Lofty Roads-And

Low —In Png’S

Highways

AFTERTHOUGHTS with Percy Chatterton in Port Moresby.

In March, the Papua New Guinea Ministry of Transport turned on a ‘Transport Week’, with long, perhaps too long and inevi tably, in the circumstances, self-congratulatory articles in the local press. And there is no doubt that it has a lot to congratulate itself about. It is true that spectacular advances have been made in transport by land, sea and air during the past decade.

Most of my early visits to the villages of the Central Province, or the Central Division as it was then called, were done on foot or by sailing canoe or motor launch. Nowadays most of the vil lages I used to visit can be reached by road, in some cases by conventional and in others by four-wheel drive vehicles.

It’s undoubtedly a gain, but perhaps not all gain. I learned a tremendous lot about this country and its people while perched precariously on an outrigger canoe, listening to the talk of the Papuan crew and sometimes joining in, as a fitful breeze wafted us slowly to our destination; and at other times tramping along bush tracks, learning from my Papuan companions about the sights and sounds of the bush. When we did reach our destination we were sufficiently tired not to want to hurry on to the next

village.

Nowadays people dash in and out of villages with little time to look, listen and learn. This is one of the prices of what we used to call progress and now refer to as development. I some times ask myself, ‘Progress Towards What’? and ‘Development for What’?

In recent years the development of the PNG road system has been spectacular, and has been carried out over terrain as daunt ing as any anywhere in the world. The Highlands Highway has been a fantastic achievement, though one geologist has suggested that the formations it crosses really need another million years or so to settle down. On the Papuan coast, the Hiritano and Magi Highways are steadily reaching further and further westwards and eastwards respectively from Port Moresby; and similar develop ments are taking place all over the country.

Again, this is gain but not all gain, and perhaps more thought needs to be given to the social implications of road development as distinct from the economic ones. ‘No,’ said a Papuan friend who had just revisited the once isolated home of her childhood

by passenger truck, ‘there’s not much fish about now. The young men are too busy riding the trucks in and out of Moresby to build canoes and go out fishing’. This particular road was a new one, and hopefully the novelty will wear off and things will settle down.

But in the Highlands it’s a more serious matter. The Highway has facilitated the transport of coffee and other cash crops to the coast and of consumer goods from the coast to the Highlands.

But such a large proportion of Highlands-bound cargo consists of beer that when one of the Highlands provinces recently imposed a liquor embargo in an attempt to solve its law and order problems, the Highway truckers protested that their businesses were being ruined.

Moreover, the Highlands Highway, with its steep gradients and consequent slow-moving traffic, has produced a breed of high waymen worthy of comparison with the English highwaymen of the eighteenth century, though without the latters’ legendary gallantry. These gentlemen leap on to the backs of slow-moving trucks, rip open the tarpaulin covers and pillage the cargo, while displaying a streak of ferocity which keeps the drivers cowering in their cabins in fear for their lives. I understand, too, that the trak meoi sorority find the highway a convenient means for pur suing over expanding areas the world’s oldest profession, and so boosting the spread of venereal disease.

This is all part of the price of progress.

Of the three modes of transport land, sea and air coastal sea transport has probably changed the least during the past 50 years. There has no doubt been some improvement in cargo hand ling, especially at the main ports; but aside from that the coastal trading vessels remain what they always were small, dirty craft depending for profitability on cargo and giving passengers little consideration. These latter travel as deck passengers, squatting on the hatches and getting off-loaded at each of the many ports of call while the hatches are removed for the unloading and load ing of cargo; or, if they are ‘lucky’, in small, cockroach-infested cabins. Indeed, they are lucky to get on at all, because if the ship is carrying petrol or other flammable material, passengers are not carried. Such journeys have in the past been not only uncomfort able but also intolerably slow, due to the many ports of call.

Just this year there has been a bit of a breakthrough with Steam ships Trading Company putting on an exclusively passenger ship, the MV Kris, to give a fast and reasonably confortable weekly service east and west out of Port Moresby along the south Papuan coast. This is a very welcome development after half a century of virtual stagnation, and one hopes that it will turn out to be a commercial success. I must leave air travel over for another occasion.