In Moresby's

Growing Problem In Moresby's Bright Lights

Migrating natives who turn into vagrants because of the lack of work are becoming an in

creasing problem in Papua-New

Guinea.

SO serious has the situation become in Port Moresby that the Ad ministrator, Sir Donald Cleland, re cently appointed a special committee to study the situation.

This committee was provided with an initial sum of £3,000 to ship work less and unskilled people “out of town” back to their own villages where they would not be a problem in this rapidly developing urban centre.

The Government also is worried by the growing native vagrant prob lem in the territory’s other two main centres—Lae and Rabaul.

Most natives are drawn to these three centres by the lure of the bright lights. Many also come because their own home villages have no cash in come and they hope to raise the necessary money to pay their annual council tax, usually about £3 a year.

Others send their children to the town in the hope that they will re ceive some sort of education.

Nowhere in the Territory is vagrancy more serious than in Port Moresby. Of the town’s estimated population of 34,000, 27,000 are Papuans and 7,000 Europeans.

Of the Papuans, Administration officials estimated that between 8,000 and 9,000 are urban vagrants—people without jobs, without any place to live and without any means of getting themselves back to their own villages.

A recent police survey of the town made from the air showed there were more than 25 squatter settlements hidden in thick bush around the town. The reason that these settle ments are hidden is due to some ex tent to police control of natives living in town areas.

Other native immigrants live with friends in the large labour com pounds used by private trading and manufacturing companies to house their staffs. Others live with their friends in the “boi houses” attached to European houses.

If detected in their settlements, the compounds or the “boi houses” the native immigrant who has no job or money faces a gaol sentence.

Mr. David Marsh, District Officer of the Central District, an area which embraces Port Moresby, says most native immigrants come to Port Moresby from two areas which lie west of the town, the Gulf and Western districts. TTiese districts are two of the poorest in the Territory, and sending the migrants home to them is no answer.

Yet town life offers no rewards for the unskilled. There is a short age of work in Port Moresby for unskilled workers.

The Government keeps on paying

out money to ship them home; usually long distances at considerable cost.

Some Administration officials feel that the towns, for those who live in them, should carry some form of head tax. This they believe would discourage many people from living in them.

Whatever the answer, most officials believe that town life with its movie houses, beer parlours and aura of ex citement will always attract the village native and the problem will continue to grow.— AAP-Reuter.