New Guinea On

The Threshold

An Islands book that gets well away from the travel class of material presented by Judy Tudor and Maslyn Williams is “New Guinea on the Threshold”. It is a symposium of academics’ views on aspects of social, political and economic development in emerging Papua-New Guinea, pub lished by the Australian National University Press, Canberra.

THIS is both a guide to the specialist and to the intelligent man wanting a factual, overall view of the territory. As a reference book it will be more useful than most, for its information is presented in a fashion that won’t result in the volume being outdated overnight; in discussing the present state of the territory most of the contributors also manage to look into the past and' make predictions for the future.

Eleven Writers

There are 11 contributors. F. J.

West takes a refreshingly new look at the territory’s historical back ground; E. K. Fisk (who is also editor of the volume) outlines the main features of the economy and examines their implications for the next 10 years; H. C. Brookfield explains the apparent contradictions faced by a people who might on the one hand have no means of making ready money but who have a wealth of natural resources; R. T.

Shand examines rural development prospects, including timber and fish ing industries, in an assessment which will be valuable for anybody with business interests in the territory; Norma McArthur outlines the demo graphic situation.

O. H. K. Spate, in discussing education, manages as usual to be entertaining as well as informative; S. A. Wurm explains why P-NG is one of the most complex regions of the world linguistically; Paula Brown looks at social movements, and Marie Reay at women in a country that originally was a man’s world; R.

S. Parker examines the growth of territory administration and the advance to responsible government; D. G. Bettison’s sympathetic view of the expatriate community will surprise a lot of people who would have expected him to be more fiercely critical.

The book is a handsome produc

tion, worthy in all respects of a place in the New Guinea bookshelf. —SI. (new guinea on the threshold.

Australian National University Press.

Distributed by Jacaranda Press. $3.95.»

Sailor In Steam Has An

aura of nostalgia about it that once was reserved for books on vi 1 When its author. J.

M. Lindsay Glasgow-born and now living m Western Australia, first went to sea in 1915, sail was just giving way to steam and he, like other sailors, sniffed at the new steamships as being mere tin kettles.

But the future was obviously in

steam, whether any of them liked it or not, and after joining the British India Steam Navigation Company as a junior officer, and eventually working up to chief officer, he came to realise that while the steamship required a different kind of skill it lacked none of the excitement of sail.

His recollections of ships on the Far Eastern runs before the wars, and particularly of his days on the Indian coast, present a short, slight yet strangely fascinating glimpse of empires and ships that have passed

in the night.-

SI.

(sailor in steam. Rigby Ltd. $3.50.>