like to see European and ex-servicemen’s land settle chemes extended to include y men who fought in World (which, after all, finished s ago) but men who have twice since. of the ex-service settlement n the Territory has been in rangoi and Popondetta areas, ild like to see the Nakanai n New Britain —a vast area ins up from Hoskins and has an airstrip and a good ige—thrown open for settle- Lt present part of this area worked for timber by Messrs, ion and Wright, but accord- Mr. Barrett it could provide land for the settlement of ins, individual natives and. 1, the surplus population ic Tolai area. i are also large areas around in Bougainville, which he :ould be similarly developed.

Native Destiny

Barrett believes as implicitly destiny of the New Guinea is he does in the future of velopment. Tapioli, a Pacific teran with an MM and 74 d his credit, has been in of the Barrett plantation s inception, and is the only says Barrett, why he has le to absent himself for two Meantime, affairs at the on have proceeded as normal 'apioli’s direction, with Hopni, ex-PIR lad. managing all siderable clerical work that 3d in this sort of business.

Barrett believes that the are potentially the best laterial in the Territory, and y the most intelligent. He at the trouble-makers come small section, most of them land, who were youngsters time of the Jap occupation o matured in the frustrating r period that followed.

Did people and the present ers are bitterly ashamed of ddle section of discontents ke the rest of the world’s and Teddy-boys, feel that ve to live up to their reputa trouble-makers. He thinks they didn’t get so much y it would have a salutary n them.

lunger For Education

ays that it is nonsense to t all the Tolais are wealthy, f them are, but a great many have no land at all. Amongst ungsters there is a great for advancement and educa hich explains, in part, why ast recruiting trip to Rabaul PIR there were 500 volun- Et was not so much the

soldier’s life that attracted them but the educational opportunities that are given to all serving PIR men.

What the Tolais need more than anything says Don Barrett, is the sort of European leadership that they can respect and admire. And this, at the moment, he feels they have not got.

After serving two three-year terms in the Papua-New Guinea Legislative Council as elected member for New Guinea Islands, Don Barrett was defeated by Mr. Dudley Jones at the 1957 elections. Mr.

Jones of course, resigned last year with the other two elected members as a protest against the way

income-taxation was introduced to the Territory, and at the lack of adequate representation in Legco, in Port Moresby, in late May, be fore he returned to New Britain, Major Don Barrett indicated that when he became plain Mr. again, he would be interested in re-entering P-NG politics at the forthcoming election “if the ( people indicate that they wan t me.”

Indications are that there are many Territorians, both in and out of the New Guinea Islands elec torate, who would be pleased to see the beaming Barrett face back in the Legislative Council when it meets in its new air-conditioned home about next September.