Territories TALK-TALK

With Tolala

If the letters to the editors of Sydney daily newspapers are y indication, then Australia (or NSW at any rate) is becom * more and more apartheid conscious over the treatment of aborigines generally, and of its Moree natives in particular.

H terms as integration, segre ation, racial discrimination, >ssed about with gay abandon, of expressing generalities, pro-apartheid writers have upon the specific reason for desire for segregation “because bo. smells”. A weaker base which to build an objection be difficult to imagine. A through the soap and deo ; advertisements of any news or periodical will soon con the reader that some members ; European race also smell, tainly natives have 8.0., and ve we; and like the natives, individuals more than others, nts in the Islands for any con ile period will have remarked itinctive aroma that comes from trying types of native, call the most pronounced and ir (though not altogether un til) 8.0, came from the light d Tolai native who, even im ;ely following a shower and g still exuded a strong acidy . A missionary friend of mine reprimanded his houseboy for wing washed, whereas he had that moment come from his u smell,” said the missionary native dialect. “You do also, la,” the boy replied. some of the Europeans, ac g to the natives, have a most

disagreeable smell. A native told me once that the Masta who was always cross always smelt more highly than the even-tempered man. Could be.

There is probably a physiological ex planation for it.

That "Lawson" Spoof This story which appeared in last month’s PIM, p. 75 [see p. 73 this issue for a follow-up], rings a little bell in the belfry of my memory, but unfortunately I can’t dig up the ref erence. (I’m leaving my newspaper “clipping book” for a rainy day; but somehow it never rains long enough.) I can do nothing about solving the “problem”. I can only toss a few bits of information into the pot. ® In 1917-18 there was a Regin ald Edgar Lees Armit employed as a shop assistant in Port Moresby. • At the same time L. P. B.

Armit was a civil servant at Samarai.

In 1937 he was Chief Clerk of the Government Secretary’s Department in Port Moresby. (I have no record of Lionel (L. P. B.) Armit being an ARM or a RM. I understand he re turned after World War 11, to a small rubber plantation which he owned, outside Port Moresby.) Lionel was married in Sydney in 1946 to Peg Christensen (whom he met in Sydney).

Before War II Lionel was a con tributor to American and English magazines of fictional short stories dealing with Papua. I remember reading them in Adventure, and that type of publication, on several occa sions. He wrote under his own name.

More than that I know not, save that he died and his wife came to Sydney and went into a hospital.

Those old-timers able to cast some light on the subject I should say would be Leonard Murray, Lewis Lett or Alice Innes.

Where Are The

Modern Writers?

The mention of L. P. B. Armit, as quite a prolific pre-war short story writer, brings to mind that

P. B. Armit, photographed just after his marriage in 1946.

well-known authoress, Beatrice Grimshaw (also from Papua) and who became a best seller of Islands romances and adventures, published between 1907 and 1940 when she re tired to Oberon (NSW). From out ward appearances no one would have accused either Lionel or Beatrice of writing warm, romantic yarns of dusky maids and beauty hunting traders. But it just shows what (presumably) repressions can do for you, armed with a vivid imag ination and a facile pen.

But where are the writers now?

Where are those imaginative, scrib bling personalities in Papua and/or New Guinea whose writings are

stirring the emotions or “selling” the Territory in New York, London or even Sydney? The “mousy” Lionels and the bulky Beatrices?

Certainly, you occasionally pick up a volume dealing in a quasi scientific manner with someone’s re search in the more distant regions of the Territory. But there is little fic tional writing; no romances. None of the Armit short stories or the Grim shaw novels. At least none that I have seen that could be included in that category.

The drift seems to have gone to the Polynesian groups and itinerant writers, who tarry a while, absorb the atmosphere and pass on.

Tis a pity. There’s so much n material going begging, waiting or for the imaginative brain and facile pen.

No Romance

In Tng?

As for New Guinea—that p: across the border which we h»i under trust— I cannot recall a best-seller romantic books comii from there.

A few short stories in vario magazines there have been, but mi publications have been of the factuj travel and anthropological typ Itinerant women amateur writiJ contributed their impressions of IT country in light vein; Mrs. Cayle Webster in 1898, Mrs. J. Overell 1923; and Margaret Matches I : member had her candid observatio put between covers in New York at London in 1931.

She was a rather glamorous Yan hitch-hiking her way ’round tt world, and for a time snatched job as typiste with the Carpenii firm in Rabaul, picking up a fu:i of tittle-tattle at tea parties and hotel lounges which, collected du ing the late ’Twenties and calll Savage Paradise, raised the eyebrow of a few readers, and reddened tJ cheeks of some of the subjects her pen.

Shark Stories Sharks, it seems, always make ner; whether they are of the marine tyjs or the land genus (of which N> lately appears to have had its shae of the latter type), and Dok Askew’s “Family Shark” ( PIM , Fea ruary, p. 77) has brought a commes from my old correspondent Cajp Carl Haug in Germany.

He writes wondering whethri Doug will be called a “b . . . liae as he (Haug) was called when I published a story in Sea Breeze some 30 years ago. He had relahi an incident which happened in 18*S in the Yankee ship Wachusett, Syy ney to ’Frisco. When near the Pas motu Islands a shark was caught wii 63 youngsters in its belly.

“I received a dozen letters,” I writes, “in which I was called “Munchausen, a b liar am other nice names.” But he had plenn of witnesses to support the story. .

Anyway, I haven’t heard of ann one questioning Doug Askew’s yan and I don’t see why anyone shoulh Readers have become either moio credulous or perhaps apathetic an, the impossible has become the poo sible in this year of grace.

And, speaking personally, I r

:mber in the Rabaul freezer during i Jap. occupation, when I was ef cook and bottle-washer to some prisoned Aussie engineers, seeing hark laid out on the cement floor, open to reveal about a dozen of offspring in its innards, to say hing of various remnants of hing from possible victims.

'he Japs hastily grabbed the off ng as being a great delicacy and we poor Aussies got none. But I see no reason why they should have made good eating.

"Crash" Teachers m issue of a NG newspaper of April brought me a story about sixty “crash” teachers, who have i undergoing a course of train in Rabaul before being allocated their various schools throughout / Guinea, and one naturally hopes the eulogistic terms employed in article will eventually prove to be r anted. ich terms as: " Nevertheless the rinistration have achieved some ? that nobody in the world has ? before nor even thought pos '. They have moulded ordinary ians, of all races and every walk life, into extremely efficient hers in the short space of six ths” lese are big words and take liv up to, especially for the 56 ees who have, as yet, not proved efficiency as teachers, sspite this being the Speed Age ist confess I am a little pessimistic ich eulogy being used to describe owd of newcomers venturing out the unknown and efficiently dng out their allotted task with some repercussions. And we will they will not be of the Brian lard Cooper variety who has now reported as admitting “he would the same things to the natives, ?ut them in such a way that he d not be misunderstood”, lat is the crux of the whole IT. ill these “crash” apostles of edu n be “not misunderstood?” was that dour novelist, J. M. e, who said, “Don’t let your fling interfere with your educa . And he had something there, hope it won’t be a case of the leading the blind, but at the nt moment here in Australia nee came the renowned “crash” ers) we don’t seem to know where we are as regards edu i: How to control the children; they should write; what they d learn and where they should

learn it, while the discussion that has been going on recently concerning some of our top-ranking universities is quite disturbing.

A Nation of White Collar Workers Last month some members of Papua’s Central District Advisory Council, taking a long view of Government policy in P-NG, voiced their concern regarding some of the repercussions to the present trend of natives to forsake the land and be come white collar workers, or, per haps one should say, have the desire

to become white collar workers and/or public servants as a result of acquiring some education in the three R’s. Education in agricultural matters was not receiving the same impetus as for clerical or technical subjects.

P-NG is fundamentally an agricul tural country. Its economic life de pends upon the three Cs, not the three R’s—copra, cocoa and coffee.

At present, with a fairy god-mother tossing £l4 million into its lap, the Territory can placidly afford its 4,000-odd Public Service white collar workers, who are living off the Aus-

n taxpayer; not on the Terri > own economy. ice independence has been ved, or thrust upon the native le, what is the picture going to ien? Will the fairy god-mother empty her cornucopia into the f independent New Guinea with )rde of white collar workers and lished primary producers? gives one to think. At least it d do so if we are genuinely rned as to the ultimate future e native people themselves and ist interested in saving our own with UNO or consolidating our ines of defence. lodern Rat There m Percy Island, off the North island coast, comes a letter from ir-old S. Willats who has as an is, Long. 150 deg. E., Lat. 22 1. He writes of having received die of PlM’s “which will last II I go back to Mother Earth vy Jones”. refers to a Talk-Talk par in the 1956, issue about Arthur Booth

of Numa Numa and was he related to Charlie (“Yorkie”) BootlY He was in camp with “Yorkie” in 1915 and when “Yorkie” went overseas as a Lieutentant in 15th Reinforce ment 5 to 2nd ALH in Egypt. He hadnt heard from “Yorkie” since early m World War II from Sala maua, “Yorkie” and Arthur, of course were no relation, and “Yorkie” died a few years ago.

When he first joined the Expro board in 1922 he was stationed on the Anchorites, a place about as isolated, I should say, as Mr. Willats’

Percy Island. But . . . isolated and all as these isles may be, they have their advantages and attractions for crazy folk who like to get away from the present-day rat race, madding crowds and mighty efforts to keep up with the Joneses.

One of these days the pendulum will swing towards the barbaric. It has started. Already we have be come primitive in our paintings, music and our clothing. There was a time when the white man in the East wore his shirt tucked in his pants, and the Easterner wore it out-

Locale Is Different But

The Game's The Same

The old photograph on the left shows the stand at the Rabaul Amateur Turf Club race track about 1931. Old hands will certainly remember it—it was situated where the Lakunai airfield is now located. The photo below was taken recently of the new clubhouse of the re formed Rabaul Amateur Turf Club. But these days the racecourse is right beside Vulcan vol cano, on land which wasn’t there in 1931. Vulcan was then an island and after the 1937 eruption it joined itself to the mainland. The new grandstand has a tote and a bar—and bookies operate for the benefit of punters who seem just as anxious to lose their shirts as they ever were.

side his pants; now, judging from touring tycoons, the fashion has been reversed. The Asian is immaculately clothed while the over-civilised Euro pean slops about in overhanging shirt, shorts, bare-legged and sandalled, while the female of the species en tour, wears a sun-suit or something less than she struts about in in her boudoir.

Towards the primitive? I’ll say. If moral standards reach the same primitive level then all may be lost.

Another P-NG

Casualty?

P-NG is certainly proving a hazard for VlP’s ( PIM, May, p. 27). Add to the list of casualties that of the Administrator of the Commonwealth Sir Dallas Brooks, who as I write (end of May) is suffering from a coronary occlusion in the Canberra Hospital. He attended the opening of the Legislative Council Chambers in Port Moresby in April. More New Guinea malira or Papuan puripurH Probably the latter, in the case of Sir Dallas as he visited Port Moresby and not New Guinea, where malira is used.

There is no confirmation of the rumour that Dr. Soekarno or Com rade Khrushchev intend paying a visit to the Territory.

The New Rendezvous Some time ago it was suggested in PIM that the successor to Ushers’

New Guinea Bar might be Aaron’s.

My city scout now whispers that it will be Pfahlert’s, in Margaret Street, An appropriate place for some quiet drinking, certainly, though somewhat isolated. And this could have its advantages, too.

Photograph: M. R. Hayes