New Guinea on the Threshold

Aspects of Social, Political, and

Economic Development

Edited by E. K. Fisk

Aspects of Social, Political New Guinea today is the largest, if

not the most populous, non-self-gov­
and Economic Development erning territory outside the Commu­
nist world. It includes some of the
most recently contacted primitive
races known to mankind, and its
population comprises hundreds of
tribal groups whose native languages
are mutually unintelligible. The geo­
graphical, political, and social frag­
mentation of the country, its wide
range of economic activities, from
the most primitive subsistence gather­
ing to the most sophisticated internal
air transport system, and the growing
political pressures from the outside
world, present a fascinating concate­
nation of problems to those concerned
with the future of this land.
In this book a group of experts,
who have made a special study of
Papua and New Guinea, examine the
present situation in that Territory
from the point of view of their own
specialities, and consider what this
bodes for the future.

(Continued on back flap)

Jacket design by llobin Wallace-Crabbe

$A 3-95
 New Guinea on the Threshold
Aspects of Social, Political, and
Economic Development

Edited by E. K. Fisk

Aspects of Social, Political New Guinea today is the largest, if

not the most populous, non-self-gov­
and Economic Development erning territory outside the Commu­
nist world. It includes some of the
most recently contacted primitive
races known to mankind, and its
population comprises hundreds of
tribal groups whose native languages
are mutually unintelligible. The geo­
graphical, political, and social frag­
mentation of the country, its wide
range of economic activities, from
the most primitive subsistence gather­
ing to the most sophisticated internal
air transport system, and the growing
political pressures from the outside
world, present a fascinating concate­
nation of problems to those concerned
with the future of this land.
In this book a group of experts,
who have made a special study of
Papua and New Guinea, examine the
present situation in that Territory
from the point of view of their own
specialities, and consider what this
bodes for the future.

(Continued on back flap)

Jacket design by llobin Wallace-Crabbe

$A 3-95
(Continued from front flap)

This book is intended both for the

specialist who wishes to inform him­
self of the position of the Territory in
fields other than his own and for the
general reader, for whom it will serve
as an ‘intelligent man’s guide’ to some
of the main problems confronting
New Guinea in its transition to inde­
pendent nationhood.
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 This book was published by ANU Press between 1965–1991.
This republication is part of the digitisation project being carried
out by Scholarly Information Services/Library and ANU Press.
This project aims to make past scholarly works published
by The Australian National University available to
a global audience under its open-access policy.
NEW GUINEA ON THE THRESHOLD

PLEASE RBTURM TO

editorial department
New Guinea on the Threshold
Aspects of Social, Political, and
Economic Development
edited by
E. K. FISK

with a foreword by
Sir John Crawford
Director
Research School of Pacific Studies
The Australian National University

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY PRESS

CANBERRA
 First published 1966

All rights reserved

Set in 10/11 point Linotype Caledonia and

printed on Burnie Book Printing
by Halstead Press Pty Ltd, Sydney

Registered in Australia for transmission by post as a book

 Foreword

T he A ustralian administered Territories of Papua and New

Guinea have become a major interest of the Australian National
University, and in particular of the Research School of Pacific
Studies within that University. As a result of this interest there is
now a considerable body of scholars, in a wide range of disciplines,
who have spent many years in the study of New Guinea and its
problems.
There has resulted a great deal of specialized writing, but New
Guinea and its problems have recently come to the notice and
interest of a much wider audience throughout the world, whose
needs are not adequately met by what a specialist writes for his
fellow specialists. I therefore suggested to Mr Fisk that he attempt
to bring together some of these specialists in the writing of a book
that would serve as an ‘intelligent man’s guide’ to Papua-New
Guinea and some of its more interesting problems and prospects.
The result is a lively book, in which a group of leading specialists
look at the present situation in Papua-New Guinea from the point
of view of their own specialty, and consider what this bodes for the
future, and in particular for the next decade or so.
There are of course gaps in the coverage of the book as not all
the experts were available to write for this book at the appropriate
time. There are also a few points of dispute between the experts
themselves, which may detract somewhat from the consistency of
the book, but add substantially to its interest.
New Guinea (more and more used to cover the two Territories,
Papua and New Guinea) today constitutes the largest, if not the
most populous, of the remaining non-self-governing territories of
the non-Communist world. It includes some of the most recently
contacted primitive races known to mankind; and it is still possible,
in some areas, for anthropologists to study stone-age man living
virtually undisturbed in his natural stone-age environment. Add
to the primitive economic systems the vast range of languages and
the social and political fragmentation so prevalent in the Terri­
tories, and it is not surprising to find a bewildering but fascinating
range of problems. Many of these problems are as yet little under­
stood by more than a few, but they have begun to capture the
interest and attention of many people in many countries throughout
the modem world.
Some of this growing interest and attention has been politically
motivated. Whatever the motives of some participants in the debate
vi Foreword
it is likely, nevertheless, that this same debate has awakened many
people to the strange and difficult responsibility that, by the acci­
dent of history, has fallen upon Australia.
One purpose of this book is to inform and encourage debate and
discussion amongst interested people, both inside and outside the
United Nations, and also in New Guinea itself. The ‘Threshold’
referred to in the title is clearly a reference to the development of
self-government and independence. All chapters have a relevance,
some less directly so than others, to the task of ‘guiding’ New Guinea
to the point of the decisions which will finally spell self-government
and, not necessarily immediately concurrent, external independence.
Dr West gives us the historical setting and warns against ana­
chronistic judgments about past policies formed in an earlier day in
which the development of self-government and independence were
not seen as matters of urgency. Mr Fisk develops a theme of
‘primitive affluence’ which, under pressure of change to a western
style economy, will not readily or quickly become viable. Its
external dependence on Australia for capital and skills will increase
rather than decline before there emerges a ‘national economy’ able
to support a politically independent and self-governing national
unit. Dr Brookfield indicates that the ‘comfortable’ subsistence
economy has been possible because population has not widely
pressed on resources. But at a new level of living standards, which
will accompany the adoption of a monetary economy, a major re­
deployment of population (especially urban) will occur and will
need careful oversight. Dr Shand shows that major new rural
industries have developed in recent years and plots for the course
of economic development needed to lessen external dependence.
Dr McArthur warns us that our knowledge of the population in
terms of vital statistics is so slight as to make nonsense of precise
planning of schooling and other social measures. Readers of other
chapters will realize, however, that inadequate data do not get us
‘off the hook’: we have for example to develop an educational policy
within the framework of the best guesses or judgments we can
make about the structure of population.
Professor Spate deals with the complex educational problem
which has quite suddenly become critical at the tertiary rather than
primary level. He discounts the attempt in some quarters to pose
education and economic development as antithetical in priorities
for the use of public resources. Readers will be interested in the
marginally different views on the role of native languages expressed
by Professor Spate and Dr Wurm. Both stress the need for English
as the language for secondary and tertiary instruction, when the
requirements of abstract thought are clearly beyond the vernacular
languages. The latter’s chapter is a wise reminder to the reader of
the basic difficulty of developing a sense of nationhood in a
country with some 700 recognizable languages.
Foreword vii
Dr Paula Brown deals with the process of social change and for
many readers her treatment of ‘cargo cults’ will be of great interest
and value. Other contributors (especially Professor R. S. Parker)
use the general description of cargo cults as reflecting problems of
‘hopeless envy’ or, less unmanageably, ‘ignorance and wishful
thinking’ by indigenous groups about the apparently magical
affluence of the European. Dr Reay deals with a too neglected
subject: the role of women in the changing New Guinea. She shows
the difficulties and opportunities ahead and also explains why some
mainland organizations (e.g. Girl Guides) transplant well and others
do less well.
Dr Bettison deals sympathetically with the problems of the
expatriate in New Guinea. He shows the dilemmas in assimilating
two alien cultures in one country. He stresses the ambivalence of
the Australian who does not claim innate superiority over the
indigenes as human beings and recognizes the justice of developing
New Guinea for New Guineans while, at the same time, he finds it
difficult to adjust his daily life to take full account of both these
points.
Professor Parker provides two essential chapters. Together
they serve to differentiate between legislation and government.
Significant power to legislate has been given to the new House of
Assembly, but administration is still largely in the hands of ex­
patriates. The road to full self-government is still a long one in
terms of skills and experience to be acquired whatever the legis­
lative and temporal time-table turns out to be.
Professor Parker shows reticence, a reticence perhaps surprisingly
evident on the part of other contributors, too, on the subject of
target dates for political and administrative independence. The
writer of this foreword shares this reticence and sees nothing to be
gained by dramatic announcements of early dates as targets for
self-government and independence. Professor Parker poses the
relevant questions but the tenor of the book as a whole is a healthy
reminder of what remains to be done. Any early target date would
either embarrass the proposers by proving impracticable or
embarrass the New Guineans who, they have been assured, alone
will determine their readiness.
ft has not been my intention to review the book but simply to
indicate its promise as an ‘intelligent man’s guide’ to the nature and
problems of Australia’s responsibilities in Papua and New Guinea.
All the writers record something of the substantial progress of the
last two decades but none is brash enough to belittle the task ahead.
I have said the book is ‘lively’ in its presentation of the subjects
dealt with; but it is also sobering in that none can escape the
conclusion that Australia’s responsibilities in New Guinea are both
serious and difficult.
viii Foreword
I commend the book as a contribution to understanding: I hope
it will find its way into administrative and political circles in New
Guinea and Australia, into our schools and universities, and into
business houses. Not least I hope the book will come into the hands
of influential readers in those other countries who today form our
critics and whose friendly and constructive help will be necessary
in fulfilling the task Australia, and now the New Guineans them­
selves, have undertaken in promoting the advancement to nation­
hood of the two Territories.
J. G. C rawford
Director, Research School of
Pacific Studies
Canberra
January 1966
 Acknowledgments

Our debts of gratitude are many: to all those residents of Papua-

New Guinea, official and unofficial, and too numerous to be named
individually, who have helped each of us in so many ways during
our visits to the Territory. To them all we extend our grateful
thanks.
We wish also to express our appreciation to Hunter Douglas
(A^ustralia) Limited for the grant it made towards the cost of
publication; to the Department of Territories for permission to use
the photographs reproduced in plates 1-8; to Mr W. F. M. Straat-
mans for the use of the photos in plates 2 (centre) and 3 (below)
from his private collection; to Mr Hans Gunther and his colleagues
in the Cartographic Section of the Research School of Pacific Studies
for the maps in Chapter 3 and the endpapers; and, finally, to Mr
Howard Liu, for his assistance in compiling the index and for many
other points in the making of the book.
E.K.F.
 Notes on Contributors

Bettison, D. G., p h .d., Associate Professor of Anthropology, Simon

Fraser University, Vancouver: formerly Senior Fellow in the
Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University,
and Executive Officer of the New Guinea Research Unit of that
School. Dr Bettison is a sociologist and has published widely on
African problems as well as on those of New Guinea. He was also
editor of the New Guinea Research Bulletin.
Brookfield, H. C., p h .d ., Professorial Fellow in Geography, Research
School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. Dr
Brookfield is known for his work on the Geography of Oceania
and as author (with Dr Brown) of Struggle for Land.
Brown, Paula, p h .d., Senior Fellow in Anthropology, Research
School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. Dr
Brown has made a special study of the Chimbu people of the
Eastern Highlands of New Guinea and is author of numerous
articles in this field as well as joint author of Struggle for Land.
Fisk, E. K., m .a ., Senior Fellow in Economics, Research School of
Pacific Studies, Australian National University. Mr Fisk has pub­
lished on the rural economy of South-East Asia as well as on the
economic theory of primitive societies and on the economy of
Papua and New Guinea.
McArthur, Norma, ph .d., Professorial Fellow in Demography, Re­
search School of Social Sciences, Australian National University.
Dr McArthur is known for her work on the Demography of
Oceania and has published a special study, The Populations of
the Pacific Islands in 8 parts (Australian National University,
Canberra).
Parker, R. S., m .ec ., Professor of Political Science, Research School
of Social Sciences, Australian National University. He has since
1962 been a member of the Interim Council of the Administrative
College of Papua and New Guinea, and is well known for his
published works on Australian politics and administration.
Reay, Marie, p h .d ., Senior Fellow in Anthropology, Research School
of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. Dr Reay is
known particularly for her work in the Western Highlands of
New Guinea, published in her book The Kuma and in many
journal articles.
xii Notes on Contributors
Shand, R. T., p h .d., Senior Research Fellow in Economics, Research
School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, has
made a special study of cash cropping in Papua and New Guinea
over the last four years. His published works include a number
of articles on the agricultural economics of New Guinea.
Spate, O. H. K., p h .d ., Professor of Geography in the Research
School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, is well
known for his works on India and Fiji. He has been associated
with research in New Guinea for many years and was recently a
prominent member of the Commission on Higher Education in
Papua and New Guinea, whose report was published in Canberra
1964.
West, F. p h .d ., Professorial Fellow in Pacific History, Research
School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. His
book on Sir Hubert Murray is being published by Oxford Uni­
versity Press in 1966.
Wurm, S. A., p h .d ., Professorial Fellow in Linguistics, Research
School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. He is
known for his contributions to Oceanic Linguistics, and in par­
ticular for his recently published accounts of the linguistic
situation in New Guinea.
 C ontents

Foreword, by Sir John Crawford v

Acknowledgments ix
Notes on Contributors xi
Abbreviations xix

I THE SETTING
1 The Historical Background F. J. West 3

II THE ECONOMY
2 The Economic Structure E. K. Fisk 23
3 An Assessment of Natural Resources H. C. Brookfield 44
Appendix: The Sources of Data on Natural Resources 78
4 Trade Prospects for the Rural Sector R. T. Shand 80
5 The Demographic Situation Norma McArthur 103

III SOCIAL PROBLEMS

6 Education and Its Problems O. H. K. Spate 117
7 Language and Literacy S. A. Wurm 135
8 Social Change and Social Movements Paula Brown 149
9 Women in Transitional Society Marie Reaij 166

IV POLITICAL PROBLEMS
10 The Growth of Territory Administration R. S. Parker 187
Appendix: Government Employment in Papua and
New Guinea at 30 June 1965 221
11 The Expatriate Community D. G. Bettison 222
12 The Advance to Responsible Government R. S. Parker 243
References 270
Index 283
 Figures

Page
1 A grouping of the land systems of the Buna-Kokoda area,
Northern District, Papua 46
2 Some elements of terrain in part ofPapua-NewGuinea 49
3 The nature of the surface rocks in some areas of Papua-
New Guinea 51
4 Eastern New Guinea: an interpretation of mean annual
rainfall 54
5 Mean February and July rainfall 56
6 Eastern New Guinea: rainfall types based on wet and
dry period ratios 58
7 Papua-New Guinea: density of population by census
divisions, about 1960 62
8 Papua-New Guinea: the distribution of some limitations
to the use of land 66
9 Papua-New Guinea: location and nature of some areas
with relatively favourable conditions for landuse 68
10 Papua-New Guinea: non-agricultural resourcesand the
communications network 72
 Plates

Facing page
1 THE SETTING
Above The proclamation of annexation, Argyll Bay,
Papua, 1884
Below Highland natives at Mount Hagen Show, 1965 12

2 SUBSISTENCE ECONOMY
Above Women cultivating subsistence gardens
Centre Primitive affluence in food and housing
Below Economic contribution: building the Bougain-
ville-Iwi road 13

3 CASH CROPPING
Above Coffee-picking at Mount Hagen
Below Cash cropping in the Boana area 28

4 EDUCATION
Above Kukukuku children at primary school, Men-
yama, 1961
Below A science class at Rabaul High School 29

5 WOMEN
A young woman in traditional dress, Nondugl 172

6 SOCIAL PROBLEMS
Above A women’s clubhouse
Below Social mixing on the sports field 173

7 THE ADMINISTRATION
Above An Assistant District Officer supervising
villagers at work
Below Discussing a gardening programme 188

8 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
Above Kui Native Local Government Council meet­
ing, Mount Hagen
Below A 1964 election meeting 189
B
 Abbreviations

A. B.C. Australian Broadcasting Commission.

ANGAU Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit.
ASOPA Australian School of Pacific Administration.
B. A.E. Bureau of Agricultural Economics.
C. P.D. Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates.
CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organi­
zation.
Currie Report Report of the Commission on Higher Education in
Papua and New Guinea.
ECAFE Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East.
F.A.O. United Nations, Food and Agriculture Organization.
H.A. Deb. House of Assembly Debates.
l.B.R.D. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
N.I.D. Royal Naval Intelligence Division.
N.G.A.R. New Guinea, Annual Reports, see Australia 1921-40,
1946- .
P.A.R. Papua, Annual Reports, see Territories 1905- .
Roy. Com. Australia, ‘Report of the Royal Commission . . . Papua’.
T.P.N.G. Territory of Papua and New Guinea.
Tariff Report Australia, Tariff Board Reports.
 I

The Setting
 1

The Historical Background

f . j. WE S T

P apua and New Guinea, administered jointly since 1946, came

under Australian control in different ways and at different times.
The former, a British Crown colony, was transferred to the new
Commonwealth of Australia by Royal Letters Patent in 1902 and
formally accepted when the Papua Act was proclaimed in Port
Moresby on 1 September 1906. The latter, the German colony of
Kaiser Wilhelmsland, was captured by an Australian expeditionary
force in 1914, ruled by a military administration for six years, and
first retained under civilian control as a Class ‘C’ mandate under
the League of Nations and then as a Trust Territory under the
United Nations in 1946. The differences in the method of their
acquisition affected the course of Australian rule, for in both
colonies the Australian government inherited a pattern of admini­
stration and of unofficial enterprise, but such differences between
the two Territories, although contemporaries often supposed them
to be great, were in fact relatively minor. The physical and social
characteristics of the two colonies are so similar that the broad
pattern of European control has been the same. The differences in
the time of acquisition are more important, however, because the
assumptions and beliefs which were made about colonial rule by
those responsible for its administration differed in 1921 from those
of 1906. And these assumptions led to a different perception of the
problems involved as well as setting limits to their solution.
When Australia assumed the government of Papua, it did so in
the context of an argument about the best policy to be pursued. The
participants in this debate saw matters in two broad categories. One
was the duty to protect the natives. In its extreme form this end of
policy was asserted by the Reverend James Chalmers of the London
Missionary Society in Papua. At the time of annexation he had said:
‘The smallest amount of government and interference will be the
best, and any attempt to Anglicise the natives or their customs
should be strictly prohibited’ (Chalmers 1887:105). Such a policy,
3
4 New Guinea on the Threshold
as the first governor of Papua realized, could not be seriously urged
upon a metropolitan government which was paying the cost of
administration, but Chalmers reasserted his opinion after seven
years of colonial rule: ‘New Guinea is never likely to become a
land fit for colonising. Its position and climate are both against it;
and in addition to this . . . Every native right would, I fear, be an
impediment to colonisation (Chalmers 1887:104). Chalmers repre­
sented a tradition of thought about colonial rule which concerned
itself with the protection of the aboriginals, and it was the sole
view which many in Australia ascribed to the British administration
of Papua. In this belief, when the colony came under Australian
control an additional policy was proclaimed: development.
In 1906 the Royal Commissioners who sat to recommend a policy
for the Territory declared that the hour had struck for a forward
policy. Any future administrator should ‘put behind him most of
the late Crown Colony traditions’ and ‘be determined that every
officer under him will work with singleness of purpose in the
interest of legitimate white development of whatever kind’ (Aus­
tralia 1907:xcviii). They believed, as did most Australians with any
interest in Papua, that it was a potentially rich and profitable
possession whose resources could and should be unlocked, and that
incidentally in this process of development the Papuans would
benefit because they would have models of European industry to
imitate and by working for Europeans they would acquire both
skills and habits of industry without which they would suffer the
fate of other aboriginal races and die out. As Hubert Murray, the
first Australian Lieutenant-Governor of Papua, told his brother
Gilbert in 1908: ‘white civilisation is not incompatible with the well­
being of the natives’, adding that if they did not work they were
‘doomed’ (Gilbert Murray n.d.). It is easy to be cynical about the
belief that development and the best interests of the natives were
complementary, but even in missionary and philanthropic circles it
was generally agreed that hard work was the principal means by
which the native could achieve his religious and social salvation,
although these circles might deny that this hard work should be
performed for a European settler or entrepreneur.
Thus at the outset of Australian rule there was a dual policy: of
development, which meant the encouragement of European enter­
prise; and of protection, which meant that Papuans working for
Europeans to assist development must be shielded from cruelty, ill-
treatment, and injustice.
By 1921 these assumptions and the optimism with which the dual
policy was regarded had changed. In part this was due to Papuan
experience. World War I had dealt Papuan trade a grave blow,
and in any case it had become obvious that whatever resources
existed could not be developed quickly or easily. Murray had begun
to give a more positive stress to native policy (West 1963:292), as a
The Historical Background 5
consequence both of attempting to bring the whole of the colony
under control and of his awareness that since European develop­
ment was slow, native development was necessary to the prosperity
of Papua. In part the change was due to external factors. It was
generally believed by the men who drew up the peace treaties that
the Germans were unfit to rule colonies; that their treatment of
natives had been harsh. The Covenant of the League of Nations
proclaimed that the control of native peoples formed a ‘sacred trust’
of the civilized powers which administered colonies, with a clear
implication that there would come a time when these people who
could not yet stand on their own feet under the strenuous conditions
of the modem world would be able to do so. Again, it is easy to be
cynical about the effect of high-sounding declarations on practice,
but at least there was a proclaimed standard and a system of
inquiring into its achievement. Whatever the failures of colonial
governments, consciousness of native interests took on a more
positive form. Protection from abuses and civilization as an
incidental effect of European activity began to be replaced by more
positive efforts to civilize primitive peoples and by doctrines of the
paramountcy of native interests. There was still, however, no sense
of urgency, no sense of time running out, and no elaboration of
‘welfare’ measures of the kind that came with the Colonial Develop­
ment and Welfare Acts of 1940 and onwards.
Granted the assumptions and beliefs men had about colonial
rule (for it is idle to blame them for being of their own time and
place), these different stresses in the dual policy had different
consequences in practice. While development by European capital
and skill seemed the chief need, both to make the Territories self-
sufficient and to yield a profit to those who risked their money and
their lives there, the crucial issues of government were land and
labour policy, together with ancillary needs like communications—
roads and bridges, ports and wharves—which they implied.
There was always an undercurrent of hope about the mineral
resources of Papua. Writing in 1912, Murray described the minerals
as hardly touched (J. H. P. Murray 1912:316). He had in mind gold,
copper, coal, and oil, all of which were known to exist, but in
unknown quantities. If the oil discovered on the Vailala in 1911
were as extensive as was reported, he looked forward to the tripling
of his revenue. But these were still hopes, and the real development
of Papua was thought to be agricultural. There was great optimism
about the range of crops which could be grown—the Royal Com­
missioners had supplied a long list including coffee, tea, cinchona,
sisal hemp—but in practice development early concentrated on two:
copra and rubber. Both required land for plantations and labour to
work them.
New Guinea was a somewhat different case. When Australia took
control, the plantations which grew chiefly copra had already been
6 New Guinea on the Threshold
established, first under the aegis of the Neu Guinea Kompagnie and
then under Imperial German administration (Rowley 1958:51). At
the end of World War I these plantations were expropriated and
made available on generous terms and as freehold to Australian
settlers, and it was not until the Highlands were discovered and
brought under control after World War II that land policy became
a problem on the scale it had been in Papua (West 1956:163). Then
too New Guinea mineral resources were spectacularly revealed by
the Edie Creek gold strike, which outshone the agricultural attrac­
tions of the territory. These circumstances made labour policy, not
land, the principal aspect of development, but the allied problems
of communication were no less acute when development was
stressed.
Land policy was the first major issue to be tackled under the
Australian administration of Papua. In 1906 the area of land leased
to Europeans was some two thousand acres and the amount of
freehold land alienated to Europeans was twenty-two thousand
acres during the eighteen years of British government (Legge 1956:
140-2). The Papua Act abolished freehold because of Australian
experience with land speculation, but to promote settlement the
Land Ordinance of 1906 provided for leasehold grants on extremely
liberal terms. Leases were granted for periods up to ninety-nine
years, rent free for the first ten years. No limitation was placed
upon the area which could be taken up. Free survey was provided,
and the nominal deposit demanded with applications for land was
refunded when the lease was taken up. To prevent speculation,
however, strict improvement conditions were laid down which pre­
scribed the nature and the extent of cultivation and of stocking of
leases, and failure to comply with these conditions led to forfeiture
of the land.
This liberal ordinance did its work, measured by the crude test
of land held by settlers. Over forty thousand acres were leased
during the first year of Australian rule, a figure which went up to
nearly a quarter of a million acres in the following year and reached
364,088 by 1911. Thereafter the land boom stabilized. In part the
improvement conditions came into effect, with the result that by the
time of the outbreak of war in 1914, 174,355 acres had been for­
feited, and the amount of land in the hands of private Europeans
stabilized at a quarter of a million acres. Of this, by 1911, very
nearly sixteen thousand were actually under cultivation, and over
double that amount when war came. In part the levelling off of
land settlement was due to government policy. Estimating that the
encouragement the ordinance offered had been successful, in 1909
survey fees were charged and the scale of deposits was increased
according to the area applied for, in 1910 rents were charged within
the first ten years and at the same time a limit was placed upon
the amount of land that could be taken up as an individual lease.
The Historical Background 7
What was achieved was sufficient, thought the government, to
provide the basis for the profitable development of Papua, to
achieve that self-sufficiency which both the Australian and Papuan
administrations regarded as an attainable end of policy; and both
in Australia and in Papua the day was expected when the Australian
subsidy (before World War I ranging from £20,000 to £30,000 a
year plus certain smaller special grants for roads, wharves, and
government plantations) would be unnecessary.
Only one serious obstacle appeared. Land was available, but
where was the labour to work it? If, for instance, the Ceylon figure
of three boys per acre was appropriate, from the beginning of
development a serious labour shortage existed, granted that the
government had a duty to protect the natives. The Native Labour
Ordinance of 1907 provided for recruiting by licensed recruiters
who, having found labourers, must bring them before a government
officer to have an indenture made up. The officer must satisfy him­
self that the men were willing to work, that a fair remuneration
would be offered and duly paid, that there was no reason to expect
ill-treatment, and that at the end of the contract the labourer would
be returned to his village. The ordinance went on to prescribe the
conditions of work. The length of engagement could not exceed
eighteen months for a miner or carrier nor three years for an
agricultural worker. Regulations prescribed the payment of wages,
conditions of housing, scale of rations, and medical care. Murray
later described this indenture system as a near relative of slavery,
but he defended its retention in Papua as a protection for the native,
who was safeguarded from compulsion or fraud, and as protection
for the employer, who had a criminal remedy for breach of contract
by his labourers (J. H. P. Murray 1925:110-21).
Such an elaborate labour code, policed as it was with some care,
could not in itself produce the men required. Even if the figure
needed to work the land in cultivation could be reduced from that
deemed necessary in Ceylon, there was still an apparent shortage.
The importation of Asiatic labour, although it was from time to time
considered in official circles and permitted in the case of ‘labourers
of special skill’, was never seriously contemplated even when there
were grave doubts in 1910 about the adequacy of the Papuan
supply. Estimating the total population at something like 200,000,
the Papuan government thought that 10 per cent of this number
was the outside limit of available manpower if Papuans were to be
saved from turning into a landless proletariat. Yet faced with this
threat of a labour shortage, the government was still optimistic; it
thought that numbers would prove adequate for the degree of
settlement which had occurred and it ascribed any particular
shortages to the shortcomings of individual employers and the
resulting unwillingness of Papuans to engage for particular indi­
viduals. But it was the labour question, nevertheless, which
8 New Guinea on the Threshold
produced the belief that Papua could not be developed in a single
generation, that development would not be quick but gradual. And
it was the labour question, too, which caused the Papuan govern­
ment to attempt to bring the whole of the colony under control and
to stress the native administration aspect of its policy.
The acquisition of New Guinea did not present the Australian
government with the necessity to evolve a land policy. Under Neu
Guinea Kompagnie rule some 700,000 acres had been sold or leased
to companies or to individuals, of which some 26 per cent was
planted. Under the terms of the Versailles treaties, when these
properties were expropriated and then offered for sale principally
to ex-servicemen, the purchaser not merely bought the property on
very favourable terms but also acquired the best title vested in the
previous owner, which meant, since land under the Germans had
been sold rather than leased, freehold tenure in most of the settled
area of New Guinea. The Australian Administration indeed retained
the law of its imperial predecessor that only the government could
buy land from natives, and it also provided safeguards to prevent
forced or fraudulent land purchase by establishing the tests of
native willingness to sell and of consideration of present and future
native needs, but a major part of land settlement had already taken
place and that land was alienated. Under the new Australian
ordinance leasehold land was gradually taken up on much the same
terms as Papuan land, by 1939 reaching the figure of 134,000 acres.
Of these two types of landholding, the major part remained free­
hold, and of both something over a quarter of a million acres was
actually planted by 1939, an area of cultivation equal to the total
amount of settlement in Papua.
New Guinea’s labour problem was correspondingly greater. There
had been complaints of shortages under the German regime when
there was no necessity for a government officer to determine
whether a recruit had engaged voluntarily and when the punish­
ments for defaulting labourers included flogging, imprisonment with
chains, and curtailment of food. Under Australian rule, an ordinance
very similar to the Papuan one was introduced, although there were
some differences of detail such as the length of the term of engage­
ment, which was three years for agricultural labourers and two
years for other classes, the fixing of a minimum wage at five
shillings a month where the Papuan ordinance prescribed no mini­
mum, and a working week of fifty-five hours where the Papuan was
fifty. Regulations in New Guinea laid down working conditions,
payment of wages, ration scales, and medical care and treatment,
as well as controlling the stages of recruitment from engagement in
the village to repatriation at the end of the contract. In general the
New Guinea labour policy was somewhat less liberal than the
Papuan, but the extent of European enterprise exerted much greater
pressure in the Mandated Territory.
The Historical Background 9
About 17,000 natives were working for Europeans when the
Australians occupied New Guinea, and the military administration
employed 31,000. Under civilian control the figure fell slightly,
but the great gold strike sent it up to over 40,000 in the decade
before World War II. New Guinea faced the same basic problem
as Papua. In the latter the plantations were concentrated into two
districts, the Eastern and Central; in the former the bulk of
European enterprise had taken place in the offshore islands of New
Britain and New Ireland. This concentration of settlement ruled
out an adequate local supply of labour and so a labour supply had
to be found, engaged, transported to its place of work, regulated
there, and returned to its place of origin under an elaborate labour
code designed to protect both employers and employees. But in
New Guinea, unlike Papua after its early years, demand always
outstripped supply, and the urgency of opening up new country,
especially the Highland valleys which were discovered in the 1930s,
always impressed itself upon European settlers and government
alike (West 1958:98).
Land and labour lay at the root of development, the success of
which was judged in Australia primarily by the Territories reaching
self-sufficiency. To make this possible, the plantations had to be
connected to ports by adequate communications, and wharf and
shipping facilities had to be secured. The internal problem of
communications was harder in Papua than in New Guinea. The
plantations of the Mandated Territory were situated on the coast
not too far from reasonable natural harbours, but the Papuan ones had
less easy natural access. The question of external shipping was
beyond the control of the local governments, depending upon
Commonwealth negotiations with such companies as Bums Philp,
which to all intents and purposes exercised an unpopular monopoly,
and upon exemption from the operation of the Commonwealth
Navigation Act, which was applied to both Territories in 1921 and
for five years imposed disadvantageous conditions upon their trade.
Internally Papua never reached that self-sufficiency which was
aimed at. Although its revenue from duties on exports and imports
rose from £42,000 in 1907 to double that figure before World War I
and to three times as much in the most prosperous years before
World War II, it was never more than a half to two-thirds of the
total expenditure of the government. New Guinea was better off.
It never needed a Commonwealth subsidy, and with the gold
strike of 1926, which eventually produced an export value of almost
two million pounds a year, its local revenue was always four times
as much as the Papuan and very often much greater; by 1939, for
example, the revenue of the New Guinea administration was over
the half million mark when Papua’s, including the Commonwealth
grant, was barely £190,000. This comparison is somewhat unfair to
the Papuan efforts at development, because the windfall of the gold
10 New Guinea on the Threshold
strike in New Guinea obscured the basic similarity in agricultural
development (Mair 1948:99).
The mainstay of European enterprise and therefore of the govern­
ment’s revenue was copra. In Papua rubber at first seemed promis­
ing, but before the trees had really come into production there was
a world depression in prices which eliminated Papuan producers,
and only a system of Commonwealth bounties kept the industry
alive until it revived a little just before World War II. Copra until
the depression was the mainstay of development, making up half of
the export value of the colony, but this too suffered from the drop
in world prices, and by 1940 had fallen to but one-eleventh of
Papua’s exports. The Mandated Territory’s development was even
less healthy, depending agriculturally almost exclusively upon
copra. Some rubber and coffee were planted but they were experi­
mental crops rather than any serious contribution towards agri­
cultural production. Copra made up 95 per cent of exports up to
1925 and half from that date until it was displaced by gold in 1931;
but even when gold was reaching its highest value, copra still
made up 36 per cent of the value of exports. This lack of diversifi­
cation made the economies of both Territories somewhat precarious.
If minerals were not discovered, or when they were worked out, the
revenue of the two governments depended upon the price in the
world market of one tropical product which was easy to grow and
which did not demand a highly skilled labour force. The final
result of development policy before World War II suggested failure
rather than success, a fact recognized explicitly by Murray and
implicitly by the government of the Mandated Territory. They
blamed external circumstances of war and depression rather than
the meanness or lack of interest of the Commonwealth of Australia,
recognizing that Australia itself suffered from these world calamities,
and that in any event, as a country itself still needing development,
it was in no position to put many resources into Papua and the
Mandated Territory of New Guinea.
If this were true of development policy upon which the prosperity
and therefore any other policies depended, it was still more true
of the second great aim of Australian government: the protection
and then the civilization of the natives. At the outset of Australian
rule in Papua, protection was a negative matter of either doing
nothing or at least minimizing the effects of development policy.
It was protection from the evils which might attend land and
labour policy and elsewhere had done so. In this sense of protection,
safeguards had been inserted in the land and labour ordinances.
The basic safeguard was, of course, that native rights were left
undisturbed by annexation; all land, that is, did not become Crown
land with the natives tenants-at-will. Land could only be bought
from Papuans by the government, which would only do so if the
owners were willing to sell and if the land they were willing to sell
The Historical Background 11
was surplus to their present and likely needs. In fact, as Murray
pointed out in 1912, whenever a native made a claim that land had
been bought from others while he was really the owner, the govern­
ment allowed his claim as a matter of course and the land was
bought once again. Murray was confident that no injustice had been
done, partly because of this attitude of the government which
worked on the most liberal interpretation of the principles, partly
because ‘there is far more land than is ever likely to be wanted
either for natives or for Europeans, so that the land problems which
have caused so much trouble elsewhere are not likely to arise’
(J. H. P. Murray 1912:344).
This optimism was justified in general, although there were cases
of hasty or too rapid land purchase which caused local discontent,
but the demand for land in Papua was never so great that a land
shortage or widespread hardship to the natives was a serious risk.
The same principles in New Guinea, especially when, with the
settlement of the Highlands after the war there was greater pressure
for white settlement, revealed their complexities more clearly (West
1956:165). The first difficulty obviously lies in the concept of owner­
ship. From the beginning it was apparent that there was no clear-cut,
precisely-defined body of land law in native society but rather a
range of custom and a large number of individuals who had rights
in any particular piece of land. Hence, of course, Murray’s stress on
finding all of the owners. But even if all rights were traced in this
way and all claimants paid, this still left untouched the possibility
that the land might in time past have been controlled by another
group which had been dispossessed in fighting and which, because
the government had now established law and order, could not
regain its land. With an area like the Central Highlands, where to
a much greater extent than Papua each group had a long and
chequered fighting history, the starting-point of actual possession
when the government arrived to impose peace in itself caused some
injustice, quite apart from the often complicated circumstances of
any particular case. Willingness to sell land, as a criterion of
protection for the natives, is thus only a reliable principle if the
right to sell the land can be clearly established; and this is
notoriously difficult.
‘Present and future needs’ of native groups is also a difficult
criterion. It depends upon the end of policy aimed at. If the
natives are to be peasant proprietors, as Murray envisaged, or if
they are to be encouraged to grow cash crops as the Mandated
Territory believed after World War I, or if they are to establish
co-operatives as in the policy after World War II, their land needs
are obviously quite different. These needs in any case depend
upon the system of cultivation used. The traditional method of
cultivation requires one kind of area; cultivation for a European
market quite another. The imponderable factors involved mean that
12 New Guinea on the Threshold
any decision about future needs is a matter of the assumptions
made about the future of the Territories, and before World War II,
and for some time afterwards, these were never systematically
examined. When Papua was taken over, the Prime Minister might
say casually that its future was as a State of the Commonwealth of
Australia; when the Mandated Territory was taken some kind of
self-government might be envisaged; but the idea of independence
and the need for economic development of native land impose
quite different estimates of land needs. In other words the protection
incorporated in the terms of land policy, which has remained in
the ordinances since 1906 and is still pointed to as part of the policy
of protecting native interests, was not in itself a protection; it
depended upon the general situation in the colony, upon the
European demand for land, and upon the government’s conception
of its duty.
So too did the protection of the natives which was prescribed in
the labour legislation. Here the willingness of a labourer to engage
was not difficult to determine, but the number which could be
safely engaged was. When Murray first discussed the problem he
was concerned with the total percentage of the population available
as a labour force. He placed this at 10 per cent, which he admitted
might seem rather high. He was also aware that if labourers
remained away from their villages for long periods, they might turn
into a landless proletariat by being unable to readjust to village
life, wThich might in any case crumble if too many adult males were
away. The length of time could be and was policed, but the
percentage of adult males was rather more difficult, as it was later
in the Mandated Territory. Such a criterion depended upon having
an accurate census and upon labour being indentured and not free;
only so could the figures be carefully checked. The demand for
labour in Papua never made the matter acute; usually there were
more labourers offering than were needed. But in New Guinea the
gold strike of 1926 led to widespread over-recruitment. As in Papua,
the figures for the whole territory were good, but in any particular
group more men might be taken than was safe if the aim of the
government to preserve village life and to avoid the creation of a
landless proletariat or an urbanized working force was to be
achieved. In general the labour legislation, like the land policy,
avoided hardship or injustice (although in particular cases these
certainly existed because of the concentration of European enter­
prise), but its success was due as much to the disasters that overtook
European development and so restricted the demand for both
land and labour. The real complexities of protection from the effects
of land and labour policy it was never necessary to unravel, and the
protection from individual abuses seemed to have been successful.
This limited view of protection as the prevention of ill-treatment
and the avoidance of disruptive effects of land and labour policy
The Commodore of the Australian Squadron reading the proclamation of annexation
at Argyll Bay, Papua, 1884

Modern ceremonies are more crowded: Highland natives at Mount Hagen Show, 1965
 Above Women cultivating subsis­
tence gardens, Lufa

Above The subsistence economy

provides food and housing for most
of the population at a level of
primitive affluence

Right The Bougainville-lwi road

under construction. By investing
unpaid surplus labour the subsistence
sector contributes substantially to
public capital formation
The Historical Background 13
upon native society has been an enduring one throughout Australian
rule in Papua and New Guinea, but protection came to mean more
than that; it came to mean more than a duty of civilizing a primitive
people by the incidental contacts of native and European which
the land and labour policy involved. Every European might be,
as Murray said, a focus of civilization, but the government had a
positive duty. Obviously the possibility of European enterprise had
always depended upon the suppression of raiding, murder, and
violence, but the labour shortage in both Papua and New Guinea
led to the attempt to bring the whole of both Territories under
control simply to increase the available supply, although there was
an equal acceptance that the duty of a colonial power was to
elevate a barbarous race; and this implied the extension of govern­
ment control and then the civilization of the natives by way of
medical care, education, and economic development (P.A.R. 1912:
1-15).
Control was the first element in the native policy of the two
governments. In Papua, Murray began systematically to examine
and then to pacify the considerable unknown areas of the colony
from 1912. In New Guinea, the administration began slowly to
extend the German area of control on the coast and the major off­
shore islands to the interior, taking its big leap forward in the early
1930s when it started to establish law and order over the great
Highland valleys. The Papuan government prided itself on the
methods of peaceful penetration it employed, with the strictest
control over the use of firearms by its officers, and it often used to
contrast this with the less strict methods of the Mandated Territory.
But the broad pattern of native administration was the same. One
or more government officers with an escort of armed native police
entered a new area, established a base camp, and then by a series
of patrols began to assert government influence, preventing fighting,
arresting murderers, and gradually enforcing the Native Regula­
tions, which imposed standards of hygiene, sanitation, cleanliness,
and so on upon the villagers. In both, the transitory effects of patrol
visits were supplemented by a system of appointed local native
officials, in Papua called village constables and in New Guinea
luluais and tultuls, whose duty it was to represent the government,
to convey and enforce its orders, and to report any infringements of
its laws. Both faced two major difficulties. One was the fact that the
nature of village society compelled the government to repeat its
work every few miles because of the absence of widespread political
or social unity; the other was the absence of any highly organized
system of rank and the corresponding difficulty of finding and
using men of influence to assist the work of control and the begin­
nings of civilization. The process of pacification and control was
thus slow, its advance limited by the number of officers available
for the work and by the difficult position of the local native officials
14 New Guinea on the Threshold
who, if they were men of influence in traditional society, might be
reluctant to support measures which might weaken their authority
or, alternatively, might grasp the greater powers government office
offered them, and become tyrants. Or perhaps a native group, not
wishing to expose a man of influence to the kind of indignity he
might sometimes suffer from a government officer, would put
forward a nonentity who could do little to influence them or help
the government. The result was what Murray called the dreary
round of prosecutions for infringement of the law and the replace­
ment of weak or inefficient native officials. Only from 1951 was this
native authority system slowly replaced by local government
councils (Healy 1961a: 167).
The imposition of government control was a slow business. By
1939 Murray thought that the whole of Papua was known, but there
were still considerable areas like the Southern Highlands which
were uncontrolled. So too in the Mandated Territory. The Central
Highland valleys were not brought under control until the 1950s,
and even then there were areas which had never seen a white man.
In any case, the suppression of fighting and the enforcement of
European law and order were only the first step. To replace the
excitements and the occupations of traditional life, both govern­
ments were well aware that something had to be substituted; but
what could be substituted was a matter of the resources at the
disposal of the administrations in men, money, and materials.
Lack of money and manpower in both administrations was most
clearly revealed in health and education policy. The task of pro­
viding schools for the child population was tremendous, quite apart
from the technical difficulties of the kind of education which was
needed. Granted the elementary need for literacy, the Papuan
government thought that technical and industrial education of the
kind provided by the former mission school at Kwato was what
was wanted. The idea was to make better agriculturalists or
artisans out of the Papuans, not to provide a literary education, and
before World War I Murray was exploring the possibility of tech­
nical schools. He did this in consultation with a missionary, and
this was typical of the main effort of the Papuan government. This
particular scheme was overtaken by the war but the approach
remained. Faced with a task beyond its own resources, the govern­
ment adopted a policy of subsidizing mission schools at a certain
standard and with an authorized curriculum, and this educational
effort, until after World War II, was the government’s principal
contribution to the formal education of the Papuans. Its extent
cannot really be measured because figures for the total numbers of
children at school were not collected, but in 1940 the number of
pupils examined was 3,319, at a cost to the government in subsidies
of something like £8,000. The figure expended on education in the
Mandated Territory was higher. In 1922, £19,000 was spent on
The Historical Background 15
government schools, although this amount was never approached
again before the war, when it had fallen to the Papuan figure. In
Mandated New Guinea, however, the government established its
own schools and had nothing to do with the missions, to which it
tended to be antagonistic, in part at least because so many mission­
aries were German. The latter by 1939 had some 69,000 pupils,
while the government schools, except for a small technical school
opened in Rabaul in 1922, were all at the elementary level. By 1939
the total number of pupils in official schools was 385, and with the
exception of the school opened at the Chimbu post in the High­
lands as part of the extension of control, they were all in ‘urban’
areas (Reed 1943:187). The Mandated administration was criticized
for its education policy by the Mandates Commission of the League
of Nations as the slowest of any territory under mandate, but in
both Papua and New Guinea the effort was hampered by the
smallness of the amount raised by native taxation (due to the
unfavourable economic circumstances) and by the belief that any
education must be vocational, must be directed towards making
better villagers in order to raise the general standard of living
before any more ambitious education could be undertaken.
In both Territories too there was a general belief that health was
a more urgent task than education. Correspondingly more money
was made available, and in both Territories it was spent in two
main ways: on hospitals in the major administrative centres, and
on the employment of European medical assistants to make patrols,
either by themselves or with an administrative officer in the course
of his visits. These services were supplemented in Papua from 1926
by native medical assistants who had some elementary training but
whose chief use was to report serious cases of epidemic or indi­
vidual illness for European treatment; in the Mandated Territory
the equivalent office of the medical tultul was inherited from the
Germans and retained. Even so the resources available for an
attack upon the major diseases of malaria, respiratory infections,
dysentery, and hookworm were not great. For most of the period
before World War II there were but two hospitals in Papua, at Port
Moresby and Samarai, although New Guinea spent more money
than Papua (some £90,000 in 1939) and in addition opened native
hospitals at each government station and sub-station. These govern­
ment activities were supplemented by the medical work of the
missions and by a few private firms, but the effort tended to be
concentrated upon the areas close to European settlement and
enterprise.
This limitation of effort was due neither to indifference nor to
assumptions about the place of natives in general development (for
the obligation to improve health and medical care was firmly
accepted) but to shortage of money. Both education and health
were regarded as matters of native welfare which should at least
16 Neu) Guinea on the Threshold
in part be paid for from native taxation, which was introduced into
Papua in 1919 (with the proceeds paid into a trust fund exclusively
used to benefit the Papuans), and by a head tax levied in New
Guinea since German times. But this revenue implied native
economic development. Money to pay tax could be earned as
wages by labouring for Europeans, but the indentured labourer was
himself exempted from payment. Those who did not labour had to
find their tax money by their own industry. To a limited extent this
came from market garden produce supplied to European centres
like Rabaul from the people of the Gazelle Peninsula, but the major
part of it came from cash crops. In 1918 the Papuan government
introduced the Native Plantations Ordinance, which provided for
the compulsory planting of land, just as an earlier regulation had
provided for the compulsory planting of coconut trees. In New
Guinea, when civil administration was set up, a Director of Agri­
culture was appointed who conceived it his duty to encourage native
production. Both policies eventually came down to the encourage­
ment of copra production, although other experimental crops were
tried without much success: rice and coffee in Papua, cotton, maize,
and ground-nuts in New Guinea. All of these attempts, although
they might be backed by penalties for failure to plant and then to
clean and weed plantings, depended upon arousing native enthusi­
asm, maintaining it while trees or crops came into bearing, and
then marketing the produce. A situation of competition with
European enterprise never arose, but the technical and incidental
difficulties were discouraging enough. The world market never
helped native economic development in the years before World
War II, and the resources of the administrations never allowed of
skilled technical help and guidance on any significant scale. Coco­
nuts were easy enough to grow, but the quality of the copra and its
sale were quite a different matter. In neither Papua nor New
Guinea did pre-war native production for sale on a European
market provide more than a small proportion of the total budget.
Health and education policy were not completely financed out of
this money, and there were welfare benefits to the natives from
other aspects of administration, but the positive aspect of protection
and civilization was referred to these figures as indicators of what
could be afforded.
Resources in money set limits to the possibility of elevating a
barbarous race, which Murray defined as the principal duty of the
colonizing power, but resources in men were equally important
and in equally inadequate supply. Moreover the initial availability
of men to get the land policy under way and then to carry out the
labour policy was as important for development as it was for native
policy. Two difficulties were always present in both Papua and
New Guinea. The first was the actual recruitment of personnel:
whether men could be persuaded to go to the Territories at all. The
The Historical Background 17
second was the quality of those who were recruited: whether they
had the special skills needed for particular work as well the more
general qualities of character and temperament required of colonial
service officers.
Recruitment presented a problem from the very first in Papua.
At the time of the land boom in 1909 there was a peculiarly great
difficulty in attracting qualified surveyors to expedite the granting
of leases, but even the clerks were hard to come by. With the policy
of development, the Papuan public service expanded from some
fifty officers in 1906 to one hundred and twelve by 1909, but many
of these men were not up to the work and just before World War I
Murray thought that although the service was better than it had
been, it was still very ‘sloppy’ (Gilbert Murray n.d.). He did not
think that uncomfortable conditions were solely responsible for the
difficulty of getting men, nor that the low rate of pay—some £250
p.a. for an Assistant Resident Magistrate, for example—was a handi­
cap, since the country offered the lure of adventure, but he thought
that the absence of a pension and of free medical treatment deterred
recruits. For the specialist posts like doctors the salary was not
enough and the accompanying administrative work caused diffi­
culties. And there was always the risk that those who did come
were men unable to get on in more civilized countries by reason
of personal defects or incompetence. Just before World War I a
pension scheme was drawn up, but it was only after a good deal
of agitation in the early 1920s that such a scheme and a revised
scale of salaries were actually put into effect. This scheme made the
Mandated Territory’s administration somewhat easier so far as
recruitment went, but even so there was no ready supply of men
to join either of the services until the depression in Australia pro­
duced a large number of applications at a time when they could not
really be afforded. The public service of Papua and New Guinea
was never really attractive to able men, and although many out­
standing officers joined, there were many unsatisfactory ones.
This in itself was serious enough, for the standard of entry was
not high in terms of education, and the training given was what
could be picked up by experience in Papua and a short course
below university level in New Guinea. For work in the field as a
patrol officer these low standards might be compensated for by
character, but for specialized services like agriculture, education,
and health, they produced what was essentially an amateur
approach. The supervision of native planting, for example, was
never (until after World War II) carried out by an expert in
tropical agriculture, after the first Director of Agriculture in New
Guinea retired, and in general the number of university graduates
or their equivalent was always very low. The bulk of the work of
both development and protection was thus carried on by officers
whose approach was amateur, however much field experience they
18 New Guinea on the Threshold
may have had, and since the methods of implementing policy
invariably depended upon such men, the achievements were always
likely to be limited. Land purchase, for instance, depended upon
an officer’s sympathy with and ability to get inside the native
situation in any particular group; labour policy depended upon the
acuteness and patience of any particular officer; and the choice of
native officials rested upon an officer’s familiarity with the internal
affairs of his people. The absence of any high standard of entry
and the lack of any comprehensive system of training after joining
the service, coupled with a haphazard organization of the service
itself, which in Papua depended very largely on Murray personally
and in New Guinea operated rather as rival departments than a
co-ordinated government, all put a premium on the abilities of
individual officers to offset organizational defects. In the nature of
things they could not wholly succeed, and with many of them
frustration turned to resignation and indifference. Murray at least
could inspire his officers; the Administrators of the Mandated
Territory, retired generals, were men of lesser calibre.
Between lack of financial resources and lack of adequate person­
nel neither of the two proclaimed ends of Australian policy was
realized before World War II came to eliminate civil administration.
Development policy had produced a one-crop economy exposed to
the fluctuations of the world market. Protection had produced a
native society which was preserved in its traditional villages and
hamlets but suffering from the frustrations revealed in the wide­
spread cargo cult movements which affected native groups at a
certain stage of European contact. The principal achievement of
the governments of Papua and New Guinea was the initial one of
any colonial power: the establishment of law and order over much
of the Territories by peaceful penetration, the most fundamental
action of colonial rule. The latter stages of colonial government, of
the diversification of the economy and the general raising of primi­
tive standards, had been only lightly tackled; and it is for this
relative failure in the later stages of development and welfare that
the two governments have been blamed in recent years.
Not altogether fairly. Most of contemporary or near-contemporary
criticism has been of failure to develop anything like a viable
economy, of failure to educate and civilize the Papuans to something
like a point of ‘self-government take-off’, so that now, in the 1960s,
Papua-New Guinea is not ready for independence. Put in this way
the criticism is misplaced. Leaving aside the external factors of war
and depression which hindered the progress of the Territories and
over which neither the local governments nor the Australian govern­
ment had much control, this kind of criticism blames the situation
in which an underdeveloped metropolitan country which needed
its own capital and manpower could not or would not afford to use
some of these resources for its colonies. It blames too the motives
The Historical Background 19
of men involved in colonial policy and practice. Such judgments
are thoroughly anachronistic; they blame the men and the times
before World War II by the standards of the post-war world. It is
fairer to criticize by comparison with other colonies, to point to a
lack of willingness to experiment compared with parts of Africa.
It is fair to criticize techniques of colonial policy which did not
profit by contemporaneous experience elsewhere. But before World
War II, there was no sense of time running out for colonial rulers
anywhere in the colonial world, and ‘God made New Guinea on
Saturday night’.
 II

The Economy
 2

The Economic Structure

E . K. F I S K

T he purpose of this chapter is to consider briefly some of the main

structural features of the economy of Papua-New Guinea, and to
examine their implications for economic policy over the next ten
years or so.
The economic structure to be examined is, in many respects, quite
unusual. There is a vast, stagnant, but surprisingly affluent sub­
sistence sector, upon which has been grafted a rapidly expanding
but still relatively small monetary sector, within which economic
growth is taking place at an encouraging rate. There are two major
divisions of the economy which, both as sources of income and as
origins of growth, completely dominate the whole: namely, agri­
culture (and the related activities of animal husbandry, forestry,
and fishing), on the one hand, and the expenditure of public
authorities on the other. Of these, the latter is the greatest single
source of Territory cash incomes, and this is dependent almost
entirely on Australian financial aid. There is the commercial and
industrial sector of the economy, which plays a vital, but subsidiary,
part in the economic life of the Territories, and this in turn is
almost completely dependent on non-indigenous skills and capital
for its operation. Finally, there is an investment pattern in which
the indigenous contribution is considerable, but almost entirely
non-monetary: in which by far the largest monetary investment is in
the public sector and is dependent on external aid for finance: in
which private monetary investment is mainly provided by the non-
indigenous resident or the overseas investor. These special features
of the economy are examined in some detail below.
The overall picture that emerges is that of a low income country
in which virtually all of the population have as much food as they
want, are housed adequately by their own traditional standards,
and have ample leisure for feasting, ceremonial, and other pastimes.
It is an economy that is potentially viable and self-sufficient at a
level of primitive affluence, but which is almost entirely dependent
23
24 New Guinea on the Threshold
on external aid, and on the importation of foreign skills and
capital, for any advance beyond that very primitive level.
This advance has already made considerable progress, and the
foundations upon which economic independence may ultimately
develop have already been laid. The formation and growth of
indigenous skills, local capital, and internal government revenue
is already taking place under the strong encouragement of govern­
ment development activity. However, this development activity
itself greatly increases the demand for capital, skills, and public
expenditure, and it will be a considerable time before the supply
of these from internal resources can begin to match the growing
demand. In the meantime, the degree of dependence on outside
aid and resources is likely to increase rather than decline.
T he subsistence and monetary sectors
In discussing the economy of Papua-New Guinea, the distinction
between a subsistence and a monetary sector is analytically useful,
and will be used repeatedly in this chapter. However, it first must
be emphasized that in many respects this is an artificial division
and distinguishes between types of activity rather than between
types of people. During recent years the monetary economy has
spread geographically very widely over the Territories, so that there
are now relatively few people who never handle money at all. On
the other hand, for the great majority of the indigenous people of
the Territories, the use of money remains an irregular and peripheral
factor, rather than an essential part of the business of living. For
these people, therefore, the greater and the most fundamental part
of their economic activities takes place in the subsistence sector
and without the use of money, whilst a smaller and less basic part
takes place in the monetary sector.
Most people in the Territories do in fact operate in both sectors
of the economy, and when it is said that the subsistence sector is
predominant in the economy as a whole, this merely means that
more productive activities are undertaken outside the framework
of monetary exchange than within that framework. It does not
imply, as might have been the case twenty-five years ago, that most
people take no part in monetary exchange.
This straddling of the two economies by indigenous people is
becoming increasingly common in Papua-New Guinea, even among
the indigenous wage-earning labour force. In 1963, the indigenous
wage-labour force was estimated at 81,000 and their dependants at
about 178,000 (Territories 1964a: Table 3.1). It would be wrong,
however, to assume that these 260,000 people are therefore removed
from the subsistence sector into the monetary sector. This is by no
means the case, and in fact hardly any of the dependants, and only
some of the wage-earners themselves, obtain their basic food re­
quirements through the market. These are still obtained in the main
The Economic Structure 25
from subsistence gardens cultivated by dependants and relatives of
the wage-earner, and the money income is used to purchase goods
and services not available from subsistence production. Traditional
foods, such as yams, sweet potatoes, sago, and taro, are seldom
purchased by indigenes for their own consumption.
The monetary sector of the economy of Papua-New Guinea there­
fore covers only a minor segment of the total economy of the
country. Of the total goods produced and consumed in the
country, nearly two-thirds are not exchanged for money in any form,
and the number of people who are wholly or mainly dependent on
a money income for the basic essentials of life is probably less than
100,000, or less than 5 per cent of the total population.1 This small
proportion is, moreover, made up very largely of non-indigenous
people on relatively high incomes and with a high standard of
living. For the great majority of the indigenous people a money
income is not a means of livelihood, but rather a means of access to
non-essential exotic goods and services not available in the tribal
way of life. As such, a money income is very acceptable and highly
desired, but it can be dispensed with at any time without undue
hardship either to the wage-earner or to his family.
This fact is an important consequence of the large size of the
subsistence sector, and of the relative freedom from hunger and
extreme poverty for which it is responsible. It is basic to the
understanding of the problems and prospects of the economy as a
whole.
Importance of the monetary sector. On the other hand, the sub­
sistence sector, however affluent it may be within the limited range
of goods and services that it can produce, is almost by definition a
stagnant sector.
In most of Papua-New Guinea, serious pressure of population on
the land has not yet developed, and productivity per unit of labour
is high in traditional agriculture. To meet their subsistence require­
ments, most producers need to use only a modest proportion of
their resources of labour and a part of their resources of land. The
balance is available to produce a considerable surplus, but in the
absence of monetary exchange, and the trade that it facilitates,
there is no point in producing more sweet potatoes, yams, and
taro than they can consume. In most of Papua-New Guinea, there­
fore, the pure subsistence producer has developed economically
almost as far as his non-monetary economic system permits. His
level of production per capita is stagnant at the point where he is
producing as much of what he knows how to produce as he can
1 The number of people who, whilst not being dependent on money for the
essentials of living, nevertheless have some money income for expenditure on
non-essentials, is of course very much larger. The actual number would be a
guess, but it would certainly include 80 per cent of the adult population.
26 New Guinea on the Threshold
consume with satisfaction, and within a closed subsistence system
there is litde more that he could expect to do.
In this situation, economic growth, with an increase in the level
of consumption and standard of living, is only possible by intro­
ducing new goods and services into the consumption pattern. This
in turn requires either the diversification of subsistence production
to include the new items (a possibility of very limited scope under
normal conditions), or access to the products of the outside world
through the medium of trade and exchange. This means that,
generally speaking, the spare resources of the subsistence sector
cannot readily be used for raising the standard of living or for
sustaining economic growth, without participation in the monetized
sector of the wider economy.
For this reason the expansion of the monetary sector is of vital
importance. Even in 1965, by far the greater part of the resources
of land and manpower in Papua-New Guinea is retained in the
subsistence sector; but significant growth is only possible in the
monetary sector: so that the expansion of the exchange economy
into and throughout the subsistence sector is a necessary precursor
to the economic development of the country.
The potential of the subsistence sector. As some succeeding sec­
tions of this chapter show, certain essential resources for economic
development are exceedingly scarce in Papua-New Guinea and
economic development at an acceptable rate will only be possible
if these resources can be heavily augmented from overseas by
external aid. This is true in particular of financial resources, capital
goods, and skilled manpower. On the other hand, substantial re­
sources of land and labour are available within the economy itself,
mainly in the subsistence sector.
These resources are already very substantial, and can be greatly
augmented by relatively simple means (Fisk 1962). The potential
for development concealed in the subsistence sector is therefore very
considerable indeed. In the immediate future, it is probably by far
the greatest source from which the Territories themselves can
contribute to their own development. The need is for this potential
to be released and made available for capital formation, export
production, the provision of additional services, and other productive
uses. This requires not only the expansion of the exchange economy
along the lines already discussed but also in many cases an actual
call upon the resources of the monetary sector for some essential
element to augment the land and labour supplied. This will be
discussed in more detail in a later section of this chapter.
In Papua-New Guinea, therefore, the resources of the advanced
monetary sector, scarce as they are, have a dual role to perform.
They are required for the operation and expansion of the primary,
secondary, and tertiary industries of the advanced sector itself,
The Economic Structure 27
where indeed they provide the greater part of the inputs necessary
for production. They are also, however, required to perform the
equally important role of releasing the great development potential
of the subsistence sector and making it available for increasing
production. In this latter, often almost catalytic, role the monetary
resources of the advanced sector may be expected to bring greater
returns in overall development than in any role within the advanced
sector itself.
T he predominance of agriculture
The economy of Papua-New Guinea is very heavily based on
primary production, in which mining and quarrying now plays a
relatively small part. A very rough indication of the degree of
dependence on primary production can be obtained from the
latest national income estimates (Territories 1964a) for the year
ended 30 June 1963. These indicate cash primary production income
at £12,960,000 and subsistence sector income at £83,343,000. In
addition, wages, salaries and supplements amounting to £36,456,000
include a substantial proportion derived directly from primary pro­
duction enterprises. Only a rough estimate of the proportion of this
latter can be attempted on the data readily available, but the
figures would appear to be roughly as follows:2
Non-indigenous wages and salaries from primary
production, year ended 30 June 1963 £2,600,000
Indigenous wages and salaries from primary pro­
duction, year ended 30 June 1963 £6,500,000
Total £9,100,000

Adding together primary production income, subsistence income,

and wages and salaries gives a total of roughly £105,400,000 of an
estimated gross Territory product of £146,965,000, or 71 per cent,
derived directly from primary production.
In terms of the numbers of people employed, primary production
is even more predominant. The estimated labour force of the
monetary sector in 1963 was 96,661, comprising 81,468 indigenous
and 15,193 non-indigenous. Of these, 39,053 indigenous and 1,256
non-indigenous, or a total of 40,309, were engaged in primary
industry. The estimated labour force of the subsistence sector, which
may be taken to be solely engaged in primary industry, was 543,511.
2 Classification of wages and salaries by Industry is available only for in­
comes given in assessments issued under the Income Tax Ordinance (Territories
1964a: Table 1.4). In Papua and New Guinea this is almost synonymous with
non-indigenous wages and salaries. Indigenous wages and salaries from primary
production have been estimated by applying the proportion of the total in­
digenous labour force engaged in primary production (Territories 1964a: Table
1.13) to the total Indigenous Wages, Salaries and Supplements (Territories
1964b: Table 1.17).
28 New Guinea on the Threshold
Accordingly a total of 583,820 out of an estimated total labour force
of 624,979, or 93 per cent, were engaged in primary production
(figures from Territories 1964a: Table 3.1).
In the monetary sector of the economy, this emphasis on primary
production is less pronounced, but it is still significant. In terms
of gross Territory product, £22,060,000 of the total estimated for the
monetary sector £63,622,000, or 35 per cent, derives directly from
primary production. In terms of employment, 42 per cent of the
labour force earning wages or salaries are employed in agricultural
enterprise, in addition to which there is a large but undetermined
number of indigenous people earning cash incomes from the sale
of crops grown on smallholdings. The actual numbers can be
nothing more than an informed guess, but the Minister of Terri­
tories, with the advantage of the full resources of information of the
Administration to assist him, estimated in 1962 that about 250,0(0
indigenous smallholders were obtaining a cash income in this way
(Hasluck 1962b: 10). If this estimate is even approximately correct, it
is clear that of the 300,000 to 350,000 indigenous people of Papui-
New Guinea who earn a money income, only between 10 per cent
and 14 per cent do so in industries other than agriculture.
Finally agriculture and forestry are the source of virtually tbe
whole of the country’s export earnings. Some details of exports are
given in Table 3.3 and are discussed in a subsequent section, b it
it is clear that apart from foreign aid, and in the absence of some
as yet undiscovered bonanza such as very large resources >f
mineral oil for export, Papua-New Guinea will be dependent
mainly on agriculture and forestry for its overseas earnings for many
decades to come.
Papua-New Guinea must therefore be considered as a primary
producing country, not only in the present and in the immediate
future, but probably for a considerable time. As development
progresses the share of the gross national product contributed by
secondary and tertiary industries will increase, but this develop­
ment is starting from a very small base, and there is as yet nothing
to suggest that agriculture and related primary industries will ne
supplanted as the main source of the national product in the foresee­
able future.
T he public sector
Within the monetary sector of the economy the part played by
public authorities in Papua-New Guinea is very large indeed. For
the year ended 30 June 1963 gross current and capital expenditure
by all public authorities was estimated at £35,171,951 (Territor.es
1963a: fol. 81). For the same period, gross Territory expenditure
for the monetary sector as a whole was estimated at £81,521,284,
of which £7,999,315 comprised non-marketed production consumed
by salary- and wage-earners and their families, leaving the actual
 ee in Luluai Ninji’s garden at Mount Hagen

Cash cropping in the Boana area. Right of the houses a small indigenous coffee holding
Kiikukuku children at the Australian Lutheran Mission primary school, Menyama,
in 1961
The Economic Structure 29
monetary expenditure at £73,521,929 (Territories 1964a: Appendix,
Table II). Therefore, very nearly half of the total monetary
expenditure in Papua-New Guinea was derived directly from public
authorities. Moreover, during recent years there is evidence that
this proportion has been increasing.
Another significant feature of the public sector is its heavy
dependence on external aid, which to the time of writing (1965)
has come almost entirely from the Australian government. In the
year ended 30 June 1963 nearly 71 per cent of the gross current and
capital expenditure by public authorities was financed by the
Commonwealth government of Australia. Actual figures are given
in Table 2.1.
The I.B.R.D. (1965) report envisages a very substantial increase
in public expenditure over the next five years, and if its programme
is followed this will increase both the relative importance of the
public sector and its degree of dependence on external, and particu­
larly Australian, financial contributions. Unfortunately the figures
quoted in the I.B.R.D. report and programme are not directly
comparable with those given above as they refer to the budget of
the Administration only and exclude, for example, the very sub­
stantial direct expenditure by Commonwealth government depart­
ments and instrumentalities in Papua-New Guinea. However, the
programme envisages an increase in annual Administration expendi­
ture from an average of £22,900,000 for the five-year period ending
30 June 1963 to an average of £50,200,000 for the five-year period
ending 30 June 1969, involving a decrease in the proportion financed
from internal revenue from an average of 31-7 per cent to an
average of 27-5 per cent (I.B.R.D. 1965:56).
In the economic life of Papua-New Guinea the importance of the
public sector, and the degree of dependence on external finance, is
greater even than these figures would indicate. With public ex­
penditure contributing approximately 50 per cent of the total
monetary expenditure in the Territories, a very substantial propor­
tion of private income is derived indirectly from that expenditure.
This is particularly so in the secondary and tertiary industries.
Moreover, a large portion of government internal revenue, whether
in the form of direct taxation, indirect taxation, or the sale of services
such as electricity and water, derives directly from government
expenditure, and in particular from the salaries paid to officers of
government and its instrumentalities.
The implications of this are of the utmost importance to the
understanding of the economic structure of the Territories. The
actual degree of dependence on financial contributions from the
Australian government is surprisingly great. For example, taking
the figures for the year ended 30 June 1963 from Table 2.1 below,
elimination of the Australian government contribution of £24,890,000
30 New Guinea on the Threshold
TABLE 2.1 Territory of Papua and New Guinea
Contribution of Public Authorities to Gross Monetary Expenditure
Year ended 30 June 1963

Gross Monetary Expenditure £73,522,000

Australian Aid
Commonwealth grant £20,000,000
Commonwealth departments, etc. £4,890,000

TOTAL £24,890,000

Internal Revenue
Taxation £5,843,000
Earnings of departments £3,181,000

TOTAL £9,024,000

Other Sources o f Expenditure,

mainly internal
Loan fund £898,000
Local Government Councils £345,000
Cash and investment £13,000

TOTAL £1,256,000

Public Authorities
Gross current and capital
expenditure £35,170,000

would not merely have reduced public expenditure in the Terri­

tories by that amount; it would also have eliminated a large
proportion of the internal revenue and other sources of finance, so
that total public expenditure might well have had to be reduced
from £35,000,000 to about £5,000,000, even assuming, as is most
unlikely, that primary production incomes were not affected by the
reduction of government activities and services. This in turn would
have reduced gross monetary expenditure by considerably more
than the £30,000,000 decrease in public expenditure, with the
result that the national income in the monetary sector of the Terri­
tories (in which sector alone, as we have seen, significant economic
growth is possible) would have been reduced to a small fraction
of its actual level. This means not only that all significant economic
growth, but even the maintenance of significant economic activity
in the advanced monetary sector, is still, and will remain for many
The Economic Structure 31
years, dependent on the continuation of substantial financial
assistance from the Australian or some other external government.
Public investment and the infrastructure. Apart from the sheer
magnitude of public financial transactions in relation to the total
transactions of the monetary sector, the public sector is important

TABLE 2.2 Territory of Papua and New Guinea

Gross Expenditure by all Public Authorities
Year ended 30 June 1963
(£’000)
Current Capital
Expenditure Expenditure Total

M onetary Sector
G eneral services 8,793 566 9,359

Development and conservation

of natural resources 3,327 1,645 4,972

T ransport and com m unication 3,822 2,610 6,432

O ther services
(especially housing) 534 2,165 2,699

Social services
(mainly education and health) 6,745 1,773 8,518

Public debt 126 126

Public works
(not elsewhere included) 277 1,728 2,005

Miscellaneous 724 336 1,060

Total M onetary Expenditure 24,348 10,823 35,171

Subsistence Sector
N on-m onetary com m unity in­
vestment, replacement, and
maintenance 10,100* 4,500* 14,600

Source: Monetary Sector, Territories 1963b: fols. 77, 79, 81, Subsistence Sector,
Territories 1964a: Table 3.9A.
*This is an estimate of the labour contributed without payment by the indigenous
rural population in the construction, maintenance, and replacement of village or
tribal community works, district roads, rest-houses, airfields etc., and council
works, valued at the 1963 general rate for casual labour of 6s. a day. There is no
means of determining how much of this contribution was of the nature of an addition
to capital (as e.g. new road and track construction) and how much was replacement
and maintenance. For purposes of illustration, however, the total has been divided
between current and capital expenditure in the same proportion as the monetary
expenditure of public authorities.
32 New Guinea on the Threshold
for the type and quality of its contribution to the economic structure.
This is not the place for a detailed analysis of the activities of
public authorities in the economic sphere, but some mention must
be made of the special role of the public sector in providing the
infrastructure necessary for economic activity and growth. The
size and the vital nature of this contribution must be appreciated
if the importance of maintaining and expanding the level of public
expenditure is to be understood.
The public sector contributes to the infrastructure of the economy
in several ways. Firstly, it invests directly in roads, port facilities,
aerodromes, water supplies, power, and other services necessary to
the economic activity of the country. Secondly, it invests in the
provision of services that contribute to the facility with which
economic activity can take place; these range from the basic
service of maintaining law and order to the provision of education,
the maintenance of public health, and agricultural extension services.
Thirdly, it makes investment in buildings, plant, stores, and equip­
ment necessary to enable such services to be provided. Fourthly,
it undertakes the maintenance of this investment so that the facilities
provided continue to be available over time. Fifthly, it channels
some of the non-monetary resources of the subsistence sector so as
to make a substantial contribution to the infrastructure, as when it
helps villagers to construct a road or schools with their own labour.
Some idea of the magnitude and direction of this contribution from
the public sector is given by Table 2.2.
E xternal trade and the balance of payments
The external transactions of Papua-New Guinea indicate a number
of interesting and important features of the economy. To examine
these, the overall position of the balance of payments will first be
considered, and then the composition of the import and export
elements will be analysed.
The balance of payments. There is a most useful table in the
Statistical Appendix to the World Bank Report (I.B.R.D. 1965:437)
which summarizes the main items in the balance of payments on
current account for six selected years. The figures for three of these
years are given in Table 2.3.
The first point to be noted in this table is the very heavy depend­
ence on Transfers. Less than half of the credits in the balance of
payments accounts are derived from earnings of the Territories.
Moreover, in recent years the proportion of total credits derived
from earnings has declined, from 49 per cent in 1956-7, to 43 per
cent in 1960-1, to 39 per cent in 1962-3. Although earnings have
increased during the period, and may be expected to continue to
increase, the assistance given by the Australian government has
increased even more rapidly, as indeed has the much smaller, but
still considerable, assistance given through mission finance.
The Economic Structure 33
TABLE 2.3 Territory of Papua and New Guinea
Balance of Payments—Current Account,
Selected Years
(£’000)

1956-7 1960-1 1962-3

Credits
Goods and Services
Exports (Territory produce f.o.b.) 11,810 14,257 16,359
Copra Fund interest 91 144 153

Transfers
M ission finance 496 560 963
C om m onwealth grant 9,645 14,797 20,000
N et direct Com m onw ealth expenditure 2,078 3,922 4,759

Total credits 24,120 33,680 42,234

D ebits
Goods and Services
Im ports (f.o.b.) 18,487 24,236 25,800
N et freight and insurance 1,482 3,086 3,011
N et foreign travel 1,255 2,055 2,069
External cost o f managem ent and in-
surance 410 720 807
Other services (net) 1,410 1,875 2,572
Interest and dividends paid abroad 750 2,434 3,192

Total debits 23.794 34,406 37,451

Balance on current account 326 -7 2 6 4,783

24,120 33,680 42,234

Source: I.B.R.D. 1965: Statistical Appendix, Table S.10.

This is another aspect of the dependence of the economy on

outside financial assistance. In the previous section the level of
economic activity in the advanced sector of the economy was
shown to be determined to a very great extent by the level of
Australian aid to the Territories. Here it is apparent that the ability
of the Territories to obtain the goods and services they require
from the outside world is similarly dependent. These two aspects
are, as it were, the two faces of the same coin, and the prospects of
such dependence being removed or substantially reduced in the
near future are as remote in the field of external transactions as
they are in the field of public finance or internal economic activity,
and for the same reasons.
Table 2.3 also shows that, on the Debits side, imports (f.o.b.)
represent only about 70 per cent of the Territories’ requirements
34 New Guinea on the Threshold
for overseas funds. Apart from freight and insurance, it is notable
that foreign travel, interest and dividends paid abroad, other
services, and external cost of management and insurance are all
important and growing items in the balance of payments account.
This is a feature of another type of dependence—dependence on
expatriate skills and entrepreneurship to operate the advanced sector
of the economy—which will be discussed further below.
Exports. For its earnings in the outside world the economy of the
Territories depends, as we have seen, almost entirely on the export
of primary produce. Papua and New Guinea export very little in
the way of services as distinct from goods to the outside world.
There is some tourism, a certain amount of re-export trade, and some
servicing of transient ships and aircraft, but these as yet are small
items, as Table 2.4 indicates.

TABLE 2.4 Territory of Papua and New Guinea

Value of Exports by Major Commodities
Year ending 30 June (£’000)
C o m m o d itie s 1957 %* 1961 %* 1964 %*

C o p r a a n d c o p ra p ro d u c ts 7,090 600 7,758 5 4 -5 7,133 3 8 -7

R ubber 1,149 9 -7 1,292 91 1,226 6 -7
C ocoa 462 3 -9 1,666 1 1-7 3,421 1 8 -6
C o ffee 183 1 -5 1,106 7 -8 2,681 1 4 -6
P e a n u ts 48 0 -4 280 2 -0 272 1 -5
C ro c o d ile sk in s 64 0 -5 128 0 -9 451 2 -7
T im b e r p ro d u c ts 1,178 100 1,174 8 -2 1,775 9 -7
G o ld 1,231 1 0 -4 681 4 -8 660 3 -6
O th e r 405 3 -4 171 1 -2 798f 4 -3

T o ta l T e rrito r y p ro d u c e 11,810 14,257 18,417

R e -e x p o rts 1,268 2,349 2,083*

T o ta l E x p o rts 13,078 16,606 20,500

Source: For years 1957 and 1961, Territories 1963a: Table No. 31B; for year
1964, T.P.N.G. 1964f: Table 7.
*As percentage of Total Territory Produce exported.
flncludes whole coconuts, passionfruit products, gums and resins, cutch, marine
shell, and other items.
^Figures not given in source quoted, but obtained from the Economic and
Statistical Section, Department o f Territories.

However, Table 2.4 illustrates also several other important

features. Exports of Territory produce have grown substantially
during the seven-year period covered by the table. What is more,
the pattern of exports has become more diversified. Whilst the
value of copra and copra products exported remained roughly
The Economic Structure 35
constant over the three years cited, its importance, measured as a
percentage of total exports of Territory produce, declined from
60 0 per cent to 38-7 per cent over the period. Similarly rubber,
with total exports approximately the same in each of the three years,
declined from 9-7 per cent to 6-7 per cent of the total. Gold (and
gold alone) declined both in total value and in relative importance.
The growth in the total value of exports has come mainly from the
rapid expansion of cocoa and coffee, which between them were
responsible for 33 •2 per cent of the total in 1964, as compared with
a mere 5-4 per cent in 1957. Peanuts, crocodile skins, and timber
products have also contributed significantly, though on a smaller
scale, to the increase in export values.
The prospects for further expansion of these exports, together
with the new crops tea and pyrethrum, will be discussed in detail
by Dr Shand in Chapter 4. It is sufficient here to indicate the
pattern, which is one of steadily expanding exports, almost exclu­
sively based on agriculture and forestry, but becoming increasingly
diversified within that limitation. Moreover, there is little to indi­
cate that this pattern is likely to change substantially within the
next ten years or so. Expansion and diversification is likely to
continue, as Dr Shand shows, but mainly within the field of
agricultural and forest products.
Imports. An important feature of the economy is the characteristic
division of the primary produce of the Territories into two broad
classes: produce for export and produce for local consumption.
Generally speaking, produce for local consumption, with the
exception of quite small quantities of truck crops, fish and betel nut,
etc., is not exchanged for money. Estimates made by the Depart­
ment of Agriculture, Stock and Fisheries suggest that only about
54,000 tons of cultivated subsistence foods were sold for cash in
1961-2, out of a total production of about 2,900,000 tons, or less
than 2 per cent (T.P.N.G. 1963e). As a corollary to this, a very
large proportion of the supplies to the monetary sector is imported,
and there is a very strong tendency for imports to grow as the
monetary sector expands. This is illustrated in Table 2.5.
This table reveals a number of interesting characteristics. First
is the remarkable rate of growth of the total value of imports during
the seven-year period, an increase of 80 per cent. Secondly, there is
the fact that the growth of imports has very nearly kept pace with
the increase in gross Territory money income. Unfortunately,
national income estimates for 1964 are not yet available, and the
estimates for the year 1957 are not strictly comparable with those
for 1961-3, but the general order of increase in gross Territory
money income from 1957 to 1963 seems also to be of the order of
80 per cent. This is substantially more than the rate of growth of
the total Territory product, which includes the very large, and
36 New Guinea on the Threshold
TABLE 2.5 Territory of Papua and New Guinea
Value of Imports—Selected Commodity Groups
( £ ’000)

Commodities 1957 % 1961 % 1964 %

Food, drink, tobacco 5,923 31-5 7,480 28-3 9,557 27-2
Clothing, textiles, footwear 1,588 8-1 2,565 9-7 3,244 9-2
Drugs, chemicals 1,393 7-1 1,646 6-2 2,248 6-4
Transport equipment 1,408 7-2 2,300 8-7 2,849 8-1
Petroleum products 1,053 5-4 1,242 4-6 1,600 4-5
Metals, metal manufactures
and machinery 4,749 24-3 6,461 24-4 8,290 23-5
Total Imports 19,580 26,464 35,227
Gross Territory product—
monetary sector 28,900 41,900 52,500*

Source: Territories 1963a: Table 38; T.P.N.G. 1964f: Table 6; Territories 1964a:
Appendix, Table I (part I), excluding ‘Non-marketed Production’; White 1964:
Table 9.3.
*1963.

relatively stagnant, subsistence sector, but it confirms that imports,

quite naturally, are influenced by the expansion of money incomes
only, and not by total incomes.
Thirdly, the table shows a remarkable consistency in the pro­
portion of total imports made up by each class of commodity. This
is particularly significant in the context of great change and ex­
pansion in the monetary sector of the economy during these seven
years. The proportion made up by food, drink, and tobacco has
declined a little, and examination of the figures for earlier and
intervening years suggests that there is, in fact, a definite though
gradual trend in this direction. On the other hand, figures for ‘Other
manufactured goods’ and ‘Miscellaneous’ (excluded from Table 2.5
as figures for 1964 are not available) show a slight tendency to
increase, from 17 per cent in 1957 to 18/2 per cent in 1962, suggest­
ing some minor diversification of the import pattern. Generally
speaking, however, the pattern has remained remarkably constant.
Within this pattern there is another concealed pattern that helps
to explain the import characteristics of the economy. Imports can
be divided roughly into goods for personal consumption and goods
for production and business purposes. Consumption goods can
again be roughly divided into those mainly consumed by the
indigenous people and those mainly consumed by expatriates.
Canned fish and rice, for example, which are imported in large
quantities, are mainly consumed by indigenes, whereas fresh meat,
dairy produce, fruit and vegetable imports are mainly consumed by
expatriates. The percentage of imports falling under each of the
above three categories for 1963 and 1964 are given in Table 2.6.
The Economic Structure 37
TABLE 2.6 Territory of Papua and New Guinea
Classification of Imported Goods by End Use*
(Nine months ended March 1963 and March 1964)
Type of Use Total Imports
per cent
Indigenous consumption goods 21
Expatriate consumption goods 26
Production and business 53
*At the time of writing, the latest detailed trade statistics available were for the
nine months ended March 1964 (T.P.N.G. 1964e). From these the values of all the
important commodities imported during the nine months ended March 1963 and
March 1964 were recorded under the heads ‘Indigenous Consumption’, ‘Expatriate
Consumption’, and ‘Production and Business’, as appropriate, making an ad hoc
division between headings in cases where more than one heading was involved
(as for example textiles and flour, which are consumed in considerable quantity
both by indigenes and expatriates). The figures for the two years were identical.

No pretence can be made that the results given in Table 2.6 are
accurate, but they are sufficient, perhaps, to indicate the rough
order of importance of the three categories in the import pattern of
the Territories. They are, in any case, adequate to illustrate the
manner in which expansion of the monetary sector, and hence
the opportunity for further growth, is dependent on the expansion
of exports; they also indicate certain fields in which that dependence
might be reduced.
Indigenous consumption goods are the main incentive for the
indigenous population to take part in the monetary economy, and
they therefore play a vital role in the expansion of the monetary
sector. As most of the indigenous people obtain their requirements
of traditional food and other consumption goods without the use of
money, incentive goods must be of a different kind. The present
pattern is thus that they spend their cash incomes very largely on
imported goods that are either luxuries or improvements on their
traditional counterpart. For example, storable high value grain
foods, storable protein foods, refined sugar, processed tobacco,
textiles, made clothing and footwear are important incentive goods
to the indigenous population and only available in quantity through
the monetary sector of the economy. Until and unless these can be
produced locally in the Territories, increasing imports of such
goods will be a sine qua non for economic development.
Expatriate consumption goods are in general the goods necessary
to maintain the high standard of living demanded by the expatriate
population as a condition of their remaining in the Territory. In
general, the indigenous population is as yet inadequately equipped
with the entrepreneurial, administrative, and technical skills neces­
sary to operate and expand the advanced sector of the economy.
Until this can be remedied, economic growth is dependent on the
38 New Guinea on the Threshold
attraction of increasing numbers of expatriates to live in the Terri­
tories, and in the absence of any system of compelling such services,
the supply of such high, even luxury, quality goods will have to
increase rather than decrease.
Import replacement. Granted that an increase in the supply of
indigenous and expatriate consumption goods is essential, it does
not necessarily follow that the imports of these commodities must
increase in proportion indefinitely. With an expanding market there
are fortunately a number of fields in which import replacement by
local production does seem perfectly possible and reasonable. For
example, in the year ended June 1963 the Territories imported
156,000 cwt of refined sugar, valued at £507,000 (Territories 1963c).
Sugarcane is indigenous to the Territories, and when consumption
reaches a figure sufficient to make a local mill an economical
proposition, large-scale production may be practicable. Fresh
meat, dairy produce, storable grains, amongst many others, are also
possible fields for large-scale import replacement.
C ommerce and industry
Commerce and industry play a large, but subsidiary, part in the
monetary sector of the economy. White (1964:Table 8.1), in his
valuable study of the social accounts of the Territories, estimates the
total income produced in 1960-1 by what he calls ‘Commercial
Enterprises’ to have been £13,569,000 made up as follows:
European labour income £6,578,000
Native wages and keep 851,000
European surplus 6,140,000
Total £13,569,000
However, in his definition of ‘Commercial Enterprises’ White has
excluded that part of secondary industry mainly engaged in the
processing of primary products for export. Such processing com­
prises an important part of the secondary industry of the Territories,
and if the income generated in the processing of copra, coconut oil,
coffee, cocoa, rubber, and timber for export were added, it is clear
that industrial, commercial, and transport enterprises form a very
substantial part indeed of the activity of the advanced sector of the
economy.
Nevertheless it is equally clear that these industries, and their
development, play a subsidiary role to the two main sectors of the
economy, primary industry and the public sector. The commercial
and industrial sector provides many of the services necessary for
the primary sector to operate. It distributes the goods and services
demanded by the employees of the primary and government sectors
in exchange for the money they earn. It adds value to the agri­
cultural and forest products exported from the Territories, and in
The Economic Structure 39
recent years has to an increasing extent added value, through
processing and partial manufacture, to goods imported for con­
sumption in the Territories. However, apart from processing locally-
produced primary products, there is virtually no development of
manufacture for export and there seems to be little prospect for
such development in the foreseeable future. There is no indication
of the juxtaposition of rich mineral resources and cheap power
necessary to provide the Territories with a comparative advantage
over other countries for the development of heavy industry, and
skilled labour is, and will remain for a considerable time, a very
scarce and therefore expensive factor.
Imported skills. The commercial and industrial sector has been,
to date, even more dependent on imported skills and imported
capital than the other two major sectors of the economy. The figures
given at the beginning of this section show this very clearly. Of
the £13,569,000 estimated by White as the total income produced
by commercial enterprises, only 6 per cent accrued to indigenous
participants, and the whole of that was in the form of wages and
keep.
This dependence on imported skills and capital will decline as
indigenous participation in the monetary economy increases and as
the supply of indigenous people with higher secondary and even
tertiary education increases. However, the rate of decline may be
expected to be very slight for a considerable time. Although it is
in a sense a subsidiary sector, commerce and industry must expand
at least in proportion to the expansion of the other sectors of the
economy. Its failure to do so would soon place an effective check
on the development of other sectors. For example, the development
of a substantial cattle industry in the Territories, as recommended
by the World Bank Mission, is entirely dependent on the provision
of adequate facilities for the slaughter, preservation, distribution
and marketing of the meat and other products produced. Govern­
ment development programmes depend upon commercial enterprise
to provide and distribute the goods and services necessary to make
living conditions acceptable for its skilled staff and to undertake a
great deal of the building and construction associated with such
programmes. Over the next ten years or so the commercial and
industrial sector of the economy must expand at a rapid rate and
its demand for capital and skill will increase greatly.
On the other hand the supply of indigenous capital and skills,
though they should increase substantially, may be expected to be
attracted more in the first instance to the primary and public
sectors of the economy than to the commercial and industrial sectors.
Indigenous savings, in particular, may be expected to show a
preference for primary industry, in the form of new plantings of
cash crops and the opening of new land, as the channel of invest-
40 New Guinea on the Threshold
ment in which they have the greatest understanding. Exceptions
will be in the form of ancillary industries and services, such as road
transport serving agricultural areas as has already been noted in
the Gazelle Peninsula (Epstein 1964), and co-operative, small to
medium processing plants. There will also be a gradual but steady
increase in small-scale, indigenous retail enterprises. However, there
seems little doubt that for the next ten years at least the bulk of
new investment in commerce and industry, and in particular in the
larger-scale units, will be dependent on non-indigenous sources of
finance.
Indigenous skills, in the form of men and women with higher
secondary and tertiary education, may on the other hand be
expected to be attracted strongly towards the public sector. This is
a common, and very natural, tendency in most countries moving
towards political independence. The needs of the public services are
very great, and the opportunities for secure tenure and for advance­
ment are correspondingly attractive. In addition, the public service
offers status and authority of a kind that is particularly attractive
to the indigenous people of a nation working towards political
independence. For this reason, so long as the supply of skilled
indigenous people remains short of demand, indigenous participa­
tion in the more senior ranks of commerce and industry may be
expected to grow more slowly than the rate of growth of the sector
as a whole.
Therefore, if the expansion of the commercial and industrial
sector is to be maintained at the rate necessary to service a growing
economy, it is clear that a considerable expansion of non-indigenous
capital and skills invested in this vital sector will be required over
the next decade or so. Without such expansion a serious check to
the development of the economy as a whole will rapidly develop.
I nvestment
Some aspects of the pattern of investment in the Territories have
been touched on in previous sections. Some comment on invest­
ment itself is necessary, however, to bring together some important
features of the overall investment pattern and to indicate their
significance for the future development of the economy.
In the modem world we tend to think of investment in terms of
money capital used to procure an increase in the production of
goods and services. It may be applied in many forms, as in the
construction of new roads and airports, the purchase of tractors or
motor vehicles, the construction of hydro-electric schemes or irri­
gation works, the building of shops, offices, factories, or houses, or
the purchase of stocks for trading. Investment need not necessarily
involve a money transaction, however, and in an economy with a
very large and relatively affluent subsistence sector, non-monetary
investment can be a very important factor in development. This is
The Economic Structure 41
the case in Papua-New Guinea, and in this analysis the distinction
between monetary and non-monetary investment will be useful and
revealing.
We have seen that the estimated population of the subsistence
sector of Papua-New Guinea in 1963 was one and three-quarter
million, out of a total population of a little over two million. Whilst
many subsistence producers have some money income from the
sale of cash crops, etc., the amounts are relatively small and often
irregular. There is also thought to be considerable hoarding of coin
and notes within the sector, and there have been instances in which
surprisingly large sums have been raised quickly by groups of
village people for investment in occasional projects that have
captured their interest and imagination. Nonetheless, in relation to
its population, the investible monetary resources of the subsistence
sector are small. With the spread of cash cropping and participation
in the monetary economy these resources will increase, but in terms
of the needs of the economy as a whole it will be a considerable
time before monetary investment from this sector can be expected
to play a significant part in the economic growth of the country.
Non-monetary investment. On the other hand, the investible non­
monetary resources of the subsistence sector are very large. These
resources comprise surplus labour and, to a lesser extent, surplus
land, over and above that required for normal subsistence produc­
tion. The labour is available at low opportunity cost, in most cases
at the cost of sacrificing some of the already quite abundant leisure,
and in many areas there are still quite substantial resources of land
available at the cost of the labour necessary to open it up and bring
it into production. Moreover, this surplus both of labour and land
can be, and at times is, substantially increased by the introduction
of improved techniques and tools. This process has been discussed
in detail elsewhere (Salisbury 1962; Fisk 1962, 1964).
In this way, the subsistence sector contains a very substantial and
important investment potential. It is, in fact, potentially the greatest
domestic source of development capital immediately available in
the Territories. Some of this potential is already applied to invest­
ment, both private, as in opening up and planting new land or
replanting old crops, or building canoes, fish traps, etc., or on
community or public works, such as village tracks and improve­
ments, district roads, rest-houses, airfields, and council works such
as school buildings, clinics.
The size of this potential is undoubtedly very great at the present
time but difficult to quantify in meaningful terms. In the National
Income Estimates for 1960-63 (Territories 1964a) an attempt has
been made to calculate the rough order of magnitude of this com­
ponent of the national income. Th? figures include work on mainten­
ance and replacement of existing assets, as it was impossible to
42 New Guinea on the Threshold
distinguish labour contributed for this from labour contributed for
the construction of new works. Rough as they are, the figures
suggest that in 1962/3 non-monetary community investment, re­
placement and maintenance was of the order of £14,600,000 whilst
non-monetary private investment, replacement and maintenance
was about £4,230,000, making a total of nearly £19,000,000 alto­
gether. Large though this figure may be, it is quite certainly only a
relatively small proportion of the total investment potential available
in the subsistence sector if the conditions for its utilization could be
fully met.
There is not space to discuss in detail what the conditions for full
utilization of this potential are. It must suffice to indicate that the
main ingredients are adequate incentive, technical guidance, and
usually some leavening component from the monetary sector (e.g.
cement, nails, tools, seed). It is also important to note that very
often the effective utilization of non-monetary investment depends
on its effective combination with substantial elements of monetary
public investment, as when indigenous labour is augmented by
road-building machinery and materials, and that the two are best
regarded as complementary rather than as possible alternatives.
Monetary investment. Details of monetary investment are also
difficult to obtain. The national income estimates give details of
gross domestic capital formation (Territories 1964a: 223) but, follow­
ing Australian income tax practice, a great deal of private invest­
ment in primary industry is treated as current expenditure. For our
purposes, therefore, the figures there given understate the total of
private capital formation, possibly by some £300,000 to £400,000.
Bearing this in mind, the figures given for 1963 are as follows:
Gross Domestic Capital Formation (Monetary Sector)
1. Private £6,089,690
2. Missions 295,189
3. Public authorities
Administration 8,272,926
Native Local Government Councils 217,446
Commonwealth departments and instru­
mentalities 2,015,000
4. Increase in value of stocks 76,136
Total £16,966,387

On this basis, the rough order of contribution to gross capital

formation in the monetary sector is Public authorities 62 per cent,
Missions 2 per cent, Private 36 per cent.
The source of finance for this capital formation is clear for the
public sector. This investment derives in the main from the Aus­
tralian government, either through its grant to the Territory
The Economic Structure 43
Administration or through direct expenditure of Commonwealth
government departments. Mission capital formation is also depend­
ent to a considerable extent on external finance, as is evidenced by
Table 2.3 which showed mission finance in the balance of payments
as a net credit transfer of some £963,000 in 1963.
However, the source of capital formation in the private sector is
less clear. There are indications that there has in fact been a
substantial net outflow of private capital during recent years.
White’s estimates suggest a net outflow of around £4,000,000 a year
over the three-year period ended June 1961, although these figures,
being residuals, are unavoidably imprecise. It is certain that there
has been some inflow of new private capital from Australia and
overseas, countering the gross outflow from Territory profits, but
it is virtually impossible to trace these movements. What does seem
clear is that private enterprise in the Territories has in general been
highly profitable during recent years and that a large part of gross
private investment represents the re-investment of part of these
profits, the balance having been repatriated to Australia.
The future trend of investment and capital formation in the
Territory will depend on a number of things. First, the size of the
Commonwealth grant, which will not only determine the trend of
public investment to a large extent but will also influence the size
of private investment by determining the general level of economic
activity in the economy as a whole. Second, the confidence of the
individual expatriate in his future in the country, whether as
investor, entrepreneur, or employee, will greatly influence the
investment climate in the private sector. Third, external factors,
such as commodity prices on world markets, will affect the profit­
ability of most investments in the Territories and their attraction to
private capital whether from within or without the Territories.
Many of these factors can be influenced by government inter­
vention at various levels. Two aspects of government intervention in
particular require careful investigation in the immediate future.
One is the role of government in facilitating the supply of credit
to the private sector, which involves not only assistance in the form
of finance as recommended in the I.B.R.D. report, but also institu­
tional changes to facilitate the operation of such credit (e.g. in the
form of land titles). The other is the role of government in fostering
the confidence of the foreign investor, whether by some form of
investment insurance, or by guarantees of different natures, or by
tax and other concessions that raise the profit and thus the degree
of risk acceptable in such investments.
 3

An Assessment of Natural Resources

H. C. B R O O K F I E L D

T he nature of resources’
T he inhabitants of a montane valley in the centre of New Guinea,
viewing their productive resources in the third quarter of the
twentieth century, might and sometimes do evaluate them in such
terms as these: ‘Our land is too cold for coffee; our mountains are
steep and good roads cannot be built over them; our rivers lack
gold and are barren; our forests have all been cleared and we have
no timber; we have no means of making money.’ Yet this valley has
fertile soils, a healthy climate without frosts, droughts, or great
heat, and it supports population densities far higher than those
found in other parts of New Guinea. No one goes hungry, and in
former times a skilful agriculture made possible the production of a
surplus of food for ceremonial payments and feasts, and of pigs
which could be traded for stone axe blades, shells, plumes, and fur
ornaments, which were highly prized as wealth. Had previous
generations made, or been able to make, a comparison of their pro­
ductive resources with those of other parts of the country, they
might have rated themselves wealthy indeed.
Both views are true, and their contradiction illustrates the
difficulty facing any attempt to catalogue and assess the natural
resources of a country. Inevitably we find ourselves speaking of
rich’ and ‘poor’ areas, of ‘abundance’ and ‘scarcity’ of resources.
These are value-loaded terms, which we use in relation to a particu­
lar level of technology and understanding of resource-use, to
particular types of production aimed at yielding a particular stand­
ard of living. In a territory such as New Guinea, with so wide a gap
between the primitive way of life and the far higher living standards
which are the conscious or unconscious aim of all, this problem of
evaluation becomes particularly acute. Thus we shall find that there
is little land in New Guinea suitable for large-scale mechanized
production using massive machinery, while on the other hand there
are very large resources indeed of timber and of potential power.
44
An Assessment of Natural Resources 45
But the power resources are almost wholly unused and only a
fraction of them can be employed in the foreseeable future; it is
difficult to market the timber, and in looking at land we must
observe the successful use made of much land that would be quite
useless by the techniques employed in Australia. To view resources in
their whole context we must take account of social structure, of the
values held by the people, of the world market for particular crops,
and of the factors limiting New Guinea’s access to that market,
including the innumerable links of commerce, investment, and
legislation that bind the economy of New Guinea to that of Australia.
Such a view would take us far beyond the scope of this essay,
but it provides a context that must be borne in mind throughout.
Viewing the resources of New Guinea in the 1960s, then, we must
take account of a few simple considerations. The overwhelming
majority of the population depends on the land—perhaps 95 per cent
of the people. The internal market for industrial produce is limited,
and most of this market is, for a variety of reasons, more readily
and cheaply supplied from overseas than it could be by local
producers. There is a wealth of agricultural, handicraft, and collect­
ing skills available in the country, but a poverty in technical skills
suitable for use in the machine age. Consequently, even though by
any international comparison the land resources of the country are
not rich, it is the land that is New Guinea’s most important resource.
Indeed, nearly all comprehensive resource assessment that has been
carried out has focused overwhelmingly on the land, and this essay
will be no exception.
Among existing assessments, which include one outdated and
now best-forgotten survey by the present writer (Brookfield 1958),
the most important are those produced for specific areas within the
country by survey teams of the Division of Land Research and
Regional Survey of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial
Research Organization (CSIRO).* Some more local assessments have
been made by soil scientists, and by other individuals and groups,
but the CSIRO surveys are by far the most important source of
information, both on fact and method. It is, then, with a review of
the CSIRO surveys that we must begin.
T he CSIRO surveys
The first CSIRO survey in Papua-New Guinea was carried out in
the Buna-Kokoda area of the Northern District of Papua in 1953.
Since then survey teams have visited the Territory in most years,
* Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Division of Land Research and
Regional Survey, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organiza­
tion, Canberra, for permission to study and draw on unpublished material,
and for comment on the text of this chapter. Particular acknowledgment is made
to G. A. Stewart, Chief of Division, and to H. A. Haantjens. However, respon­
sibility for all statements made in this essay, including interpretations made
from CSIRO material, remains my own.
E
46 New Guinea on the Threshold
and by the end of 1964 had covered most of the Central High­
lands, a wide tract of country in northern New Guinea from the
middle Sepik to east of Madang, two areas in northern Papua, the
Port Moresby-Kairuku coastal strip, and Bougainville Island. A
number of interim reports have appeared, and the first of a series of
final reports was published late in 1964.
The essential characteristic of what has been called the Australian
Land Research method is the integration of different disciplinary
approaches in order as to describe, classify and assess ‘land’ as a
whole, including ‘the whole vertical profile at a site on the land
surface from the aerial environment down to the underlying
geological horizons, and including the plant and animal populations,
and past and present human activity associated with it’ (Christian
1964:390). The basis of the method is a classification of land into
land systems defined as ‘a composite of related units . . . throughout
which can be recognised a recurring pattern of topography, soils
and vegetation’ (Christian and Stewart 1953:11). Land systems are
built up of described but generally unmapped land units, defined

RUGGED MOUNTAINS

OLD VOLCANICS, RUGGED

M AIN LY C L A S S E S I TO m, LAND NEW VOLCANICS, RUGGED

[--------- ] PLAINS,W ELL DRAINED

■t* ' k —~1 PLAINS, POORLY DRAINED

* '• . J P LA IN S , WATERLOGGED

the Buna-Kokoda area,

Northern District, Papua. From a map in Lands of the Buna-Kokoda
Area . . . (Land Research Series No. 10), by courtesy of CS1RO.
An Assessment of Natural Resources 47
as ‘having similar genesis and can be described similarly in terms
of the major inherent features of consequence to its land use—
namely topography, soils, vegetation and climate’ (Christian 1958:76).
This method, despite its rather unfortunate rigidity as a frame
for description and analysis of land resources, has been skilfully
applied in a wide variety of environments. Techniques have been
refined over the years, and means found of introducing more
analysis and rather less description. Like the survey methods as a
whole, methods of assessing land potential have evolved over the
years. Early assessments were not based on any very formal system.
Recently the Division of Land Research has adopted a modification
of a method developed in the United States by Klingebiel and
Montgomery (1961), which is based not on possibilities but on the
degree of limitations to land use, subclassified according to the
type of such limitations. Klingebiel and Montgomery divided land
into eight broad classes, of which the first four are suitable for
cultivation with increasing degree of limitation, the next three
suitable only for pastoral activity, range, or woodland, and the last
unsuitable for any form of commercial plant production. The
advantage of the system is that it is neither a productivity rating
nor a rating of suitability for particular crops. Haantjens (1963) has
suggested some modifications for use in New Guinea, and these have
been incorporated in the most recent survey reports.
An example may be taken from survey data. Fig. 1 is a conden­
sation of the land system map of the Buna-Kokoda area into a small
number of landform types, distinguished according to terrain, lith­
ology, and drainage condition. Of these, the areas distinguished by
cross-hatching contain mainly land in classes I to III,1 some of the
1 Explanation of Klingebiel-Montgomery notation:
I Good land, level or gently sloping, suitable for agriculture without
special limitations.
II Good land, not level, requiring some special adaptations.
III Moderately good, requiring intensive special measures to improve and
maintain productivity when cultivated. Intensive drainage may be
needed for tree crops where imperfectly drained.
IV Fairly good, best maintained in perennial vegetation, but can be culti­
vated occasionally or in a limited way if handled with great care.
V Nearly level, productive soils, but unsuitable for cultivation because of
other factors. Good for pasture or for forestry.
VI Subject to moderate limitations for pasture and forestry.
VII Subject to severe limitations for pasture and forestry. Severe erosion
or other hazards.
VIII Unsuited for any purpose
51 low chemical fertility
52 shallow soils
53 slowly permeable soils
e erodibility
st stoniness
d poor drainage
f flooding
48 New Guinea on the Threshold
largest tracts of such good land in the whole country. They include
land systems of three types: the footslopes of the Mt Lamington
volcano, steeply sloping alluvial plains in the Kokoda valley, and
rather poorly drained but readily improvable plains below the
footslopes of Mt Lamington. All the mountain country, together
with the whole of the old volcanic mass of the Hydrographers’
Range, the summit area of Mt Lamington, and the extensive allu­
vial plains in the north of the area are classed as of low potential,
with most land in classes VII and VIII. The balance of the area
falls into classes IV, V, and VI, though there are some pockets of
land in classes I and II.
In the Western and Southern Highlands (Wabag-Tari area) there
is a more intricate pattern. Thirty-nine land systems are distin­
guished, mostly widely scattered over a large area of countiy and
intermingled with other land systems. The Tambul land system, to
take an example at random, is developed on Pleistocene stratified
fluvial clays locally covered by volcanic ash. Most of its twenty
square miles is level, but there are some deeply incised streams,
liable to landslipping on the flanks. The occurrences of this system
lie between 6,800 and 7,300 feet and are all occupied and cultivated.
The plains constitute the largest land unit of the system, covered
with humic olive ash and brown clay soils, under gardens or sword-
grass regrowth. This land is in classes lid and Illd, except on
marginal slopes, where classes lie and Hie occur. There are some
boggy areas of small extent, with peaty soils in classes VII and Vlld.
The steep slopes of dissected valleys form a land unit of very small
extent, with humic brown clays, but very liable to landslipping:
these are areas in classes Vile and VIII. Finally there are some
very small flood plain channels, with fine-textured recent alluvium,
in class IV S3. Such intricacy is found in almost all land systems in
all areas surveyed.
These examples serve to bring out the value of methods employ­
ing land classification, taking into account all variables, as a basis
for assessment. But they also show the enormous complexity of
the problem and the very wide differences both in empirical
assessment and in intrinsic potential that may be found in very
small areas. This fact should provide a caveat in attempting more
generalized assessment on a wider, Territorial, basis, but none the
less such an attempt must be made. Unfortunately the CSIRO
surveys are, by their detailed nature and by their attempt to evalu­
ate a range of variables, not amenable to ready extrapolation. In
order to obtain a Territory-wide basis of resource assessment, then,
we must go back to first principles, and seek more generalized
data on terrain, surface rock (lithology), soil, and climate. Maps
showing such generalized distributions have been prepared for this
essay, and are discussed below. Some comment on the sources of
data for these maps is to be found in the appendix.
An Assessment of Natural Resources 49
T he basis for a territory - wide classification of land resources
Terrain. It is a commonplace that New Guinea is a mountainous
island, with a scarcity of plains, rolling hills, and downland. This
rather subjective view is true if seen from an Australian, English,
or American viewpoint: a New Zealander or a Japanese would find
less to remark on, and, indeed, the proportion of plains and rolling
hill country to the total area of New Guinea is probably similar to
that found in New Zealand. This much is clearly brought out in
Fig. 2. Apart from the two extensive plains, in Western Papua and in
50 New Guinea on the Threshold
the Sepik basin, there are important areas of low to moderate relief
almost all along the south coast of Papua, in the Northern District
of Papua, in the country around Madang and Rabaul, and at
altitudes between 4,000 and 6,500 feet in the central cordillera.
These areas of moderate relief are important: not less than 75 per
cent of the population of the Territory is to be found living on
these tracts of land.
The plains fall into two main groups: especially in the Fly and
Sepik-Ramu valleys there are very extensive areas of permanently
or seasonally waterlogged land. Many smaller coastal lowlands also
have waterlogged tracts, some forested, some under swamp grass,
some in coastal locations carrying mangroves. Within these water­
logged areas, especially close to the rivers, are raised levees which
carry some permanent occupation, but in the absence of drainage
techniques, except in a few parts of the central cordillera, these are
in the main negative areas, carrying little settlement. A second
group of plains is in the main above flood level: some few are
erosional, cut in firm ‘country rock’, but most are on alluvial and
colluvial deposits of Pleistocene or younger date. These vary widely
in surface condition and in depth of soil; they also vary as to age
of soil, and include some of the most fertile and most infertile soils
in the Territory.
Low hills and other country of moderate relief are again of very
varied origin. Much of this country would be classed as steepland
by international standards, with slopes up to 25° and locally
steeper. However, in the highland valleys, on some coastal hills
and sub-coastal plateaux, and especially on the lower slopes of the
numerous volcanic cones, there are wide tracts of land with a
general slope no more than 10-15°. In terms of human occupation,
these tracts are among the most important in the country. The
balance of the Territory includes numerous small tracts of land of
only moderate relief, too small to be mapped at this scale, but
mainly dominated by steep slopes between 30° and 45°. These
slopes are maintained chiefly by landslipping rather than by normal
wash and stream erosion, and slopes are frequently scarred by
landslides, especially in the earthquake zone which occupies all
the northern part of the country, and the Rismarck Archipelago.
Weathering extends tens and even scores of feet deep. Also included
within this zone on Fig. 3 are some areas of quite gentle relief
but at high altitudes, on the crest of the Owen Stanley, Bismarck,
and other ranges: here at altitudes far above the limits of human
occupation are tracts of gentle almost level terrain, the product of
erosion at a much earlier stage of mountain building.
Lithology (surface rocks). Geologically, New Guinea is of recent
formation. Except for one small outcrop west of Darn in Western
Papua, ancient undisturbed shield rocks such as occur over large
An Assessment of Natural Resources 51
parts of Australia do not exist at the surface, though they underlie
the southern part of the plain of Western Papua at no great depth.
In the central cordillera, and especially in the Owen Stanley Range,
are large tracts of igneous and metamorphic rocks of varied ages,
thrown up in the cores of upfolds and exposed by erosion. These
apart, only very limited areas have rocks at the surface that are
older than the Tertiary era of geological time—that is to say as old
as almost all the formations encountered in the eastern highland
belt of Australia.

\e surface rocks in some areas of Papua-New Gw

52 New Guinea on the Threshold-
Most of the sedimentary rocks of New Guinea were laid down
between the Cretaceous and Miocene periods of geological time, in
a great subsiding trough north of the Australian landmass. The
Owen Stanley Range was formed by folding in the early Tertiary,
while the main folding in central New Guinea took place in the
Miocene, and in northern New Guinea only at the end of the
Tertiary and even in the Pleistocene. There is evidence that mount­
ain building continued well into the Pleistocene. In the course of
this history there have been several periods of great volcanic
activity, and many older sedimentary rocks, especially of the Cre­
taceous and Eocene, include quantities of redeposited volcanic
material. At other times the whole trough lay deep under the sea,
and during these periods great thicknesses of limestone were laid
down. When the seas were shallower, muds and sands were
deposited, to form the present mudstones, shales, sandstones, and
greywackes. Since the main period of mountain building, troughs
on either side of the new ranges have been filled with great depths
of detrital material from the mountains. During the Pleistocene,
the period of the Great Ice Age, there was a renewed outburst of
volcanic activity that has continued to the present time.
Distinct landform characteristics and soil-forming conditions are
associated with each of the main lithological groups whose general­
ized distribution is within the areas that have been mapped as
shown on Fig. 3. The metamorphic rocks everywhere tend to form
steep and rugged mountains, resistant to erosion. Intrusive igneous
rocks are of two kinds—the granites, some of which weather very
readily, giving rise either to basins or to areas particularly liable
to landslips, and the basic and ultra-basic rocks, the latter of which
have possible significance as sources of nickel. The mudstone-shale-
sandstone-greywacke areas give rise to a varied terrain, with im­
pressive escarpments on the more resistant sandstones and broad
valleys etched out in the unresistant mudstones and shales. The
limestones everywhere produce their highly distinctive landscape.
Being porous, they tend to be eroded largely by ground and under­
ground water. In isolation, they stand up as sharp bare ridges, but
wide areas of limestone give rise to characteristic karst formations,
with sink-holes, pits and hollows, honeycombed rock outcrops and,
locally, the kegelkarst of innumerable small, steep hills separated by
discontinuous narrow depressions—a landscape resembling nothing
so much as an inverted egg-box. The accounts of explorers who
penetrated to the Central Highlands from the Papuan side—
especially that of Hides (1936)—give a clear picture of immense
difficulty of movement in the karst.
Volcanic deposits vary. Some of the older outpourings flowed
from fissures, giving rise to tablelands such as the Sogeri Plateau
behind Port Moresby. Most of the Pleistocene and Recent volcanics
have poured or been blown from central vents, building up some
An Assessment of Natural Resources 53
great cones thousands of feet high around central craters. Some­
times the centres of such cones have either foundered or been blown
out in paroxysmal explosions, leaving great hollows of which the
most striking example is Simpson Harbour, on which Rabaul stands.
Eruptions have been of several types. Some have emitted lava
which has built up long, smooth cones; where mixed with water
and mud the lavas form lahars, which spread widely and thinly far
down on to the adjacent lowlands. Some vents, by contrast, have
thrown out only boulders, building up no cone; others have, in
recent eruptions, emitted mainly ash which builds narrow steep­
sided cones and casts a fine deposit of wind-borne ash all over the
countryside in the lee of the volcano. Thus the whole of the northern
Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain is blanketed by ash falls from the
successive eruptions of the Rabaul volcanoes. Still others erupt
deadly clouds of burning gas—nuees ardentes—which sweep down-
slope destroying everything in their path. One such, blown out of
Mt Lamington in 1951, destroyed the government station at Higa-
turu and killed over 3,000 people in a few minutes. Mt Lamington
was thought to be extinct before this eruption; a classification of
volcanoes into active and extinct is by no means always easy. Thus
all the volcanoes in the central cordillera are ‘extinct’, but there are
widespread native stories of extensive ash-falls in the Western and
Southern Highlands some time between forty and a hundred years
ago.
Climate. All Papua-New Guinea lies within the tropics, but its
climate is far from uniform. Though at the coast there is no cold
season anywhere, in southern Papua there is a difference of some
10° between the mean temperature of the warmest and coolest
months, and a difference of about 15° in night temperatures at
places a little inland from the shore. Average temperatures fall
with altitude at a steady rate, and the diurnal range becomes
greater with altitude, so that at 5,000 feet midday temperatures are
some 10° below coastal temperatures while night temperatures may
be 20° cooler than on the coast. Seasonal variations also become
more marked. Night frosts become a hazard in farming at elevations
that vary from as low as 5,500 feet to as high as 8,000 feet, depend­
ing on terrain in relation to the drainage or collection of cold air.
Humidity is high in the lowlands both by day and by night, but
relative humidity falls to around 60 per cent at midday at 5,000 feet,
and to much less at high altitudes. Persistent heavy cloud lies on
the mountains above altitudes ranging from as low as 2,500 feet near
the coast to as high as 9,000 or 10,000 feet in sheltered locations
within the ranges.
Though contrasts in temperature and humidity are not simply
functions of altitude, but bear closer study, the most significant
and marked contrasts between places and seasons in New Guinea
54 New Guinea on the Threshold

New Guinea: an interpretatu

An Assessment of Natural Resources 55
are in rainfall conditions. Four new maps of rainfall, the first
products of a much larger study of the climate of the Melanesian
area, are presented with this chapter. Mean annual rainfall (Fig. 4)
varies from over 250 inches to as little as 39 inches, the latter at
Port Moresby. There is a belt of over-wet conditions, with rainfalls
exceeding 175 inches annually, all along the southern face of the
central cordillera, the foothills, and the northern edge of the plains
to the south: it does not extend into the valleys of the highlands
themselves, which are much drier, especially in the east. This belt
is broken across the northern end of the Owen Stanley Range, but
resumes around the head of Huon Gulf and achieves maximum
intensity in southern New Britain, continuing through the southern
tip of New Ireland and along the south coast of Bougainville. Other
areas of high rainfall are found in eastern Papua, along the northern
face of the cordillera, and in the ocean areas west from Manus.
Relatively dry conditions are found in the Sepik valley, at Rabaul,
at a few points on the coasts of New Ireland, in the eastern valleys
of the central cordillera, and in the Markham, Snake, and Bulolo
valleys in the Morobe District, in central and south-western Papua,
and especially along the coast on either side of Port Moresby. This
pattern may be interpreted in terms of seasons.
During the months from December to March, and for rather
longer in the north and north-west of the Territory, the dominant
airstream is a weak flow of very moist, unstable air, derived from
the equatorial regions to the west and periodically reinforced by
Australian weather systems which draw moist tropical air far to
the south. These are months of heavy precipitation almost through­
out New Guinea, except in the lee of New Britain and the Huon
Peninsula: rain is very general, and the effect of relief is at a mini­
mum. Rain is not continuous: dry spells occur and in 1963 they were
prolonged over much of the Territory, but the mean February
conditions represented in Fig. 5A show clearly the general pattern.
By contrast, the months from May to October, and for rather longer
in the far south, are characterized by a much more stable easterly
and south-easterly airstream, which flows very strongly across
southern New Guinea and up to the Bismarcks, but rather more
weakly in the north-western quadrant, where westerly winds may
be experienced even in the middle of this period. This Trade Wind
stream is moist, especially in its northern branch, but gives rise to
little precipitation along coasts which lie parallel to the prevailing
wind. Where land lies across the path of the winds, however, or
where the airstream is constricted by its approach to or passage
between high mountains and mountainous islands, the lifting and
convergence of the air produces cooling which releases great
quantities of rainfall. Once these obstacles are passed, descent and
divergence of the air restores stability, and rainfall is low. There
are marked changes of weather at this season, corresponding with
56 New Guinea on the Threshold

i
% '

X i.»
FEBRUARY

mm uT 150° 153° 156°

5 Above: mean February rainfall.

Below: mean July rainfall.

variations in the strength of the Trades and with the passage of

depressions in mid-latitudes from Australia across the south
Pacific. The July rainfall map (Fig. 5B) is representative of con­
ditions at the height of this season. This is the season of very heavy
rainfall along the whole of the over-wet belt noted above, and in
south-eastern Papua, but of prolonged droughts in central Papua,
south-western Papua, and the eastern valleys of the central cordil­
lera, which lie directly in the lee of the long ridge of the Owen
Stanleys. It is also the dry period in northern New Britain and to a
lesser extent in the Sepik valley, though the Trades are not nearly
An Assessment of Natural Resources 57
so dominant in the weather of this north-western quadrant. Were
they as dominant as they are in Papua, this area in the lee of the
mountains and the whole landmass would be very dry at this
season. There are some very sharp rainfall gradients, especially
across New Britain, on the rise of land behind the Lakekamu
depression in central Papua and along the adjacent coast, and
between the Morobe coast and the valleys immediately inland.
Localities fifteen miles up the Markham valley from Lae receive less
than one-quarter of the rainfall received at Lae. The seasonal
reversal of rainfall across New Britain and the Huon Peninsula is
very marked on these two maps, and a similar but much weaker
reversal may be seen between the northern and southern sides of
the central cordillera and between the northern and southern inter-
montane valleys.
Despite a location close to the equator, then, some areas of
Papua-New Guinea have a fairly well-marked dry season, during
which there is a definite liability to quite prolonged droughts,
without significant rainfall for several weeks. Other areas, by
contrast, are so wet either throughout the year or at one or the
other season that all forms of agricultural activity are severely
handicapped. Between the two extremes are a number of areas,
including most of the valleys of the central cordillera, the Rabaul
area and parts of the New Ireland coast, northern Papua, parts of
central-western Papua, and most of the north-western quadrant, in
which there are only shor^ periods of either over-dry or over-wet
conditions, and which experience favourable conditions for the
growth of most trees and crops throughout the greater part of most
years.
It is possible to go further than this, and to describe the climate
of the Territory in terms of the occurrence of wet and dry months
in the total rainfall record, following the system of Schmidt and
Ferguson, based in turn on that of Mohr, and applied initially to
Indonesia (Schmidt and Ferguson 1952). The basis of this system
is a series of observations made at Bogor in Java, leading to the
conclusion that during a month which receives more than 100mm.
(3-94 in.) of rain the soil remains continually moist, while during a
month receiving less than 60mm. (2-36 in.) there is a strong tend­
ency to drying out. Months with over 3-94 in. are classed as wet’,
while months with under 2-36 in. are classed as ‘dry’. Months with
intermediate totals are ‘moist’. The method is then to total all ‘dry’
and ‘wet’ months ever occurring in the rainfall records for each
station, to obtain average values per year, and then to divide the
‘dry’ months by the ‘wet’, expressing the result as a percentage, Q.
The result is a reasonable approximation, valid for tropical areas, of
the mutual relation between precipitation and evaporation. Clearly
a long record is desirable: Schmidt and Ferguson limited them­
selves to stations with over ten years, and in general it would be
58 New Guinea on the Threshold
An Assessment of Natural Resources 59
desirable to restrict application to stations with records for at least
seven years. However, because of the paucity of such stations in
most parts of New Guinea, some supplementary stations with
records for as few as three years have been employed in this
reconnaissance exercise. Schmidt and Ferguson divide the values
of Q into eight classes, as shown on Fig. 6. Class A has no dry
periods, class B includes areas with a weak dry season, class C
with a moderate dry season, class D with a well-developed dry
season, and classes E and F with increasingly long periods of
severe drought occupying several months of each year. It seemed
desirable to subdivide class A to distinguish those areas in which
one or more dry months may occur in some years (A3), those areas
with occasional dry months in the record (A2), and those areas in
which dry months are either of very rare occurrence or are totally
absent (A1). These divisions are, like all climatic classifications,
arbitrary, and the lines bounding classes should, except where very
shaq) gradients occur, be regarded merely as guide lines showing
the direction of a continuum.
Three areas stand out as having well-marked liability to drought
conditions: the Port Moresby coastal strip, where class F occurs at
Port Moresby itself, the southern part of the plain of western Papua,
and the valleys lying inland of the Huon Gulf and extending as far
west as the Goroka valley in the Eastern Highlands District. There
are a few other areas characterized by a significant occurrence of
dry months, of which the most noteworthy is the northern Gazelle
Peninsula of New Britain. Fairly wide areas in the Sepik and
Madang Districts, in New Ireland, Bougainville, and eastern Papua
and, despite its high rainfall, on both sides of New Britain, have
occasional dry months, though these are not of frequent or very
regular occurrence. The highland valleys west of Goroka also fall
into this class, but not the valleys of the Southern Highlands
District which share with the much wetter belt lying immediately
to the south a near-total absence of dry months in the record. The
area of country without dry periods is, indeed, considerably more
extensive than the area with very heavy rain as shown on the map
of mean annual rainfall (Fig. 4). There are some extremely sharp
gradients, especially inland of Huon Gulf, but none quite as sharp
as that between Sukarnapura (Hollandia) and Lake Sentani, just
over the border in West Irian.
This map as a whole supplements the rainfall maps by empha­
sizing certain regional differences that the latter reveal, by providing
the basis for further separation of three distinct groups within the
valleys of the central cordillera, and by helping to subdivide those
areas with a moderate total rainfall into tracts having a well-
distributed precipitation without either drought or (by inference)
excess and those in which the moderate total fall is in fact produced
by sharp seasonal contrasts between rainy and dry periods.
60 New Guinea on the Threshold
Soil. Soil is the product of climate acting upon the surface rocks.
The nature of a soil thus depends on three main factors: the climate,
the nature of the surface rocks, and the length of time during which
weathering has been active on the site. In the tropical lowlands,
soil-forming processes are at maximum intensity; they diminish in
rate and intensity from the equator toward the poles, and with
rising altitude from sea level. Areas of flat or gently sloping land
that are not subject to erosion, and have so remained during very
long periods of time, have much older soils than steeplands from
which the surface weathered matter is constantly removed by
erosion. In New Guinea, therefore, young soils—in which the in­
fluence of the parent surface rock material is dominant—are very
widespread, while old soils are in the main confined to the elevated
plains, in areas which suffer little erosion and receive no deposition
of either alluvial or volcanic material.
‘Zonal’ characteristics of soils thus depend mainly on climate. The
zonal influences vary with temperature, rainfall, and evaporation;
different influences operate in areas where the temperature is
uniform at all times, and in areas at high altitude where there is
very marked variation between day and night temperatures on the
ground. Areas with a pronounced dry season experience periods
when water moves upward in the soil by capillary action, while
continuously moist areas are dominated throughout by downward
movement of soil water. Site conditions, which control the soil
water table, vegetation and geological conditions, which determine
the chemical constitution of the weathered regolith from which soil
is derived, exert modifications even in the oldest soils. In true
‘zonal’ soils, which have been developing over many thousands of
years, these geological influences are, however, at a minimum. In
tropical lowland areas with continuously moist conditions the true
zonal soil is the latosol, derived from greatly weathered parent
materials, depleted of silica and bases to a great depth, and without
any strong textural profiles (Cline et al. 1955:69). The latosol is a
‘soil order’—the highest order of classification: it is subdivided into
three ‘great soil groups’—low humic, humic, and hvdrol—according
to increasing rainfall. A fourth ‘great soil group’—humic ferruginous
latosols—probably represents the end product of the long weathering
process, characterized by a massive crust and extreme infertility.
In arid areas the zonal soils are light in colour, while in semi-arid
to sub-humid areas are found dark-coloured soils, rich in organic
matter in the upper horizons, and with a high base status through­
out. Where zonal soils are not fully developed, we find intrazonal
soils, reflecting the dominant influence of local factors of terrain
and lithology. Among these is the brown forest soil group, wide­
spread in New Guinea, which seems to be progressing toward acid
latosols but which retains a high base status and a rich supply of
organic matter. Also widespread in areas of poor drainage and
An Assessment of Natural Resources 61
waterlogging are hydromorphic soils, characterized by mottling
and a high soil water table. There are also special soils such as the
rendzina group, developed by deep weathering on limestones.
Finally there are young azonal soils, classed into regosols mainly
on new deposits such as alluvium, volcanic ash, and coral sands,
and lithosols found on young slopes of weathered or unweathered
rock.
Haantjens and van Royen have in preparation a tentative soil map
of the whole island of New Guinea, a draft of which they have
kindly made available. They map on the basis of associations,
within which they find comparatively few zonal members. They
find latosols on the older deposits of the southern plain, and also in
the Ramu-Sepik valley and in some other depressions. Brown forest
soils and regosolic brown forest soils are general throughout the
mountains, though in the Western and Southern Highlands a fine
blanketing of volcanic ash is in fact the dominant parent material of
what are in fact young regosolic soils.
The soil pattern of New Guinea is infinitely complex. In addition
to the innumerable natural variations, soil has been and is being
constantly modified by cultivation. Shifting cultivation affects both
the content and the structure of soils, and those areas that have
become grasslands have a different soil climate, a different balance
of nutrient supply and withdrawal, and a different structure from
soils still under forest. In classifying soils from the point of view of
their usefulness, different considerations come into play in different
areas. Thus the permeability of soils developed on volcanic ash
makes the disposition of the water table of great importance and
raises greatly the limits of precipitation that would give rise to
over-wet conditions. In mountain areas, liability to landslipping
may be a more important consideration than the innate fertility of
the soil. The depth of soil is very often an overriding consideration
in determining usefulness and ability to withstand drought. Drain­
age conditions, or stoniness, are limiting or permissible conditions
on a wide variety of soils. Frequency and weight of ash falls in
volcanic areas may be a rejuvenating influence on the soil, but also a
hazard that can lead to crop failure and worse.
T he distribution of population
Before proceeding to a synthesis of the land resources of New
Guinea, in the light of the material presented above, some dis­
cussion of population distribution is first necessary. This is because
no assessment is possible except in relation to the people who will
use the land resources. Fig. 7 represents the crude distribution of
population by census divisions, the boundaries and areas of which
are from a map prepared by the Department of Native Affairs.
Their map is amended from a compilation of census division maps
which I initially made from records in the Department in 1958:
62 New Guinea on the Threshold
An Assessment of Natural Resources 63
both boundaries and areas are still unreliable, and nothing much
better will be possible until it becomes the practice in New Guinea
to map such sub-units as sub-districts, census divisions, and electoral
divisions on topographical maps where available, or otherwise on
photo-mosaics. Except along the West Irian border most boundaries
are sketched on inaccurate maps that lack topographical detail, by
officers unskilled in mapping, and without ground control. Fig. 7 is
therefore an approximation, as are the electoral maps of the Terri­
tory, the census division maps, and even the sub-district maps, all
of which are prepared on the same base.
While little or nothing can be said of distribution in detail, then,
much can be said about the broad pattern. About half the whole
population of Papua-New Guinea lies in a restricted and sharply
bounded belt astride the sixth parallel south, between the Southern
Highlands District and the Huon Peninsula. Within this there are
a number of nodes of greatest concentration, especially the Chimbu
area, the Mt Hagen-Wabag areas, the valleys around Mendi and
Tari in the Southern Highlands, and the hills north of Lae in the
Huon Peninsula. In central Chimbu as a whole densities below the
tree line average over 200 per square mile, and locally exceed 500
per square mile within group territories mapped by Paula Brown
and myself. Of all this concentration along the sixth parallel south,
all but a small percentage live more than 4,000 feet above sea level.
A second belt of marked concentration lies along the southern
foothills of the Prince Alexander Range in the Sepik District: here
densities within measured group territories locally attain nearly
400 per square mile. Similar high rural densities are found in the
northern Gazelle Peninsula, around Rabaul. Other areas of con­
centration lie around Madang, in the islands north-east of Papua,
along the central Papuan coast, in a small area in northern Papua
lying north-west of Mt Lamington, and in southern Bougainville.
By contrast, most of the remainder of the country is very sparsely
occupied indeed, and wide tracts of country in Western Papua and
the southern part of the Sepik District carry less than one person
per square mile.
To interpret this map we need to know first how far it is likely
to reflect an appreciation of the quality of land resources on the
part of the indigenous people. Certainly, in densely peopled tracts
such as Chimbu and Enga, there is a detailed comprehension of
both local and regional differences, and the selection of land is
influenced by this comprehension. From other parts of the Terri­
tory the evidence is as yet less clear. However, in the Western and
Southern Highlands the work of the CSIRO team has shown a good
correspondence between the intensity of use, as measured by extent
of land shown as cultivated on air photographs and land capability
as evaluated by the Klingebiel-Montgomery system discussed above.
Tracts in which 80 per cent or more of the land is in regular use
64 New Guinea on the Threshold
lie without exception in land systems of moderate to high capability:
population densities over 200 per square mile occur in only two of
the four land systems falling mainly within Klingebiel-Montgomery
classes I to III. Similarly in the Buna-Kokoda area of northern
Papua the greatest concentration of population, rising locally to 60
per square mile, lies on the best land in the area—the little-dissected
footslopes of Mt Lamington, where smooth topography is combined
with fertile soils and good drainage. However, other areas of good
land are but sparsely occupied, while high densities are found in
many areas of quite low capability. On the Territory-wide scale,
we note the importance of the country of moderate relief, which
carries more population than the plains. Areas of young volcanic
formation also stand out: except in central Papua and in northern
New Britain, these are areas of generally higher density. The two
exceptions are interesting: the volcanoes of central Papua lie in the
heart of the belt of highest annual rainfall that is sparsely occupied
almost throughout. Other factors are of importance in New Britain
and elsewhere. Malaria is absent from many areas above 5,000 feet,
and incidence is only light in some lower areas where conditions
are unsuitable for the breeding of the Anopheles mosquito. In the
northern Gazelle Peninsula a relatively light and well-distributed
rainfall combines with highly permeable soils to create an absence
of swamplands. This stands in sharp contrast to the north coast of
New Britain, which has soils of similar origin but a very heavy
seasonal rainfall and large tracts of swamp: this area is highly
malarious.
Seasonality of rainfall is perhaps as important as total quantity.
Thus the only two areas in the main cordillera lying outside the
valley system of the Central Highlands that carry notable concen­
trations are the Kukukuku country south-west of Bulolo and the
Goilala area directly north of Port Moresby. The Kukukuku country
has moderate rainfall, distinctly seasonal; the Goilala area has a
heavy rainfall but a marked dry season, and is the only area in the
east-Papuan mountains with this characteristic. A dry season is
perhaps important in soil formation, but the most significant factors
are the greater ease of clearing by use of fire and also—especially
in a mountain region—the reduced incidence of heavy cloud.
Discussion of population distribution could be prolonged, but
each area shows up possible correlations with different factors, and
consideration of each thus poses a whole set of new questions that
can be answered only by reference to crops, agricultural techniques,
and agricultural cycles. There are also demographic factors dis­
cussed elsewhere by Norma McArthur. It is time, then, to tum back
to the question of assessing resources, and, with the distribution of
the human population in mind, to try to reach some basis for a
comprehensive evaluation.
An Assessment of Natural Resources 65
A SYNTHESIS OF LAND RESOURCES
It will be apparent that certain conditions stand out both as
limiting and as favouring the productive occupance of land. Certain
tracts of land are totally excluded for agriculture: those above
heights ranging locally from as low as 6,500 feet to as high as 9,000
feet that are liable to severe frost, those permanently or semi­
permanently waterlogged and cither incapable of drainage or of
such low natural fertility as not to be worth the large expense
involved, those of such unstable soil that any occupation would
lead to landslipping and erosion, those of such difficult terrain—for
example the worst of the limestone karstland s—that only insignificant
pockets of land could be brought into use. In addition to these
there are much wider areas where only sparse occupation of the
land is possible. These include most of the remaining limestone
karstlands, almost all areas receiving over about 175 inches of rain
a year except where soils are unusually permeable, most areas
liable to severe and prolonged drought during several months of the
year, many more waterlogged areas that could only be reclaimed
at high cost, and most areas of old soils where the processes of
deep weathering have reduced the surface soil to a very low level of
fertility. Steep slopes are by themselves far less of a limitation: the
soils are generally young, they are easier to clear than flat land by
the methods of shifting cultivation, and it is possible to reduce
erosion and landslipping by simple protective devices of various
kinds.
To attempt to map favourable and unfavourable areas is a
dangerous exercise, fraught with possibilities of subjective error.
Two highly generalized and tentative maps have been prepared, the
one classifying the types of limitation to land use, the other isolating
a number of larger areas of relatively favourable conditions. In Fig.
8 emphasis is placed first on the occurrence of over-wet conditions,
accompanied by reduced insolation, soggy waterlogged soils in
level sites, and severe erosion and landslipping on slopes. Areas
with over 175 inches annually are excluded first, and then areas
which receive very heavy rain of the order of over about 15
inches a month during some major part of the year, but not through­
out the whole year. Some of these latter areas carry significant
populations, but most are sparsely occupied and have little potential
for development. Next the remaining rugged and mountainous
areas and the large tracts of perennial or seasonal swamp are
eliminated. Areas with a severe dry season, distinguished as those
falling into the Schmidt-Ferguson classes E and F, are also excluded,
though some of these are irrigable. Areas of known severe soil
limitations, principally those with old and deeply weathered latosols,
are further excluded. There remain quite wide tracts, in some of
which a marked but not severe dry season is a seasonal limitation—
 66

ipua-New Guinea: a sketch map showing the distn

Neiv Guinea on the Threshold

of land.
An Assessment of Natural Resources 67
also a circumstance which has facilitated the replacement of forest
by grass and savanna. These latter, and also some areas in which
low night temperatures and some ground frosts can occur even at
relatively low altitudes, are finally noted on Fig. 8.
These limitations are of varying degree, and many areas thus
marked out are in fact occupied, some quite thickly. Some attempt
is made, however, to suggest the degree of limitation visually on the
map. To some, this map will suggest a far too gloomy view of the
resources of the Territory. Yet comparison of this map with the map
of population distribution will reveal that the more negative tracts
are very sparsely occupied. A more positive view is presented in a
matching map (Fig. 9), in which some attempt is made to distinguish
areas with more favourable conditions. Emphasis is placed first on
terrain and soil in relation to climatic conditions, and thus on these
areas of relatively gentle relief with soils derived from recent
volcanic outpourings and ash falls or from recent alluvial and
colluvial deposits. Among these, areas affected by moderate periodic
drought, or by seasonal over-wet conditions, or by low temperatures
are separately distinguished by sub-classification. Since slope is
not the limiting condition in New Guinea that it is in countries with
more mechanized agriculture, and further since many steepland
soils are superior in fertility to flatland soils, areas of moderate
relief without severe climatic or other limitations are also repre­
sented in a third class. Quite large tracts of more favourable con­
ditions emerge, especially along the belt astride the sixth parallel
south, along the north coast of New Guinea, and on both sides of
the eastern peninsula of Papua. The very limited, but important,
areas of moderate to high capability in the Gazelle Peninsula, the
Popondetta area of the Northern District of Papua, south-east
Bougainville, and in valleys lying inland from Lae and Madang all
stand out clearly. The area of relatively dry country south of the
Fly River in Western Papua, which has been under examination for
several years as potential beef-cattle country, is also noted.
Comparison of this map with the map of population distribution
reveals much unevenness. Areas along the sixth parallel south, in
the Gazelle Peninsula and in the northern Sepik District, are well
occupied, but areas in eastern Papua, Bougainville, and around
Madang, and especially the north coast of New Britain, are only
sparsely occupied. This maldistribution in relation to resources is
well known and has prompted suggestions of resettlement pro­
grammes for many years. Recently a large-scale study has been
made of the potential of the north coast of New Britain, with a
view to settling at least 50,000 people in this area over a period of
years. It is remarkable—perhaps incredible to those who do not
know the ways of New Guinea—that this survey had to be made on
the basis of most inadequate field data and even inadequate air
photographs, for while the CSIRO survey teams have surveyed
68 New Guinea on the Threshold
An Assessment of Natural Resources 69
large tracts of the Territory at the request of the Administration,
the north coast of New Britain is not among them. It cannot be
said that the feasibility of agricultural settlement in northern New
Britain has been fully established: the effect of the very heavy
December-March rains, which total upwards of twenty-five inches
in each month at a number of stations, has not been studied at all;
its effect on soil water tables alone could, however, well be critical
both for tree and field crops.
At the risk of seeming tedious, a caveat must be entered on the
use of this map more than of any other map. There are certainly
areas of good potential, both large and small, which are not
represented here, mainly for want of the data on which to base a
determination. Furthermore, some lowland areas that are excluded
are capable of reclamation. Within the areas shown are some that
are already seriously degraded by erosion, especially in the area
inland of Lae and in the Sepik District. But the data are lacking
on which to base something better. Even the CSIRO surveys only
describe land potential by reference to land systems: they do not
undertake a detailed mapping. There are dangers in land-potential
maps such as those produced for the whole of Fiji by Wright and
Twyford and now being used there as the basis for a land develop­
ment programme, but there is nonetheless no doubt that land-
potential mapping of New Guinea is desirable. Much could be
done by simply reworking the CSIRO material, together with
material prepared by the Territory soil survey over the limited
areas within which they have worked. While there are good and
sound reasons why the scientists concerned do not and would not
wish to commit themselves to such a map, in the almost certain
knowledge that their cautions and qualifications would be ignored
by many administrators, it is clear that many worse mistakes are
going to be made in the absence of a land-potential map. The
preparation of such a map is now a prime need for the fuller
development of the Territory’s land resources.
The economic aspect of land potential must be mentioned here,
but only briefly, as it is dealt with elsewhere in this book. The
present food-crop economy of the Territory is based on root crops,
and its cash economy mainly on tree crops. But among the tree
crops there seems to be far greater potential in the world market
for the two main lowland crops—coconuts and cocoa—than for the
main highland crop, coffee. Thus the lowland areas should, under
present circumstances, be weighted in land assessment, and particu­
lar weight should be given to those areas without a cooler season
and without either excessive rain or more than a slight risk of
drought, which are suited for cocoa production. Changes in the
world market or the successful introduction of new crops such as tea
and pyrethrum in the highland areas might change this pattern.
Radical revision would also be needed if rice were to become estab-
70 New Guinea on the Threshold
lished as a major food crop, for potential padi soils are almost totally
excluded from this assessment. European potatoes and green
vegetables also demand conditions rather cooler than those included
as ‘favourable’ here. Rather different conditions are also required for
successful livestock rearing, but in the near future the main potential
for livestock is probably on the coconut plantations. Hence it is
important that true land-potential mapping should be based on
intrinsic conditions, so that selection among these intrinsic con­
ditions can be made in surveying the potential for any particular
crop or group of crops.
F orest resources

There is one important group of resources, widely distributed over

the land, that has so far been excluded from discussion. By far the
greater part of New Guinea is closely forested, with a mixed
tropical rain forest in the lowlands and foothills and a montane forest
of rather different structure and composition in the mountains.
While much of this forest is of such mixed composition as to render
exploitation uneconomic at present, there are large areas within
which development is practicable and, indeed, New Guinea and
the Solomons are now being viewed as a major source of hardwood
timber. Pre-war exploitation of timber resources was everywhere
on a very small scale: essentially similar in scope is the production
of pit-sawn timber for local constructional work by numerous small
native groups throughout the country. At the end of the war there
were only two sawmills working in the Territory. Starting in 1950,
however, large-scale exploitation has increased. The initial site was
at Bulolo, inland of Huon Gulf, where there are valuable stands of
Araucaria (‘Hoop’ and ‘Klinki’ pine). They emerge through the forest
canopy over a wide tract between 2,000 and 5,000 feet above sea
level with a strongly seasonal rainfall. The existence of a road to
Bulolo, and of a town built to serve the moribund gold-dredging
industry, prompted the establishment of a plywood mill here—an
initial investment of two million pounds. The company produces
some 10,000 tons of plywood a year, exporting it through Lae: road
haulage represents some 15 per cent of the total production cost.
From 1957 onward the company found it worthwhile to establish a
subsidiary mill at Lae to prepare veneers from coastal hardwoods
to incorporate in the plywood at Bulolo. At that time only a limited
market in the United States had been found to supplement the
slender Australian market, but since 1960 there has been a rapid
expansion in the demand for timber from Japan, where by 1963
went nearly 70 per cent of New Guinea timber exports. The main
supplying region is the north coast of New Britain, where are very
large stands of kamerere (Eucalyptus deglupta) and other hard­
woods, both on dry land and in the swamp forests. The trade has
now become sufficiently secure for the Japanese importers to provide
An Assessment of Natural Resources 71
specially designed vessels to operate in the shallow waters of the
New Britain coast. Other rich areas in Bougainville and in the
Gogol valley behind Madang have recently been opened up, and,
with an eye to the future, a teak planting programme has recently
been commenced in the foothills behind Port Moresby and else­
where. Production now exceeds 80 million super feet a year, from
seventy sawmills, and it is hoped that output will more than
double within three to five years.
The exploitation of its rich resources in hardwood timber offers
to New Guinea its strongest present hope of building up a non-
agricultural export. But since most of the timber areas are in
sparsely populated country, remote from services, fresh problems
are created in the deployment of labour resources and also in invest­
ment in roads and harbours. It seems that it is the wealth of
northern New Britain in merchantable timber that has prompted the
rural resettlement study referred to above. There are also questions
of conservation that have received little serious study. Allied prob­
lems arise on the frontiers of economics with politics: the timber
industry demands heavy capitalization and careful resource man­
agement. Since there is only a small resident native population in
the timber areas, it is tempting to neglect the possibilities of in­
fusing native capital into the industry by the reservation of shares
for indigenous investors. Yet there is an obvious outlet here for the
surplus capital that has accumulated as the result of the successful
native cocoa industry in the northern Gazelle Peninsula of New
Britain and in other parts of the country. These problems arise
even more keenly in considering the other non-agricultural resources
of the Territory.
M ineral , power , and industrial resources
The immense value of mineral exploitation in accelerating all forms
of economic development has been amply demonstrated in a
number of tropical countries, outstandingly in central Africa and
Venezuela. Closer to home, in New Caledonia, exploitation of a
rich mineral resource has led to a great improvement in the living
standards of the whole population, though the resulting high wages
have led to the destruction of some other aspects of the economy.
In Papua-New Guinea the small scale of mineral development to
date has not triggered off any significant changes in other fields of
activity, though the gold incomes of the Mandated Territory pro­
vided an important budget support during the parlous days of the
depression, and, as we have seen, the provision of services in the
mining area facilitated the subsequent establishment of a more
permanent timber industry. There have been small gold-rushes at a
number of points in Papua and New Guinea since the third quarter
of the nineteenth century, but none has led to solid development.
Gold is now a waning resource, and there are few prospects of
 72

—
_.i_
__
-------------
ipua-New Guinea: non-agricultural resources and the commw
New Guinea on the Threshold

elements.
An Assessment of Natural Resources 73
large-scale new discoveries. Copper was worked near Port Moresby
for some years earlier in the century, but the deposit is small.
The expansion of geological survey work in recent years has not
yet, however, reached a scale at which it can be claimed that the
rocks of the Territory are being fully prospected. Certainly, there is
nothing comparable to what is going on in the neighbouring British
Solomon Islands. In recent years attention has been focused on a
series of early Tertiary ultra-basic intrusive formations that occur
all along the northern face of the Owen Stanley Range and also on
the northern face of the Bismarck Range in the south of the Madang
District. Laterization of comparable ultra-basic rocks in New Cale­
donia has led to the concentration there of rich bodies of nickel ore
that are among the world’s largest reserves of this mineral. Nickel
has been located in economic concentration on the Cyclops Mount­
ains and on Waigeo Island in West Irian, and so far three localities
in Papua-New Guinea are known to have nickel, but the grade is
doubtful and the possibilities of economic exploitation as yet unde­
termined.
To date, expenditure on the search for minerals has been concen­
trated very heavily on oil exploration. Since the early 1920s some
£30 million have been spent, initially in a number of widely scattered
areas but since about 1950 mainly in the region around the head
of the Gulf of Papua, where the folded structures south of the
faulted zone of the Central Highlands curve southward toward
and into the Coral Sea. A number of excellent structures have been
located, mapped, and drilled. Oil has been found not once but
several times, but no large-scale pool has yet been tapped, and it
remains questionable whether a field large enough to justify
exploitation can be established. However, it has been established
beyond doubt that there are large reserves of natural gas, a potential
industrial resource of great value. The problem is, indeed, to find a
market to which the gas can be economically piped. At one stage
it was tentatively proposed to pipe the gas under the shallow waters
of Torres Strait for use in smelting the Cape York bauxites. How­
ever, other plans for aluminium extraction have been adopted, and
in any case it might not be politically wise to tap a New Guinea
resource to aid development in a nearby metropolitan country that
does not freely admit New Guineans.
It seems unlikely that a market for New Guinea gas that is suf­
ficient to justify the large expenditure on workings, pipelines, and
communications facilities can be developed, the more so as Papua-
New Guinea is extremely rich in more flexible sources of power.
High rainfall, large catchments, and steep falls from the mountains
to the lowlands combine to create a large number of sites suitable
for hydro-electric power generation on every scale from the small
local plant to the giant undertaking yielding several hundred mega­
watts. Some years ago there was discussion of a site in the Purari
74 New Guinea on the Threshold
gorge, which collects the drainage from a large area of the central
cordillera: the site suggested proved unsuitable because of fissures
in the limestone that would drain away water, but there are other
sites. Recently a firm proposal has been adopted to develop power
at the point where the Ramu falls 3,000 feet from the plateau around
Kainantu to the Markham-Ramu valley, a site that alone could
provide far more power than all New Guinea can consume for
many years to come, and is very centrally located to the whole
Territory. There are certainly other large-scale possibilities on the
Lai, the Sepik, the Waria, and at a number of points on the huge
Purari system. Total power resources cannot be estimated, but
generation of 2,000 megawatts seems well within the range of
possibility, enough to sustain the demands of a wealthy industrial
country of several million people. Further, there are potential
sources of hydrothermal power in the volcanic areas: these have
been subjected to a careful investigation at Rabaul.
The very large extent of limestone in the Territory (Fig. 3), some
of it of high purity, constitutes a further industrial resource. How­
ever, the present demand for cement in the whole country is
insufficient to warrant the construction of even one plant of econ­
omic size: furthermore, even were a plant to be erected at any
specific point, the greater part of New Guinea could import cement
more cheaply from overseas than obtain it from the local works. It
has been proposed, realistically, that these resources should instead
be used to obtain lime in a large number of relatively small kilns:
lime could serve many of the functions of cement, including the
stabilization of earth to make building materials and surface roads.
It could also be used in agricultural fertilizers. Timber, both as
planks and as pulp, and pulp derived from other vegetable fibres
could also be used to manufacture building and other constructional
materials. Other industries that could readily be established include
clothing and food-processing: brewing and cigarette manufacture
are already established in the Territory.
P roblems of industrial development
It is apparent that New Guinea is not poor in the resources that
could serve an industrial economy. However, whereas agricultural
and even timber resources are to some extent already developed,
there is virtually no utilization of power and industrial resources at
all. A few small hydro-electric plants supplying the towns utilize
sites of only low potential. Development is impeded by external
factors—the overwhelming economic control exercised by a few
large Australian trading firms, and the reluctance of these and other
companies to invest in a territory whose political future is uncertain.
There are, however, more fundamental limitations of local origin.
These are the lack of skilled and semi-skilled labour, the small size
of the market and the low purchasing power of the bulk of the
An Assessment of Natural Resources 75
population, the absence of town populations of any size, and the
primitive condition of the communications system which effectively
compartments New Guinea into a large number of small hinterlands
—both of seaports and airports—most of which can import from
outside more readily than they can trade with one another.
Education and training programmes are remedying the shortage
of skilled and semi-skilled labour, though slowly and with insuf­
ficient emphasis on training for management and responsibility.
Purchasing power is growing as a result of successful cash cropping,
though the total absence of any energetic attempt by the large
trading companies to expand and diversify retail trade outside the
principal centres is providing a serious brake on the use of this
growing purchasing power. Some small entrepreneurs are showing
more enterprise, but they lack the capital to achieve dramatic
results. More seriously, though, the absence of central places and
the primitive nature of the communications system are linked
impediments that will not readily be removed without the mounting
of a major programme of capital works and a fundamental change
of policy.
It is argued by some that a number of base-points should be
established at ports and major airports, each with a radial road
system but without much inter-hinterland linkage except by sea and
air: it is proposed, that is, to treat the Territory as a sort of
archipelago rather than a single large island with a few outlying
islands. But an archipelago such as the Philippines or Indonesia has
the advantage of cheap and flexible inter-island transport by sea,
and these archipelagos include populous and large islands—Luzon
and Java—which have highly developed internal road and rail
systems. Air transport as a means of linking islands must remain in
the hands of aliens for many years to come, and in the absence of an
integrated road system there is only limited range for the kind of
native enterprise which has built up an immense range of bus and
trucking companies in Luzon as a means of intra-island transport.
There is scope for a much wider integrated road system than at
present exists.
In particular, there is a crying and obvious need for well-graded,
hard-surfaced, two-lane highways from Lae and Madang into the
Eastern and Western Highlands, through the Markham-Ramu
valley, to Finschhafen and Sattelberg, Bulolo and Wau, Chimbu,
Mendi, and Tari. Such a road system, with gravelled side-roads
and cross-roads in all directions, would integrate the whole popu­
lated region along the sixth parallel south, about half the popu­
lation of the country. The cost would run to several tens of million
pounds; the return would be greatly accelerated development and
wider diffusion of development. There is also a need for a similar
but smaller road system in the northern Sepik District, using the
new defence road from Wewak to Lumi as its axis, and also along
76 New Guinea on the Threshold
the Papuan coast between at least Kerema and Abau, from Rabaul
along the north coast of New Britain, and—with the greatest engin­
eering problems of all—across Papua to link the Popondetta region,
Garaina, Wau, and Lae to the southern coast of Papua. The effect
of such a system of good roads would be to permit the concentration
of development at nodal points, outstandingly Port Moresby,
Madang, and Lae, to facilitate the growth of towns and their supply
with food and raw materials, and to make possible the establish­
ment of industrial plants serving more than purely local hinter­
lands. The cost would be enormous, but chiefly because of the
failure to build up any sound foundation for such a road system in
the past. Trucking is carried on between Lae and Mt Hagen, but
along a road that is in truth fit only for four-wheel drive vehicles,
and over hand-built bridges quite unsuited for heavy loads.
There are also untapped possibilities of using the Fly and Sepik
rivers—especially the latter—for the carriage of heavy goods. At
the same time greatly improved port facilities are required at the
major central places: there is no place in the Territory where ships
do not require to use their own derricks to handle cargo. Having
regard to the potentialities of the site, the present port facilities at
Lae, in particular, are deplorable. Far better facilities for small
coastal ships need to be established both at central collecting points
on the islands and remoter coasts and also in the main ports. Finally,
facilities for cargo handling at most airports need to be modernized
beyond the present level—which consists too frequently of a ‘line of
boys’.
T he need for integrated planning
An enormous gulf divides a population that could utilize a power
capacity of several hundred megawatts from the population of the
highland valley discussed at the outset. A territory whose educa­
tional system is at the stage described elsewhere in this volume by
Spate, whose people include very many who experience the kind of
‘hopeless envy’ of the wealth of the Europeans described by Paula
Brown, presents a development problem of alarming scale. It would
be easy to despair were not the immense progress achieved in
many African territories in the course of half a century not before
us as encouragement. But a measure of co-ordinated planning is
essential if any rapid and consistent progress is to be achieved.
If examination of natural resources shows anything of value, it is
that optimal development of these resources requires a major rede­
ployment of population in which a large element must be urbani­
zation. In pre-contact times most of the people of New Guinea
found the resources available to them in their own locality adequate
for the maintenance of life at the standards they then desired;
where local pressures arose, these were relieved either by short-
distance migration or by the evolution of techniques which made
An Assessment of Natural Resources T7
possible the fuller utilization of resources. The introduction of a
cash economy has created a wholly new set of values, so that some
areas now seem far richer than others, and many people are almost
totally without resources that can be converted into cash in their
present habitat. The pattern of labour migration described else­
where (Brookfield 1960) is in part a response to this changed
situation. The fuller utilization of those resources that are in rich
supply in New Guinea must demand an assessment that is different
again.
While the problems of each region and locality need to be con­
sidered separately, it is also necessary to develop a national view,
to evolve an integrated plan at the centre, and to assess its impli­
cations area by area, and locality by locality. It is useless to attempt
to develop everywhere; little can be done for people who dispose
only of sago swamp and very poor soil, of steep and rugged
mountain sides remote from the trunk roads, of tiny islands acces­
sible only to cutters and canoes. It is not necessary to contemplate
forced migrations: active development in the favoured areas, and
encouragement of free migration, will draw the young and adven­
turous off from these naturally poor areas fast enough.
What we see at present in New Guinea is a society in the early
stages of a rather painful readjustment to the conditions of its
natural environment, in response to new wants, new means of
achieving them, and the acquisition of a range of new skills. At the
present time we may be on the verge at last of significant large-
scale developments, arising from timber extraction, rural resettle­
ment, and the possible utilization of power resources. At this time
more than ever before it is essential to consider the evolving new
pattern as a whole, in all its implications. The people of New
Guinea will need much help to effect the continuing and accelerat­
ing process of adjustment, both financial help and technical help.
It is by no means certain that Australians, who lack experience in
other tropical environments, and whose capital resources for over­
seas grants are slender, are best qualified to provide this aid.
Practical advice could perhaps be obtained from among populations
whose recent experience is more directly relevant, including for
example Malayans, Africans, and the European administrators who
have guided the process of change with some success in other parts of
the tropics. For finance, there are certainly untapped sources outside
Australia. In this, as in other aspects of New Guinea development,
it is of no benefit to New Guinea for Australia to continue to ‘go it
alone’.
78 New Guinea on the Threshold

A ppendix
The Sources of Data on Natural Resources
CSIRO REPORTS
Four final reports have been published:
Lands of the Buna-Kokoda Area, Territory of Papua and New
Guinea, Land Research Series No. 10, Melbourne, 1964.
Lands of the Wanigela-Cape Vogel Area, Territory of Papua and
New Guinea, Land Research Series No. 12, Melbourne, 1964.
Lands of the Port Moresby-Kairuku Area, Territory of Papua and
New Guinea, Land Research Series No. 14, Melbourne, 1965.
Lands of the Wabag-Tari Area, Territory of Papua and New Guinea,
Land Research Series No. 15, Melbourne, 1965.
Interim reports have been prepared covering the following areas:
Gogol-Upper Ramu (Divisional Report 57/2, August 1957; and
Technical Memorandum 60/3, May 1960).
Goroka-Mount Hagen (Divisional Report 58/1, October 1958; and
Technical Memorandum 60/2, April 1960).
Lower Raniu-Atitau (Divisional Report 59/1, October 1959).
Wewak-Lower Sepik (Divisional Report 61/2, March 1961).
Final reports are in preparation on these areas, and also on a number of
other areas which have not been the subject of interim reports.
The Australian Land Research method is discussed in detail, with a full
bibliography, in Christian and Stewart (1964).
T errain
This is derived in part from CSIRO reports listed above, from geological
reports, topographical maps (especially the U.S. 1:250,000 Aeronautical
Series), and photo-mosaics. The wartime Terrain Studies prepared for the
Southwest Pacific Command have also been employed.
L ithology
This map (Fig. 3) is prepared from the reports of geological surveys
carried out by the Australasian Petroleum Company (Western Papua as
a whole), Rickwood, and McMillan and Malone (Central Highlands),
Glaessner (central Papua), Fisher (Morobe), Green (eastern Papua), from
CSIRO reports, and from general compilations by Stanley, David and
Browne, Klein, and Montgomery, Osborne, and Glaessner.
C limate
The survey by Hounam (1951) is now outdated, and this statement,
together with the accompanying maps, is based on records of monthly
rainfall for all available dates obtained from the Commonwealth Bureau
of Meteorology (Melbourne) and held there on punch cards. Data for
some additional stations have been collected by CSIRO. Most of the
basic work of processing the data has been done by my research assistant,
Mrs D. Hart. The account presented here is preliminary: a larger-scale
work on the climate of the whole Melanesian region is in progress.
An Assessment of Natural Resources 79
Soil
Present reconnaissance knowledge of the soils of the Territory depends
largely on the work of the CSIRO teams, and especially on that of
Haantjens and Rutherford. Haantjens and van Royen have in preparation
a soil map of the whole island. However, the broad classification
described here is based on the work of Cline et al. (1955) in Hawaii,
which provides the best basis available for the discussion of zonal
characteristics in tropical soils. Some useful local studies have been
carried out by the soil survey officers of the Territory Department of
Agriculture, among which particular mention should be made of a recent
survey of Bougainville by van Wijk (1962-3).
L iterature cited
In an essay of this nature a detailed bibliography would be inappropriate,
and only the comprehensive CSIRO reports, which contain regional
bibliographies, are here listed in detail. The Bureau of Mineral Resources
has in hand a compilation of the geological material available, Haantjens
and van Royen are surveying the available material on soils, and material
on climate is reviewed in H. C. Brookfield and Doreen Hart, Rainfall in
the Tropical Southwest Pacific, Research School of Pacific Studies, De­
partment of Geography Publication G/3, Canberra, 1966. It would be
pointless to provide incomplete bibliographies on these aspects here.
 4

Trade Prospects for the Rural Sector

R. T. S H A N D

D evelopment prospects in the rural sector of the economy, broadly

defined to include not only agricultural and livestock enterprises
but also timber and fishing industries, are the main considerations
in this chapter.
The 1963 World Bank Mission to the Territory is likely to have a
marked influence on trade prospects; however, as a concluding part
of this chapter shows, the impact of economic measures advocated
by the Mission would, if implemented, be felt mainly in the long
term. There would be a comparatively small effect between 1964-5
and 1968-9.
The chapter is therefore divided into two parts, the first of which
deals with prospects in the normal course of events, particularly up
to 1968-9. The analysis focuses on the outlook for individual com­
modities, both those important now and those with some potential.
For each of these commodities the likely market developments and
the short-term and long-term supply potential of the Territory are
considered. In this section the aggregate short-term effects of
individual commodity prospects on the economy as a whole are also
examined, with particular attention to the changes that can be
expected in the balance of trade (imports exceeded exports by £15
million in 1963-4) and also in the level of imports of goods of rural
origin, which in 1963-4 comprised a sizeable proportion of total
imports.
The second part of the chapter reviews the Mission’s recom­
mendations and calculates the prospects if the commodity targets
suggested by the Mission were attained.
Coconut industry
The coconut industry has traditionally been the sheet anchor of
the rural sector in Papua-New Guinea. After World War II it
provided as much as 67 per cent of annual export income, though in
recent years its relative importance has declined as a result of the
80
Trade Prospects for the Rural Sector 81
more rapid expansion of other commodities such as coffee and
cocoa. Nevertheless in 1962-3 it was still by far the biggest export
earner and provided 41 per cent of export income.
The industry is large by Territory standards but small in terms
of the total world market. It is therefore at the mercy of movements
in world prices, so a brief review of market prospects for the
industry will be helpful.1 The most profitable way of making this
review is to concentrate on the market for coconut oil, the chief end-
product of processing; there are other end-products, such as coco­
nut cake, desiccated coconut, and coir and coir products, but these
are of comparatively minor importance.
The end-uses of coconut oil fall into three categories: food
products (margarine and shortening, bakery and confectionery
products), soap, and various products of other non-food industries
such as synthetic rubber, hydraulic brake fluid for aircraft, plasti­
cizers, resins, and insecticides. Most of the properties found in
coconut oil are also to be found in other fats and oils, but it does
gain an advantage with lauric acid as one constituent (palm
kernel oil is the only other commodity with a substantial lauric
acid content). This acid has distinctive lathering properties, useful
for soaps and plasticizers. Further, coconut oil melts at mouth
temperature, so it is popular for bakery and confectionery products.
The main markets for coconut oil are in North America, Western
Europe, Japan, and Australia. These countries vary considerably in
the proportions they use in the various end-uses (F.A.O. 1959-63:
No. 8 (1962)): the United States, for instance, in 1961 utilized only
30 per cent in food (mainly bakery and confectionery) while 70 per
cent went in non-food uses (21 per cent in soap manufacture and
49 per cent in other uses—mainly in the chemical industries). In
contrast, 75 per cent of the Western Europe imports were used for
food (mainly margarine). The demand pattern in Japan, Canada,
and Australia resembles that of the U.S.A. On the world market as
a whole, consumption is fairly evenly divided between food and
non-food uses, but, from the viewpoint of market growth in the
higher income countries it is the non-food category that is important.
In food uses, coconut oil faces stiff competition. Butter competes
with margarine on the consumers table, and to some extent in cook­
ing, in the higher income countries. There are also a number of oils
which are close substitutes for coconut oil in the production of
margarine. In the U.S.A. they are cottonseed and soybean oils, while
in Western Europe there are more, for example whale and fish oils,
palm kernel, soybean and cottonseed oils. Its relative price is the
main determinant of the percentage of coconut oil in margarine.
Competition from substitutes is also a factor in non-food uses,
though the degree of interchangeability is not quite so high. Demand
1 This section draws upon a number of statistical sources, particularly F.A.O.
1962a, 1958-63, 1959-63, 1963a, 1963b, 1963c.
82 New Guinea on the Threshold
elasticity is probably highest in soap manufacture. Tallow, for
example, has proved an effective substitute for coconut oil. In the
U.S.A. the relative cheapness of tallow has reduced the coconut oil
(lauric acid) content of soap to about 15 per cent, a minimum for
good lathering. In addition, soap has lost ground to synthetic
detergents. In other non-food uses there appears to be less pressure
from substitutes at present.
Various segments of the market have changed considerably
during the last decade. Demand for soaps has increased in some
parts of the world, but has declined in the U.S.A. and Western
Europe, whereas U.S. demand for confectionery and bakery products
and particularly in chemical industries has risen. However, the
data on exports for the period 1953-62 give ‘strong prima facie
evidence that these conflicting trends . . . offset each other during
that period, to produce a remarkable stability in the strength of
total demand’ (F.A.O. 1963c: 14). The price variations which have
occurred appear to have been primarily due to supply variations.
Prices in the early sixties have been low due to pressure of
supplies. It remains now to foresee whether this position might
change. It has been suggested (F.A.O. 1962a :p. 11-26) that com­
mercial trade in fats and oils will not expand greatly to 1970. Of the
large traditional markets, consumption is close to saturation point
in the U.S.A., and there will probably be a rise in net exportable
supplies of oils. Sales to Western Europe will probably rise only
slowly because of progressive saturation of consumption and the
increasing competition from synthetics. Most of the increase in
demand is likely to come from growth in population and per capita
incomes in the less developed countries, in some of which, particu­
larly those close to being net importers, a gap between local demand
and domestic production could develop. If these countries were free
of foreign exchange problems, they would probably import to
cover their needs and world trade would then expand. It is highly
likely, however, that foreign exchange would be in short supply
for many of these countries and their governments would prefer
to adopt measures to stimulate local production. In this case world
trade would not be greatly influenced by this demand expansion.
The supplies of all fats and oils, with the possible exception of
whale oil, are expected to expand in the sixties. Production of
animal fats is expected to increase as an indirect result of the
expanding market for meat, especially beef. Fish oils appear to
have good production possibilities, and may outstrip the others in
expansion. One projection expects that, apart from marine oils
(whale and fish), all fats and oils will show rates of increase similar
to those of the fifties (F.A.O. 1962a:p. 11-22).
The market for coconut oil seems unlikely to expand faster than
the gradual pace expected for fats and oils as a group. Growth
faster than this could probably only be gained through further
Trade Prospects for the Rural Sector 83
reductions in the already depressed price level. Substantial and
sustained upward price movements also seem unlikely, partly
because the general market for fats and oils will be kept fairly well
in balance by changes in stocks and varying production levels of
annually grown oil-crops, and partly because there is such a high
degree of substitutability between fats and oils in most uses.
Prospects for Papua-New Guinea.2 The potential levels of coconut
production in Papua-New Guinea for the years up till 1970 have
largely been determined already. Since the coconut palm takes
about eight years to come into bearing, production will largely be
governed by the planting activity over the past decade. Palms
currently being planted will affect production only in the longer-
term future. Actual levels of production will be affected by factors
such as climate and, particularly among smallholders, the level of
prices received.
Whether or not past plantings will expand total production in the
Territory in the next few years also depends on the age distribution
of trees in the industry. Production will expand in the next decade
only if the rate of planting has exceeded the rate of replacement
required to maintain past output levels.
The coconut industry comprises both estates and smallholders. In
terms of numbers of mature trees they are of roughly equal import­
ance, with 9-6 and 10-7 million trees respectively in 1961-2
(T.P.N.G. 1959-63 and 1963e:No. 4, p. 106), though in terms of
marketed production the estates dominate—in 1962-3 they contri­
buted 73 per cent of the total. The productive capacity of small­
holders is not reflected in marketed production, since part of output
is consumed by the producers themselves and part, for lack of
adequate incentive, is left unharvested beneath the trees. Estate
trees are, on average, at an advanced age. In 1961-2 only 18 per
cent were immature and quite a large proportion of those in
bearing were past their prime. By contrast, smallholder trees are
much younger; in 1961-2, 56 per cent were immature (T.P.N.G.
1963e).
Since World War II total marketed output has risen slowly and
has not greatly exceeded the pre-1939 peak of production. The rate
of estate planting has only barely exceeded the relatively high rate
of replacement needed as a result of the advanced age of so many
trees and the destruction wrought by the war (B.A.E. 1951; T.P.N.G.
1959-63).
Over the next few years a continuation of the gradual rise in
marketed output can be expected, a large proportion of it coming
from the smallholders, since they have been planting more actively
2 This section and equivalent sections for other commodities which follow
use a number of statistical sources and reports, particularly T.P.N.G. 1956-63,
1959-63, 1963a, 1963c.
84 New Guinea on the Threshold
than estates and have a larger proportion of immature trees. The
Department of Agriculture, Stock and Fisheries, Port Moresby, in
1964 estimated that production in 1967-8 may be about 7,000-8,000
tons of copra more than 1962-3, when it was 110,000 tons of copra
equivalent.
Longer-term supply prospects depend on whether the rate of
planting can be accelerated in the coming years. From the estate
viewpoint, the currently depressed price level and the unimpressive
market outlook for the future is hardly encouraging. In the absence
of precise information it is difficult to say how profitable production
is at present. Established plantations may find it profitable to main­
tain and even expand their investment, but it is doubtful whether
many new investors, with the choice of product open to them, would
select the copra industry, particularly, too, since there is such a
long time-lag before returns begin.
For smallholders the rate of planting and the enthusiasm for
harvesting are contingent upon the degree of incentive. This
depends in turn on such factors as the returns per unit of labour
and on the contact producers have with the advanced sector.
Characteristically, coconut smallholders are spread along the narrow
coastal foreshores of the mainland and islands in Papua-New
Guinea. Their outside contacts are occasional and usually fleeting.
The remoteness of the villages and the small scale of production result
in high transport costs, which reduce the effective level of the prices
received and also make consumer goods more expensive. These
factors tend to inhibit economic activity. On the other hand copra
production is technically simple and is familiar, since it plays an
important role in subsistence production. Provided the problem of
creating incentive can be successfully tackled there do seem to be
long-term possibilities for smallholder expansion in the industry.
C ocoa
Cocoa is now the second most important agricultural product in the
Territory. As with other export crops, the extent to which the
production potential for cocoa will be exploited in the Territory
will depend on trends in the world market.3
The post-war years have been marked first by a state of shortage
and more recently by a tendency towards oversupply in the world
market. The reopening of the European market, together with
rising population and income in the main consuming countries, led
to a fast rise in demand after World War II. Production, on the
other hand, responded sluggishly and prices rose. High prices,
which reached a peak in 1954, stimulated plantings especially in
African countries. These began to make an impact on world
supplies in 1959, and from then on prices fell to such an extent that
3 This section on the world cocoa market draws mainly on F.A.O. 1962a,
1958-63, 1961a, 1962b, 1963a, 1963d.
Trade Prospects for the Rural Sector 85
producers began to fear the development of a market glut. This led
to an unsuccessful attempt in 1962-3 to conclude an international
agreement which would stabilize prices and provide producers
with a reasonable rate of return. In 1962 the price level flattened out.
It showed a tendency to rise a little in 1963 and it remained rela­
tively stable in 1964, but in the first six months of 1965 it plunged
dramatically to its lowest since 1946, due to a record world harvest
in 1964-5.
Data on planting statistics in producing countries are too scarce
to permit accurate predictions of future supplies. Indications early
in the 1960s led to expectations that increases in production would
continue towards 1970 (F.A.O. 1962a, 1961a). The experience of
the 1964-5 crop has now made it clear that production capacity has
exceeded these early forecasts. Whether supply will continue at or
near the record 1964-5 level will depend largely on climate and on
the short-term reactions of producers to the severe fall in the price
level.
Projections of demand, based on assumption concerning popu­
lation and income levels, suggest that there will be a gradual
growth towards 1970. Reactions to the sudden fall in price in 1964-5
will undoubtedly raise consumption further and can be expected
to bring about a partial restoration of the price level towards pre-
1964-5 levels. It seems likely, however, that, barring future climatic
hazards, the price level will remain considerably below the 1963-4
level. At worst, a continuing fast growth of supplies could result
in very depressed prices, together with an accumulation of stocks,
for many years to come.
Two other factors could influence the picture. One is competition
from substitutes, and the other is the future level of import demand
in the Soviet bloc.
The cocoa bean is usually broken down into two parts during
processing. One is cocoa powder, a flavouring agent, the other is
cocoa butter, the fat content of the bean. High prices in the fifties
encouraged research into cheaper fat substitutes, and results have
been at least partially successful. In some uses there has been
complete replacement of cocoa butter and in others a mixture is now
used. Although substitutes have not yet substantially reduced the
market for cocoa butter, there are signs that the demand is becoming
more price sensitive. However, a continuation of the recent price
level for cocoa will reduce the danger of this encroachment in the
market.
Soviet-bloc imports of cocoa are small at present but have been
rising in recent years. The scope for further increases is consider­
able, since per capita consumption is still low—it is only one-quarter
of the level in north-west Europe. Policy decisions to increase
imports substantially could be important in strengthening the
market; particularly now that prices are so low.
86 New Guinea on the Threshold
Prospects for Papua-New Guinea. Cocoa production in the Terri­
tory is in a highly expansionary phase. The total area planted has
risen from 7,000 acres in 1950-1 to well over 120,000 acres in 1962-3.
Plantations have been primarily responsible for this progress
(106,000 acres in 1962-3), but smallholders are also making an
important and rising contribution with 23,000 acres in 1961-2
(T.P.N.G. 1963e). In terms of output, acreages in bearing yielded
about 14,000 tons in 1962-3, of which 3,400 tons were produced by
smallholders. Export earnings from this crop totalled nearly £3
million, 16 per cent of total earnings for the Territory.
Mainly as a result of past plantings, this fast pace of growth
seems likely to continue at least up till 1970, providing problems of
climate, pests, and disease do not seriously intervene.4 Only one-
half the total estate area of cocoa is in bearing; in addition,
increasing yields are likely as trees in bearing reach their productive
capacity. Probably no more than one-third of the trees have actually
reached their potential.
Lack of data on the age distribution of trees precludes an
accurate projection of future production, but one estimate (by the
Department of Agriculture, Stock and Fisheries) predicts an annual
increase in output of about 4,000 tons for some years to come. This
rate of increase would bring production to 34,000 tons by 1967-8.
At £150 per ton, this could add £0-6 million per year to export
proceeds, and by 1967-8 total cocoa earnings could be £5 million.
Papua-New Guinea would then be among the leading small pro­
ducers in the trade.
From a longer-run point of view it is questionable now whether
this present rate of expansion can be sustained. As we have seen,
world price levels were not unfavourable up to 1964 but the recent
price collapse and its supply implications will introduce a new
element of uncertainty and may discourage new plantings.
The Territory has been in a somewhat advantageous position
within the market because of the type of cocoa it produces. There
are three main varieties in commercial production. One is the
‘forastero’ type, which makes up the bulk grades and a majority of
the world trade. The second is the ‘criollo’ variety, with a lower
yield but a finer quality, used in blends with bulk grades in choco­
late manufacture. The third is a hybrid of the first two, the ‘trini-
tario’ variety, which produces the so-called ‘flavour cocoa. Most
of the Territory’s production is of the last kind. In the world market
it is only the bulk grades which are in heavy supply; the production
of flavour cocoa has been more or less steady. The insulation which
it receives, however, only operates for a comparatively narrow price
range. Major market fluctuations such as the 1964-5 supply surplus
and price fall are felt by all cocoa producers.
4 Some losses are being experienced from the disease ‘die-back’, which, if it
spreads, could check the rate of expansion.
Trade Prospects for the Rural Sector 87
C offee
The world cocoa and coffee markets have displayed similar move­
ments since World War II, though for coffee they have been some­
what more exaggerated.5 After the war, demand recovered while
supply showed little change and consequently prices soared. The
prospect of high profits led to new plantings of high-yielding
varieties particularly in Brazil and Africa but, because of the time-
lag before the trees began bearing, they had little effect on world
supplies until the late 1950s. From 1957 onwards prices began to
fall rapidly, until in 1963 they were lower than at any time since
1949.
Prices would have fallen further but for the success of a series of
annual agreements between exporters to limit the flow of coffee on to
the market. However, the agreements inevitably led to the accumu­
lation of stocks and by 1960 these had reached a level equivalent to
more than total world demand for a year. The agreements were
therefore only stop-gap measures and in no way solved the basic
dilemma of excess productive capacity among producers. One
calculation (F.A.O. 1961b) showed that over the period 1959-60 to
1961-2 world coffee production had already passed all projections
of consumption for 1970 and further price falls could not hope to
stimulate demand sufficiently to bridge the gap.
The situation drove producers to find ways of correcting the
imbalance. In 1962 the producing and consuming countries drew
up an International Coffee Agreement (U.N. 1963), which was
designed to restrict the amount of coffee coming on to the market
by means of export quotas in much the same way as annual producer
agreements had done. Producers had the additional responsibility
of bringing production into line with these quotas, for example
through tree eradication and agricultural diversification. Ways and
means of expanding world consumption were also to be investi­
gated. In May 1965 the U.S.A. finally passed the legislation which
would authorize her membership in the Agreement. Previously
there had been co-operation among the rest of the signatories which
helped to stabilize the market. U.S. participation can be expected
to add a further stabilizing influence.
Prospects for Papua-New Guinea. This essentially is the situation
which has brought the growth of a promising infant industry in the
Territory almost to a halt. As in other producing countries, the
high coffee prices in the early fifties stimulated plantings, mainly
of Arabica coffee in the Highlands, both on an estate and on a
smallholder basis. Coffee has in fact become the most important
money-earner for the indigenous Highland population. From a
5 Material used in this section is derived from F.A.O. 1952- , 1961b, 1962a,
1963a, U.N. 1963, and Wickizer 1964.
88 New Guinea on the Threshold
beginning around 1950, post-war planting rose to over 10,000 acres
by June 1963. Production followed a four to five year time-lag
while trees matured, and by 1962-3 it had reached 5,000 tons,
worth £2 million in export income, or about 11 per cent of total
export income. Indigenous smallholders contributed almost half of
the output.
Once again statistics are inadequate to allow production fore­
casts of any great reliability, but it is clear that there will be a
considerable expansion in coffee production in the next few years
because of the earlier plantings. Immature trees comprise 40 per
cent of estate plantings and a large proportion in bearing have not
yet reached their full productive capacity. The Department of
Agriculture, Stock and Fisheries estimates that production could
reach 11,500 tons by 1967-8. Further increases will probably be
registered beyond this point, but aside from these effects of past
plantings the future for the industry appears rather gloomy at
present.
Under the International Coffee Agreement Papua-New Guinea is
classed with Australia; as long as the two combined remain a net
importer, no export quota is applied. By 1967-8 production will
have probably closed the gap and will make the two combined a
net exporter. It will then become necessary to apply for a quota and,
if there is no great improvement in the world supply-demand
balance, it may be difficult for the Territory to obtain a substantial
allocation. Meanwhile the prospect of becoming a net exporter has
necessitated a policy of discouragement of further plantings, in
accordance with the Agreement. The Administration has ceased to
encourage smallholder plantings in the Highlands and no further
areas of land are being released to planters for coffee growing.
Barring a radical change in the market outlook, the only likely
long-term growth will be a slow expansion on the coastal lowlands
of Robusta coffee production for the Australian market.
Before writing off this industry it is worth noting that the most
recent events in world production suggest that some reassessment
of the market situation may be needed. The world-wide production
increases expected for the sixties as a result of planting in the fifties
have not yet materialized. Furthermore, trees in Brazil have
suffered severe damage recently from frost, drought, and fire.
Production in Brazil was greatly reduced in 1963 and 1964 and
may continue below her annual export quota for a few years yet.
The country will be forced to use a considerable proportion of her
stocks to make up the deficit in her annual quota. Large numbers
of trees will apparently not recover at all, and this, together with
the programme of tree eradication and agricultural diversification,
will contribute substantially towards restoring balance in the inter­
national market.
Trade Prospects for the Ruml Sector 89
R ubber
Rubber is the fifth most important export industry in Papua-New
Guinea. Production comes almost exclusively from a small number
of estates. Since World War II these estates have shown a moderate
rate of expansion, raising production from 1,290 tons in 1955-6 to
4,760 tons in 1962-3. Much of the effect of increased plantings is
yet to be felt, as about 30 per cent of all trees were immature in
1962-3. According to the Department of Agriculture, Stock and
Fisheries, production is expected to reach 11,000 tons by 1967-8.
Indigenous producers have some stands of immature trees and a
small area of trees in bearing which yielded 20 tons of rubber in
1962-3. The Administration plans to encourage greater smallholder
participation in the industry in the future.
Territory rubber has the advantages of an assured market and
preferential tariff treatment in Australia. All production is given
duty-free access, while imports from other sources are subject to a
duty of 2d. per lb., waived only when all Territory rubber has been
absorbed (Australia 1957 and 1963b).
There appears to be no shortage of land suitable for rubber in
Papua-New Guinea. The key factors for exploitation are the market
outlook and the competitive abilities of Territory producers.
The total rubber market6 (including the market for synthetic
rubber) should continue to expand in the non-Soviet section, mainly
because of increased demand in the industrial countries of North
America, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the European Economic
Community. The pace of increasing demand will be governed by
the rate of increase in national incomes, increases in motorization,
and the relative demands for new and replacement tyres.
The outlook for natural rubber within the total market is not
particularly promising, due mainly to the increasing competition
from synthetics. The main competitor at present is SBR. It is not a
perfect substitute for natural rubber but it has cut deeply into its
market. It is estimated that, in the U.S.A., SBR is preferred for 40
per cent of the total rubber market, natural rubber in 25 per cent,
while in 35 per cent of the market the choice is governed primarily
by the relative prices of the two types.
Competition with synthetics does not end here. New and more
perfect substitutes, the ‘stereo-regular’ rubbers, give promise of a
serious threat to natural rubber. Unit costs are still high and pro­
duction is still relatively low, but progress towards lower and more
competitive prices could be made within a few years. If this occurs
the demand for natural rubber will become much more price
elastic.
The future strength of demand for natural rubber will also
6 This survey of the rubber market draws mainly on the following sources:
the International Rubber Study Group, 1947- , 1962; F.A.O. 1962a, 1963a, and
Corden 1963.
90 New Guinea on the Threshold
depend on quantities imported by Soviet-bloc countries and main­
land China. The intention of the Soviet government, the biggest
importer of the group, is to replace imports completely with home-
produced synthetics, but up to 1964 the programme has not
proceeded far towards this goal. The volume of imports for these
countries as a group rose to a peak of over half a million tons in
1961, due largely to the record level of imports by the U.S.S.R. The
latter’s imports have since fallen but were still at a high level in
1964. Other countries in the group have imported more since 1961
and have collectively almost counterbalanced the reduction in
U.S.S.R. imports. This suggests that even if the U.S.S.R. does
successfully implement her import replacement programme, the
group as a whole might continue to be a strengthening influence in
the market.
The supply of natural rubber is expected to increase in the short
term, though it is difficult to estimate by how much. Extensive
replanting with high-yielding material is likely to substantially raise
Malayan production. The prospects are obscure in Indonesia, but if
increases do occur they seem unlikely to be on any important scale.
Small increases are expected in other Asian countries and in Africa.
One supply factor which cannot be ignored is the huge U.S.
stockpile of one million tons (March 1962), of which only 13 per
cent is now considered to be essential. The U.S. government has
endeavoured to minimize the depressing effects of disposals of
stocks by setting a minimum price below which undeteriorated
stock cannot be sold. It is, however, permissible to sell deteriorating
stocks or those in danger of deterioration at prices below this mini­
mum level, and recently supplementary arrangements have been
announced which allow further disposals under foreign aid and
defence programmes. Sizeable reductions in these stocks will cert­
ainly have a depressing effect on prices.
To sum up prospects for 1970 in more quantitative fashion (see
Corden 1963), non-Soviet demand for rubber might be around 5-3
million tons. If the share of the world market held by natural rubber
is reduced slightly and no important change in the relative prices
of natural and SBR occurs, the demand for natural and stereo­
regulars could be about 2-3 million tons. If sales of stereo-regulars
are around 0 •3 million tons and the demand in the Soviet bloc and
mainland China is a conservative 0 •2 million tons, the consumption
of natural rubber may be about 2-2 million tons. Since production
is expected to be about 2-7 million tons, a surplus of 0-5 million
tons could occur, arising partly from a reduction in demand from
the Soviet bloc and partly from the intrusion of stereo-regulars. If
this situation develops, the price of natural rubber could fall, to
bring the market into balance. If on the other hand there is no
diminution of demand from Communist countries, such a fall may
be averted.
Trade Prospects for the Rural Sector 91
Despite the possibility of declining prices there are some reasons
for believing that rubber production can profitably expand further
in Papua-New Guinea. Physical conditions appear to be most suit­
able, and weed control is, apparently, not as great a problem as in
other major producing countries. Furthermore, growers have access
to an increasing supply of high-yielding plant material.
O ther crops
Two other categories of crops deserve some mention in relation to
future prospects. One includes those crops which at present make a
minor contribution to the output of the sector, namely peanuts,
passionfruit, tobacco, and various truck crops. The other comprises
those which appear to have worthwhile potential but which are not
yet grown on a commercial scale, such as tea, pyrethrum, and sugar.
Peanuts. Peanut exports from the Territory have been stable for
some years at around 2,000 tons per annum. This production comes
almost exclusively from a small number of European farmers; native
farmers produce a quantity for their own use and have, in the nast,
made a small contribution to exports, but they have generally ueen
discouraged from producing for the market by low and fluctuating
prices.
Owing to difficulties in competing with low cost suppliers in
other markets, all exports have been sold in Australia, where they
enjoy duty-free access (Australia 1963a). The 2,000 tons do not
appear to have appreciably depressed the Australian market; how­
ever, any significant increase could substantially reduce prices.
Such expansion seems rather unlikely, since at prevailing prices the
profit margin is apparently low.
Passionfruit. This is grown as a sideline cash crop by indigenous
Highland farmers. From 1957-8 to 1961-2 output averaged nearly
40,000 gallons per annum of juice equivalent. This has been wholly
absorbed by Australia, where up to 60,000 gallons are now permitted
duty-free access (Australia 1964). The Australian market is quite
small (100,000 gallons of juice equivalent in 1961-2), and the duty­
free quota for Papua-New Guinea is probably a fair indication of
the volume which can be absorbed at this stage without causing
sharp downward movements in price. For any substantial expansion
in production, the Territory would probably have to locate new
markets.
Limitations on expansion are probably more important on the
production side. The crop is at present harvested from vines dis­
persed through forest country, and although production could be
gradually expanded in this manner any substantial development of
the industry would require more intensive cultural methods. For
this to occur, problems of pest and disease build-up will first have
92 New Guinea on the Threshold
to be overcome. In the short run it is unlikely that production in
the Territory will exceed the present duty-free quota of 60,000
gallons.
Truck crops. A steady, if undramatic, expansion is likely in the
production of truck crops for sale within the Territory. In 1960-1
these were valued at a little more than £800,000 (derived from
White 1964). Production mainly meets the needs of the urban
indigenous population. Further urban growth, together with some
development of agricultural specialization, can be expected to
expand demand in the future. It should be noted that the expansion
of sales will mainly signify a greater inclusion of production in the
monetary sector rather than an increase in total output. There
appear to be no immediate prospects for the replacement of the
large annual imports of fresh fruit and vegetables for European
consumers.
Tobacco. A policy of import replacement in tobacco production
is being pursued by the Administration. At present only a small
prc jrtion of demand is being met locally, but as a first step
towards self-sufficiency the manufacture of cigarettes has com­
menced in the Territory. Expanded leaf production is also planned,
to meet internal needs. If successful the import bill for tobacco
will be gradually reduced.
Tea. The most promising new agricultural crop for the Territory
is tea. A rapid expansion of the tea industry is planned following
the successful establishment of a pilot tea plantation by the Admini­
stration (Graham et al. 1963). This experiment indicated that high
yields could be obtained under Territory conditions; it showed that
a high quality product was possible and that New Guinea labour
could quickly learn the arts of efficient plucking. Investigations
have also shown that large areas in the Highlands are suitable for
tea production. It is likely that, under Highland conditions, bushes
will come into bearing a year earlier than in other major producing
areas in the world, and, furthermore, that the even distribution of
rainfall over large areas of the Highlands will result in a year-round
harvest, affording some cost advantages in the use of factory
facilities.
The world market is in reasonable balance at present and pros­
pects are sound.7 Production increases are expected in some
countries, notably in India, and to a lesser extent in Japan, Pakistan,
Africa, Latin America, and Taiwan. Economic difficulties in Indo­
nesia and policy in China and the Soviet bloc make their respective
influences hard to assess. Growth in demand may produce some
7 References used for this section include F.A.O. 1952- , vol. 11 (1962): 7-9,
1960, 1962a, 1963a.
Trade Prospects for the Rural Sector 93
changes in the market. Consumption will probably be slow growing
in high income countries, depending more on social habits and
changes in tastes than on income changes. A faster rate of growth
is expected in less developed countries producing tea and this will
probably absorb most of the increased output from these countries
and keep the market firm in the face of restricted expansion in
world import demand. Most output increase will occur in countries
producing plainer teas, and any weakening of the market will
probably affect mainly these types. The quality tea market,
which Papua-New Guinea intends to enter, should remain firm, or
may even improve.
The Administration envisages plantings of 20,000 acres within a
few years. If this proceeds as planned, tea will soon make a con­
siderable contribution to export earnings. Assuming a yield of
1,000 lb. of made tea per mature acre, and that 20,000 acres are
planted by 1970, when the acreage is in full production by 1977
output will be around 20 million lb. or almost 9,000 tons. At an
average price of 4s. 3d. per lb., this would earn the Territory just
over £4 million. If 60,000 acres were established in ten years time,
full production would bring export income to £12 million per annum.
Pyrethrum. Attempts are being made to establish a small pyreth-
mm industry in areas of the Highlands above 6,000 feet, as a means
of introducing a cash crop to people who have had little or no
opportunity up till now to produce for the market. The short-term
aim is to establish about 1,000 acres, sufficient for the operation of a
locally-sited processing factory. This could provide export income in
the vicinity of £50,000 within a few years. Longer-term prospects
depend partly on securing firm marketing arrangements in the
closed world market for pyrethrum and partly on how the end-
product, pyrethrin, fares in competition with synthetic substitutes.
At present the competition from synthetics appears to be principally
limited by toxicity problems associated with the chemicals em­
ployed.
Sugar. Physical conditions are thought to be suitable for the
cultivation of sugar in Papua-New Guinea, though the programme
for the development of a sugar industry has not yet advanced
beyond the exploratory stages. Field trials are currently being
carried out to gauge the production potentialities of sugar for the
Territory. If these are successful it is likely that efforts will be made
to establish a small mill within a decade. One inhibiting factor has
been the small size of the internal market, which is still well below
the capacity of the smallest economic mill unit. However, a small
industry could be established if an export market could be found
for the supply in excess of home requirements, at least until internal
demand caught up with supply.
94 New Guinea on the Threshold
Timber. Sizeable additions to export income in the short term are
likely to come from expanding timber sales. In 1962-3 the total log
harvest was around 76 million super feet: about one-half was
absorbed by the local market, and the other half was exported.
Production has been marketed in the form of logs, sawn timber,
and as plywood and veneers. Exports in that year were valued at
£1-3 million, making timber the fourth-largest export earner in the
Territory. Over half the value of exports was obtained from plywood
sales, mostly to Australia. Logs and lumber each earned about
£300,000. In recent years export sales of plywood and sawn timber
have made no important gains, indeed there has been some decline
in the exports of plywood. The important feature has been the sharp
rise in exports of logs, principally to Japan. Between 1958-9 and
1962-3 the volume exported rose from less than one million to nearly
fifteen million super feet. The rise in value, to £319,000, counter­
balanced the decline in earnings from plywood.
The Territory has extensive forest resources of marketable value.
The Department of Forests (T.P.N.G. 1963d) has estimated total
forested land at roughly 90 million acres. About 36-6 million acres
are classified as accessible, of which about 20-30 million acres have
commercial promise. Most of the stands contain a proportion of
useful timber but there are few pure stands of any species (beyond
the small area of plantations being established). At present only a
little more than a million acres are being exploited. Until recently
the mixed nature of the timber stands discouraged their exploitation,
but Japanese millers have found uses for a wide variety of Territory
timbers, in plywoods, veneers, etc., and have adapted their equip­
ment to handle the mixed consignments. This technical ingenuity,
together with the rapid rate of expansion of the Japanese market,
has opened the way for fast exploitation in the Territory.
A five-year plan formulated by the Department of Forests
envisages that the log harvest will be increased from around 80
million super feet in 1962-3 to 180 million super feet by 1968-9.
Sawn timber production will show a moderate rise of 4 million super
feet. Plywood output may fall. The value of total output will be
doubled over the six years, reaching £6 million by 1968-9. Export
income from timber will increase, mainly through higher log
exports which may rise to a value of £2 million (an increase of £1-7
million over 1962-3), bringing total export income from timber to
about £3 million.
Livestock industries. The main efforts in livestock are centred on
the development of a beef cattle industry. The Administration also
encourages poultry and pig industries but these have not shown
much commercial growth so far. Experiments with sheep have met
with little success.
Trade Prospects for the Rural Sector 95
The initial objective for beef is self-sufficiency in the Territory
(Anderson 1963). Total consumption is the equivalent of about
35.000 carcases, of which imports supply around 33,000 (27,000
equivalent in canned meat imports and 6,000 in imported frozen
meat) and local production accounts for the rest. The local kill
represents a 10 per cent takeoff from total herd numbers of 30,000.
Present policy is to build up numbers to 50,000 head by 1966, which
would give an annual turnoff at present rates of killing of around
5.000 carcases. This increase of 2,000 carcases would mean a saving
in imports of £245,000,8 but would be only a small step towards
self-sufficiency. Long-term prospects seem bright in view of the
extensive areas of grasslands suitable for grazing and the lack of
serious diseases in the Territory.
Fisheries. Investigations of the fishing potential of Papua-New
Guinea have been proceeding for some years. For the long term,
possibilities seem promising (van der Meulen 1962; T.P.N.G. 1963a),
for example barramundi in the Gulf waters and crayfish, prawns,
and tuna east of Rabaul. More research is needed on possible and
known fishing grounds before production is undertaken on a com­
mercial scale, but it is hoped that eventually local waters will
supply the Territory’s needs and will contribute to export earnings.
The need for preliminary investigations means, however, that rapid
progress towards self-sufficiency in the near future is unlikely.

A ggregate short -ter m prospects

The next few years should witness a fast rate of expansion in

production in the rural sector. Most of this will contribute towards
higher exports, so that total value of exports could rise to £29
million by 1967-8, at an average increase of about £1-8 million per
annum (see Table 4.1).
Export income from coffee, timber, and rubber and possibly
cocoa should at least double in the period to 1967-8, the main
increase coming from the cocoa and coffee industries. By that year
cocoa and coffee will probably begin to challenge the coconut
industry as the leading export earner. Minor expansion can also be
expected in passionfruit and pyrethrum.
It is unlikely that expansion of production of commodities to
replace imports of rural origin will make much progress in this
period. Livestock output will rise gradually, but the rate of
expansion currently expected may do little other than cover the
rising internal demand. There are, on the other hand, longer-term
prospects for the replacement of imports of fish, meat, and dairy
products, of fruit and vegetables, tobacco and sugar.
8 Assuming a 500 lb. carcase dresses out at 350 lb. and sells at 7s. per lb.
96 New Guinea on the Threshold
Table 4.1 Territory of Papua and New Guinea
Projection of Export Income
196 2-3 19 6 7 -8 * I n cr e a se
C o m m o d ity over
% of % of 1 9 62-3
£m . T otal £m . T otal £m .

C o c o n u t products 7-38 41 7-89 29 0-51

C ocoa 3-00 17 5 -10 19 2-10
Coffee 201 11 5-15 19 3-14
Rubber 116 6 2-77 10 1 61
T im ber 1-34 7 2-70 10 1-36
O therf 3-25 18 3-38 13 0-13

T otal 18-14 100 26-99 100 11-37

*1962-3 price level is assumed for all products in 1967-8, except cocoa, for which
a considerably lower price of £A150 per ton is used. It is possible that the price
of rubber could fall by 1967-8. A 10 per cent reduction, for example, would lower
export income by £227,000 in that year.
f it is assumed that all sources of export income in this category other than passion-
fruit and pyrethrum remain at 1962-3 levels.

Between 1950-1 and 1962-3 imports almost trebled, with an

average annual growth of £1-5 million. In recent years the rate of
growth accelerated slightly (from 1957-8 to 1962-3 the annual
average was about £1-6 million). Export income, on the other
hand, has been increasing at the slower average rate of £0-8 million
per annum. The annual increase of £1-8 million per year projected
for exports over the next five years thus constitutes a shaq) acceler­
ation over this period. Nevertheless it may only just cover the
annual increase in imports if these continue to grow at current
rates, and will do little to bridge the large deficit in the balance of
trade.
W orld B ank M ission
One most important influence on the future economic development
of the Territory will be the effect of the recent World Bank Mission
(I.B.R.D. 1965).
The Mission sees the development of the rural sector as the chief
means of generating economic development. Within the sector, it
generally advocates an acceleration of present rates of development
and sets targets over the next ten years for most commodities. Set
against the pattern of development now evolving and now favoured
by the Administration, there are no changes in the range of com­
modities to be encouraged, but there are changes in the priorities
assigned to particular commodities. Among the major products, a
continued emphasis for the cocoa and the rubber industries is
advocated, but a significantly greater priority is given to expanding
Trade Prospects for the Rural Sector 97
the coconut, beef cattle, and timber industries. No targets are set for
coffee because of restrictions imposed by the International Coffee
Council.
The Bank envisages participation both by indigenous and Euro­
pean farmers in this programme. Overall, the greater part of the
increase is to come from the Europeans, particularly in the short
run, though there is some variation according to the commodity.
The Bank recommends that the expansion in timber should be
organized by attracting large-scale European commercial units.
The higher rubber output would be through further plantings by
estates, with a gradual expansion in smallholder activity. Half the
additional plantings of cocoa would be estate-grown over the ten-
year period, towards the end of which the rate of planting by
smallholders would build up to twice that of the estates. Estates
are to establish almost half the additional coconuts planned. The
planned expansion of the beef industry is to be based initially on
the multiplication of herds, mainly under the control of European
ranchers; distribution would eventually provide indigenous farmers
with a half-share in the industry in terms of stock numbers.
Some appreciation of the scale of the expansion envisaged can be
obtained from the planting programmes recommended for indi­
vidual products. The annual rate of cocoa plantings would be
quadrupled and coconut plantings almost doubled over the ten
years. The rate of establishment of estate rubber would be quad­
rupled and that of smallholder rubber gradually expanded. In
total, the average annual rate of rubber planting would be increased
to about six times the present level. Beef cattle numbers would be
enlarged ten times within ten years, with a higher annual rate of
takeoff. The Mission also advocates raising the current five-year plan
for the annual log cut in the timber industry by two-thirds, mainly
to expand the export sales of logs. There is also a modest plan to
develop the tea industry, along with more minor suggestions for
the pyrethrum and passionfruit industries, and there are recom­
mendations for research into other crops.
The programme would, if implemented, have relatively little
impact on production and income in the short term, that is to
1968-9. Most of the major suggestions are for crops which take four
or more years to come into bearing, so that augmented plantings
from 1964-5 would not affect production until 1968-9 and later. The
two exceptions, which could have an appreciable influence within
the next few years, are the suggestions for accelerating the annual
log cut in the timber industry and, to a lesser extent, the suggestions
for expanding beef cattle numbers and production. By the Bank’s
calculations, export income from the timber industry could rise to
£7 million per annum by 1968-9, roughly £4 million more than the
expansion expected without the Bank’s influence. There would also
98 New Guinea on the Threshold
be a total replacement of imports of fresh, chilled, and frozen beef
by that year.
The calculations in the preceding section showed that export
income might be expected to rise by about £1-8 million per year
over the five years from 1962-3 to 1967-8.9 The Bank’s recommend­
ations with our assumptions would add an average of about £600,000
annually to export income over this five-year period. Total export
income could therefore be £32-8 million by 1968-9, and the annual
addition to export income might be raised to around £2-5 million.10
Implementation of World Bank recommendations would mean
they would begin to exert their main influence in the seventies.
Assuming prices at 1962-3 levels, the achievement of production
targets for the four major crops and for tea would realize more
than £37 million in export income by 1973-4.11 The level of total
export income then depends on earnings from timber and upon
other minor sources of income. Even if timber exports remained at
the 1968-9 target level of £7 million per year and other categories
remained similarly unchanged at £3-4 million, the total would be
about £48 million. This would mean an increase of £12-5 million
over the five years, or about £2-5 million per annum. A continued
expansion of the timber industry and exports (and a higher propor­
tion of sawn timber in exports) could raise this further. In addition,
there would be a partial replacement of canned meat purchases by
1973-4.
In view of the wide margin of error possible in estimating the
effects of the Mission programme beyond 1973-4, only the most
general extrapolations should be made. On the basis of production
increases likely from planting programmes, and provided no radical
changes take place in the market situation for the products con-
9 It can be assumed that by 1968-9 export income will have risen by
approximately a further £2 million over 1967-8 to £31-5 million without
implementation of the World Bank’s recommendations.
10 One factor which could reduce this figure is a reduction in rubber prices,
which appears quite possible from world supply-demand projections. A 10 per
cent fall in rubber prices might reduce the 1968-9 total export income by
£300,000. The World Bank Mission assumed more conservative price levels
for most commodities: £60 per ton for copra, £197 for rubber. For cocoa, how­
ever, they assumed a price of £210 per ton, which in the light of 1965 prices
appears to be too optimistic. By their calculations, which also included some
differences in production of copra and rubber for 1968-9, total export income
in that year for the major agricultural crops and timber came to about £30
million. By including an estimate of £3-4 million for other categories, total
export income would amount to £33-2 million as against the £32-8 million
calculated above.
11 Using the price levels assumed by the Mission, which include a further
fall in the price of rubber by 1973-4, export income from the four main agri­
cultural crops and tea would be £33-8 million, and with similar assumptions
for timber and other income sources the total would amount to £44 million.
This would mean an average annual increase of £2-2 million over the second
five years.
Trade Prospects for the Rural Sector 99
cemed, the annual expansion of production and export income
would continue but possibly at a slower rate—that is expansion
might be £2 million per annum or less. In this later period (say up
to 1982-3), the annual figure for the increase would tend to be
raised by the production effects of planting programmes for coco­
nuts, rubber, and tea, but two factors would be working the other
way. One is the modest objective of the cocoa planting programme
suggested by the World Bank: the rate of planting would actually
be slower than the rate recorded in the late 1950s. Thus the annual
production increase resulting in the seventies would probably be
less than the 4,000 ton annual increase expected in the late sixties.
The other, more important, factor is the exclusion by the Bank of
coffee planting from recommendations for the sector. A relaxation
of planting restrictions on this crop would greatly assist in maintain­
ing the level of annual additions to export income. A further
expansion of timber exports would also have the same effect.
In summary, a substantial expansion in export income can be
expected up to 1968-9, whether the Bank’s recommendations are
successfully implemented or not. If they are, this expansion would
be accelerated to a limited degree during this period. The major
outcome, however, would be that the expansion would be extended
for at least five years beyond 1968-9, with roughly the same average
annual addition to export income in money terms. In other words,
a programme of production targets, on a scale such as the World
Bank has outlined, is essential for the rural sector if the progress
forecast for the last half of the sixties is to be sustained in the
seventies. In the light of these income consequences, the Mission’s
targets appear quite reasonable and modest.
The success of the Mission programme depends a great deal on
increased participation by Europeans. In recent years European
investment has been seriously affected by the uncertainty generated
by the approach of independence for the Territory. General pessim­
ism has led to a considerable movement of capital out of Papua-New
Guinea, reaching a peak in 1959-60. Can Europeans be enticed to
remain in the Territory and can new investors be attracted from
Australia? In the two to three years preceding 1965 there has been
some evidence of a resurgence in business confidence, aided by the
successful inauguration of the Legislative House of Assembly and
the assurances of continued support from the Australian government.
Several of the Mission’s recommendations may further assist in
this, for example the call for tax concessions, selective tariff
policies, a supply of credit on favourable terms, and, if necessary,
an investigation of schemes to insure or guarantee investment in
the Territory.
Assuming for the moment that capital is attracted for investment,
will this flow the way the Mission desires? Investors will tend to
favour opportunities with relatively short pay-off periods. For
100 New Guinea on the Threshold
example, investments in timber production might be preferred to
agricultural tree crops with lengthy periods between planting and
the commencement of yields. Among such crops, cocoa would be
preferred to coconuts since it has a shorter gestation period, except
where it is advantageous for the two crops to be interplanted.
Another factor is the current price levels and future prospects of
the commodities. Here it is questionable whether many investors
will be drawn to cocoa, rubber, or coconuts, as present and pros­
pective world prices are not encouraging. Of the three, rubber
might prove to be the more attractive. Conditions for production
are particularly suitable in the Territory; in addition, rubber pro­
ducers can take advantage of higher yielding planting material to
maintain profits in the face of falling prices. The same technological
opportunities do not seem to be available in the coconut industry.
Cocoa prices will have to show some recovery from 1965 levels
before many new investors are likely to show interest.
In view of the attractiveness of tea as a crop for Papua-New
Guinea it is also quite possible, provided the heavy capital require­
ments do not deter investors, that the rate of development will
exceed the rather conservative level indicated in the Mission
programme.
In summary there do appear to be grounds for suspecting that
investment may diverge from the pattern considered desirable by
the Mission, particularly for estates. Timber production might
receive its quota of capital: possibly rubber too since most of the
investment is expected to be made through extending plantings on
established plantations. Tea could well receive more than expected
and the coconut and cocoa industry somewhat less. The availability
of credit on reasonable terms to these industries may act as a
general stimulant to investment, but it would probably not alter
this pattern to any extent. The three most important factors retard­
ing the participation of indigenous producers are lack of motivation,
problems of land tenure, and limitations on the availability of
technical advice and education. The general approach favoured by
the Mission is to concentrate on the stimulation of village cash
cropping rather than on land settlement schemes, and it is in the
village that these three problems occur most prominently.
The degree to which indigenous producers would meet the
Mission’s targets of planting depends largely on how quickly and
successfully these impediments are overcome. The Mission also
suggests that the provision of credit could be a strong motivating
force in their development. While agreeing that this would fill a
need for the few most progressive indigenous entrepreneurs, this
writer would not agree that there is any notable urgency for a
credit supply amongst the great majority of cash croppers. This will
undoubtedly develop, but at present few of them actually purchase
inputs, which consist almost exclusively of family labour. The
Trade Prospects for the Rural Sector 101
development of a credit system in the near future would probably
anticipate, rather than serve or stimulate, the need of the majority
of indigenous smallholders.
The development of a desire for change and progress, producing
in its train a willingness for economic activity, comes largely from
the breakdown of village community isolation and from exposure to
new ways of life, for example with better communications, a better
transport system, and a greater familiarity with new goods via such
means as trade stores. The disincentive stemming from isolation
will not affect production of all crops equally. It is likely to be a
particularly strong impediment in the programme to encourage
indigenous coconut planting, since the coastal producers are spread
thinly along a narrow littoral some thousands of miles long and
have quite tenuous and infrequent contact with more advanced
ways of life. It is unlikely that any measures taken will cause a
substantial change in attitudes in as short a time as ten years, even
with technical assistance and better transport facilities more readily
available.
In some areas, generally the more advanced, the inappropriate­
ness of traditional land tenure systems for modem commercial
farming is already impeding the pace of indigenous smallholder
development, although where development is at an earlier stage
and where the land:population ratio is favourable, expansion
appears less obstructed by this system. It is not possible to estimate
the extent to which this problem would threaten the Mission’s
objectives at this stage, but it is true that the need for a change in
the tenure system will become increasingly common as the numbers
of smallholders and the scale of their enterprises increase.
The third most important factor in meeting the targets for
indigenous development is the provision of the necessary technical
information at the village level. The Mission’s programme calls for
a very considerable expansion in advisory personnel within the
Administration. The availability of the additional staff will be
crucial in determining whether production targets can be reached.
Allowing for normal losses, the total number of professionals and
sub-professionals is to be more than doubled, mostly within the next
six years. The annual rate of intake will have to be around eighty,
half of whom should be university' graduates and half diplomates.
At current rates of graduation in Australia, which will be the
major source, this requirement seems prohibitively high. The
Mission recognizes that shortage of skilled manpower will be the chief
limit on economic progress, but even so it may still be too optimistic
about Australia’s capacity to supply the expanded needs under the
proposed programme of rural development. Thus although the
production targets set by the Mission imply a fairly modest rate of
progress in the sector their achievement will tax to the limit the
supply of technical assistance which Australia can provide.
102 New Guinea on the Threshold
Although there may be room for argument over the methods of
development and the pattern of emphasis suggested by the Mission,
nonetheless its investigation has done a valuable service in rein­
forcing and elaborating the view that the sector has a bright
potential for economic development. Although the exceptionally
mountainous terrain of Papua-New Guinea limits the economic
exploitation of resources, there are nevertheless large areas capable
of development. The rugged topography is in one way an advantage,
in that it provides a variety of ecological conditions which in turn
allow useful diversification in the rural sector. The years since
World War II have witnessed the growth of five major rural
industries; the next decade or two should witness the development
of at least two more, as well as a number of minor industries. The
sector has the capacity to make Papua-New Guinea self-sufficient
for most of its rural requirements. It also has the physical and
economic capacity for extensive growth in production for export.
 5

The Demographic Situation

n o r m a M cAr t h u r

T he total indigenous population of Papua and New Guinea prob­

ably numbered about two millions in 1964, 95 per cent of whom had
been recorded by name in either a tax register or a village book, and
the remainder were the numbers thought to be living in areas difficult
of access where no listing of the people had yet been attempted.
Because of the practical difficulties involved in enumerating the
population in such a territory at a particular moment of time,
census-taking there is very different from an enumeration of Aus­
tralia’s population, and the method that has evolved requires
periodic ‘census patrols’ through the contiguous geographic areas
into which the Territory has been divided, when the inhabitants of
each village or cluster of hamlets in the path of the patrol are
asked to assemble on some specified day for the census. The patrol
carries with it the tax register (or village book in the few areas
where the people do not yet pay taxes) for each such group of
people, and when they are assembled the officer conducting the
patrol checks through the list of inhabitants, adding the names of
children bom since the previous patrol and anyone who may have
joined the group, and deleting the names of people who had died or
had gone elsewhere to five.
When this check is completed, the numbers of males and females,
births and deaths, and various other details are summarized, and
such totals for each ‘census unit’ are subsequently aggregated to
provide totals for the whole ‘census division’, and thence for the
sub-districts which are the basic administrative units. Not all census
divisions are patrolled at the same time, nor is any one census
division necessarily patrolled at the same time each year. Hence
the interval between successive censuses in a division may range
from a few months to nearly two years, and as the population
figures published in the annual reports for each Territory incorpor­
ate the results of the most recent census in each division, some of
these may relate to the population that was there nearly two (and
103
104 New Guinea on the Threshold
occasionally more) years previously. Given this and the proportion
of the total population that is estimated, it would be unwise to be
too precise about the number of inhabitants either within the whole
Territory or for any part of it.
These two sources of variability also make it difficult to assess the
rate at which the population is growing. The proportion of the total
that was estimated decreases each year as administrative control is
extended, and there are frequently changes in the boundaries
between census divisions and sub-districts which prevent the num­
bers of people recorded in the course of one year being compared
with those recorded some years later. In a detailed review of
censuses taken before and during the fiscal year 1953/4, (McArthur
1956:pt vii) it seemed that the counts for seven sub-districts were
probably fairly reliable, and those of a further six were less reliable
but probably satisfactory, whereas the population records for thirty-
five sub-districts were either quite unreliable or incomplete, and in
nine the population was either unknown or estimated. Only two of
the first group of sub-districts could be followed through to 1961/2,
although the boundary changes between a further three could be
eliminated by combining them into a single unit for each year from
1953/4 to 1961/2. Three of the sub-districts in the second category—
probably satisfactory—could also be followed through to 1961/2,
although one had a suspected excess of a hundred people in 1953/4
and not all census divisions were checked in 1960/1.
The average annual rates of growth exhibited by these sub­
districts ranged from 1 •5 per cent to 2 •7 per cent, and the average
for the five sub-districts where censuses taken during 1953/4 seemed
to be reliable was 2 per cent per year from then until 1961/2. In
the sub-districts where the 1953/4 counts were less reliable, the
average annual rates of increase to 1961/2 ranged from 1-5 to 1-8
per cent. More detailed and more accurate data from smaller groups
in both Australian New Guinea and the former Netherlands New
Guinea indicate that in some areas at least populations are increas­
ing more rapidly than this, and though some may be increasing
more slowly, it is unlikely that any are decreasing consistently. In
some years there may be more people dying than there are children
bom, but even in the population which suffers most from the
baffling and fatal disease known as kuru, more births than deaths
were recorded between June 1961 and January 1964, though for
one year of this period there was a net loss of females, but not of
males. In the total population of the Territory the increases or
decreases in individual areas each year will be smoothed out, but
until more is known about the rates at which more sectors of the
population are changing, any estimate of the average growth rate
for the whole population can only be an uninformed guess.
Nowhere in New Guinea is it particularly easy to compile
accurate and complete records of population, but in some areas it is
The Demographic Situation 105
more difficult than others. Much depends on the topography and
climate of the area, but even more important are the attitudes and
personalities of the people living there. Many patrols must be made
on foot because even where there are vehicular roads, the roads do
not pass through all villages in a census division. Where the
villages are large and either close to one another or separated by
relatively easy terrain, a census patrol may not be particularly
arduous; but if, as so often happens in mountainous areas, the
villages or hamlets are perched on hilltops and separated from their
neighbours by deep valleys, a census patrol can be strenuous. In
sparsely populated areas the patrol may walk for days to reach the
next village, only to find it deserted by all except the few too old
or too sick to join in the hunting or sago-making expeditions which
had begun before news of the patrol got through. A patrol officer
reporting on his travels through a newly contacted part of the
Western Highlands in the early 1950s complained bitterly that all
he saw of the native population during several weeks of patrolling
were their backs as they disappeared over the nearest ridge.
Still more exasperating to census patrols are people such as those
who inhabit part of the delta region near the mouth of the Fly
River on the western side of the Gulf of Papua. Their villages are
built on land—‘if land it may be called, composed [as it is] of
fluviatic mud’, one patrol officer wrote disgustedly—and the paths
through the villages are precarious board-walks built over the mud.
Travel between villages is by native canoes, some of which are very
fast, but seemingly these were seldom placed at the disposal of the
patrols. As one officer was paddled slowly by ‘fatalistic tribesmen’
towards a village, he saw the villagers themselves—commonly
accused of being lazy or inherently lethargic—paddling swiftly
away upstream (T.P.N.G. 1950/1). On another occasion, a census
patrol was sadly mis-timed and ‘the tides, when low, were really
low, and several times the canoes were left sitting on the mud
several hundred yards from some villages, and progress from then
on through almost knee-deep mud was, of necessity, slow’. During
this patrol, the officer also learned of the disconcerting habit of
these people not to make their village their ‘place of residence’, but
to visit friends in other villages in turn, returning to their own
village after an absence of several months only to act as hosts to
similarly nomadic friends. As a result, many were recorded in more
than one village book (T.P.N.G. 1951/2).
By now there are probably few areas where people are so reluct­
ant to meet the patrols, but there is still quite considerable move­
ment of population between villages, either for informal visits or
for special ceremonies or ceremonial exchanges, and migration away
from villages into nearby towns in search of paid employment.
Persons absent from their village at the time of a census are
designated as ‘absentees’, but are still included in the count of the
106 New Guinea on the Threshold
village population even though they may be away for years at a
time and their whereabouts not always known to the village head­
man. If they choose to marry and live in a town, they will probably
remain in the register for their home village, but unless they return
home it is unlikely that any children bom since their departure
from the village will be recorded anywhere because there are no
registers for towns comparable to the village lists. Nor would it be
practicable to try to institute them, and if the indigenous popu­
lations of urban areas are to be counted, different techniques of
census-taking are needed and the system for village populations
must be modified to avoid counting some people twice.
The numbers of villagers living in towns are not yet large enough
to affect the general pattern of distribution of population through­
out Papua-New Guinea (see Fig. 7 of Chapter 3). The most densely
populated regions are the three Highlands Districts, which contain
40 per cent of the population in one-eighth of the total land area.
The northern mountains between the Sepik River and the coast
contain some areas of high population density, as do the Finsch-
hafen peninsula and a narrow coastal strip along the eastern edge
of the Gulf of Papua. The vast area from the western shores of this
gulf through to the West Irian border and northward is very sparsely
populated; so too is much of the southern portion of the central
mountain range and the island of New Britain, though the north­
western tip of New Britain’s Gazelle Peninsula is the most densely
peopled area in the Territory.
High or low population densities based on the total land area of
census divisions do not mean much in a country as heterogeneous as
New Guinea, especially as the census divisions range in size from
one to more than nine thousand square miles, though almost half of
them are less than two hundred square miles in area. If the popula­
tions could be related to the cultivable land area of the census
divisions rather than the total, the range of densities might be
reduced, but much variability would remain. The amount of land
available for food cultivation is not the sole determinant of where
people live, nor will it necessarily affect the number of children
that will be born or the number of people who die. Ultimately
both of these depend on the sex and age composition of the
population, and, in the absence of migration, the size of a population
at any given time depends on the relative numbers of births and
deaths that have been occurring each year for many years past;
these in turn determine the extent of the changes likely to occur in
the future.
The number of children that can be bom in any year depends on
the number of women who are physiologically capable of bearing
them, and this capacity is limited to a span of thirty or thirty-five
years from about fifteen years of age. Once a child is bom it is
continually exposed to the risk of dying, but this risk is not uniform
The Demographic Situation 107
throughout life. High at or soon after birth, the risk diminishes
progressively as a child survives through each year of age to a
minimum somewhere between the ages of ten and fourteen years.
From then on, the risk increases gradually with each additional
year lived, and the older people become the greater the chances
of their dying. The number of deaths that will occur in a population
in a year thus depends on the number of people who have survived
from birth to each age, and if one-tenth of a population are at ages
where the mortality risk is high, there will be more deaths in a
year than there would be if the population contained fewer people
at those ages.
Accustomed though we are to the concept of chronological age,
it is quite alien to the majority of Papuans and New Guineans.
Only those who have had some education are aware of the con­
vention of measuring the passing of time by calendar years, and
only those whose parents were similarly educated would be likely
to know the date of their own birth. Hence the ages for most
adults and many children must still be estimated, either from their
physical appearance or by trying to associate their birth with an
event of some importance which occurred in some known year. For
most primitive populations whose history is unknown, this second
method is not particularly helpful, and when the village books
were compiled initially the patrol officers, complying with instruc­
tions to record sex and approximate year of birth for each individual,
relied chiefly on physical appearance.
As there are no absolute standards of how a person of a given
age should look, the years of birth recorded for people could only
be very rough approximations. More accurate estimates would have
required long and tedious questioning and cross-questioning, making
comparisons between individuals which are impossible unless both
questioner and respondent speak the same language. Some officers
declined to assess the years in which people then obviously adult
were bom, and recorded them simply as either ‘adult’ or ‘aged’.
The years of birth for children bom since the books were compiled
in the post-war years, and particularly those of recent years, are
probably reasonably accurate, provided no errors of transcription
occur when a dilapidated old book is replaced with a new one and
each family group stays in the village in which the post-war
children were bom. Should they move to another village to five,
the years of birth recorded for them in that village’s register may
differ from the originals.
So far little use has been made of these records of age, and
summaries of population by sex and years of birth are available
for only a few census divisions. Some of these relate to the popu­
lations of the Gazelle Peninsula as they were more than a decade
ago (McArthur 1956), and the more recent ones are of two groups
of people in the Eastern Highlands, both of which are abnormal
108 New Guinea on the Threshold
because of the prevalence among them of the fatal disease kuru
(McArthur 1964). The village books for these two groups were
compiled initially in 1958, and the dates of birth recorded showed
the patrol officer’s preference for such years of birth as 1918, 1928,
1938, 1948 and 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950. Because of the large numbers
assigned these years of birth, the numbers of people allegedly aged
5-9, 15-19, 25-29, etc. years in 1960 were very much smaller than
the numbers aged 10-14, 20-24, 30-34, and so on respectively,
whereas the usual distribution of a population by age is decreasing
numbers in each group as age increases. By laboriously distributing
the numbers with each recorded year of birth over the range of
ages within which the initial estimates might lie, more regular age
distributions were achieved for both populations, and arbitrary
though the procedure was, these probably represent the age
structure better than the original data. To use the data that have
accumulated for all other areas, similar adjustments would be
needed to eliminate the compiler’s preferences for certain ages or
years of birth.
Several anthropologists and medical officers have tried to discover
the age composition of the populations amongst whom they were
working. Some have been helped by mission records of baptisms,
though not all missions keep these and many of the pre-war records
were either lost or destroyed during the war years. More often the
ages have been estimated by comparative rankings of members of
the group, using genealogical data and recognized ‘age-mate’
groups who played together as children or shared some ceremonial
ritual. Most of the populations studied by such researchers are
necessarily small, and interesting though their demographic data
are against the background of their social organization and economic
activities, their very smallness is a handicap to any broader interpre­
tation.
As a simple illustration, let us imagine a village of fifty households
each of which contains one woman of reproductive age. If the
average interval between successive births is three and a half years,
fourteen babies on the average would be bom each year and
because the sex of each child is determined independently, one
would expect any number between four and ten of these babies to
be girls. In exceptional circumstances there may be fewer than four
or more than ten girls in a sample of this size, but as few as four
or as many as ten would be within the normal range of variation
when the chance of each child being a female is one in two. In a
period of five years one would expect the annual variations in the
numbers of each sex bom to even out, but they may not and it
could happen that at least forty-five of the seventy children bom
in the village over a five-year period were girls.
If three-quarters of these children survive to marriageable ages,
and both males and females marry at about the same age, there
The Demographic Situation 109
would then be only eighteen young men to become husbands to
thirty-four girls, and if the parents of the redundant females wished
their daughters to marry, marriages would have to be arranged with
men of other villages, the young women then going to live in their
husband’s village. This would leave only thirty-six people in this
particular five-year age group in our village instead of the fifty-two
that would be expected had equal numbers of males and females
been bom. If a census was taken of the village at this time, there
would probably be considerably more males and females in the
age groups on either side of the one that had been depleted by the
out-migration of the young brides.
Knowing nothing of this background, the census-taker might at
first sight suspect some error or bias in the estimates of age, for
example a tendency to exaggerate the ages of married people and
understate the ages of children so that few people were assigned
to the intermediate range of ages. If the age estimates appeared to
be reasonable on the basis of other evidence, what kind of events
may have caused this distortion? Was there perhaps an epidemic of
some infectious disease about the time when this small group was
very young which caused exceptionally high mortality among
infants and young children? Or were people of reproductive age
the chief victims of the infection, so that fewer babies were bom
in the years immediately after the epidemic? Had the villagers
perhaps suffered defeat and heavy casualties in a local war, which
left many young women widowed and therefore less likely to have
children for a few years?
The equal numbers of males and females in the age group in
question would lend support to hypotheses of this nature and no
doubt, on questioning, it would be found that the villagers had
experienced epidemics from time to time, and also that they had
engaged in periodic fighting. However, it would probably be
difficult if not impossible to construct a precise timetable of such
events because, unless one outbreak of disease was in some way
exceptional, few people would be able to distinguish between an
epidemic which had occurred twenty-five years previously and one
of the same disease five or even ten years later. Even if different
diseases were concerned, the accuracy of people’s recollection would
depend partly on their age at the time of the epidemics and partly
on the degree of personal suffering or deprivation, so that, with
each of several informants giving conflicting versions of the same
event, the hypothesis that the distortion in the age distribution was
due to, say, a war or an epidemic could not be confirmed or
rejected.
If the matter were left there, as it might well be if the investigator
was in the village for only a short time or had become discouraged
by the apparent fruitlessness of such lines of inquiry, the real cause
might never be discovered. The genealogies collected by an
110 New Guinea on the Threshold
anthropologist would contain the relevant information, but the
association between population structure and marriage outside the
village might not be immediately apparent, especially if only one
or two young women had gone to each of several villages and the
ages of some of them either could not be, or had not been, esti­
mated. Without genealogies, the only other data likely to provide a
clue would be complete histories of each woman’s pregnancies, and
again the relevance of the absent daughters to the current popu­
lation structure would be detected only if their estimated or assigned
ages were reasonably accurate.
If the peculiar age distribution was eventually discovered to be
the result of chance fluctuations in the sex of births, and not the
aftermath of war or epidemics, no one would be tempted to infer
that this one village was ‘typical’ or ‘representative’ of other villages
in the area. Had fighting or disease been responsible, some of the
surrounding villages might have been similarly affected, but before
assuming typicality or representativeness it would be wise to
collect comparable data from other villages in the immediate
vicinity. Extension of this principle leads inevitably to the folly of
assuming, without checking, that one can generalize from just one
village, however its population may be distributed with respect to
sex and age. The corollary to this is that if the other villages are
checked appropriately, it is no longer necessary to rely on just one
small population to unravel the demographic situation within some
defined area.
The extension to more villages introduces a scale of operation
beyond the resources of a lone anthropologist or even a small
research team, especially when, to achieve the best results, the
villages should be selected by some impartial and statistically valid
sampling procedure. The method of selecting the villages, whether
the choice is from all villages within an area or whether some
areas are chosen and all villages within each are then canvassed,
depends on the objectives of the survey and the personnel and
financial resources available. If the operation was to be limited to
a relatively small area, such as one census division or perhaps two
or three adjacent divisions, it would be feasible to select villages
within the area which would then be the ‘sample villages’ whose
populations were to be recorded and studied. If information con­
cerning the population inhabiting a much larger area were required,
it might be more practical to select ‘sample census divisions’ from
within that area and record the details required about the popu­
lations of all villages within these census divisions.
If a sample census of the whole territory was contemplated, the
second scheme would have several advantages. Fewer investigators
would be needed to cover some pre-determined proportion of the
total population if the time spent in travelling between villages was
kept as short as possible; and, perhaps more importantly, the quality
The Demographic Situation Ill
of the data recorded would probably be higher if an investigator
were dealing continually with one relatively homogeneous cultural
group, about whom he could be reasonably well briefed in advance,
than if he were assigned to several villages, each of which had a
distinctive cultural pattern. In addition, the effects of inter-village
migrations, especially those of a temporary nature, would be
minimized by an ‘area sample’; and it would be administratively
simpler to enlarge a sample of census divisions over a period of
years, to cover the whole territory eventually, rather than to expand
gradually a sample of widely scattered villages.
Except that its initial areas were not selected on any statistical
basis, a project such as this was started in the former Netherlands
New Guinea, and preliminary reports on six areas have now been
released (Groenewegen and Van de Kaa 1962-4). Two of the areas
censused are the Schouten Islands and Noemfoor in Geelvink Bay;
there are three widely separated coastal areas which also include
some if not all of the relevant hinterlands, and the sixth is an area
in the southern foothills of the central mountain range close to the
border with Papua. The total indigenous population included in
the censuses of these areas is more than 70,000, but nearly half of
this number was contributed by just one area—the Schouten Islands
—and the sum of the six populations is therefore no more likely to be
a representative sample of the indigenous population of West Irian
around 1960 and 1961 than are the various samples collected by
individuals in Papua-New Guinea. On the other hand, each sample
is relatively large—none comprised fewer than 5,000 people and the
four areas on the mainland each contained 8,000 or 9,000—and
diverse geographic and climatic conditions are represented, so
that the data indicate the range of values for some demographic
indices that might also be expected on the other side of the border.
The people of the truly inland area were the only ones with less
than 43 per cent of their total number aged less than fifteen years,
and they also had the lowest crude birth rate and the smallest
average numbers of children bom per woman at each age. The
crude birth rates ranged from 38 to 53 births per 1,000 population
per year, but most were within the range of 45 to 50 births annually
per 1,000 population. In four of the six areas the women who had
survived to ages 40-44 years had borne an average of more than
six children, but in two of these areas as many as one-quarter of
the children had died within their first year of life; elsewhere the
infant mortality rate was one-fifth or one-sixth of all children bom.
The two regions where the women nearing the end of their repro­
ductive life had had the fewest children on the average also seem
to have experienced the lowest infant mortality rates in former
years. Strangely enough, malaria is hyperendemic in one and the
other is not highly malarial. These were also the only areas where
the infant mortality rate has not declined markedly in recent years.
112 New Guinea on the Threshold
and the proportions of survivors to age one year amongst the
offspring of women aged approximately 20-24 years in all areas was
within the fairly narrow range of 0 •80 to 0 •90.
The subsequent fate of children who attained their first birthday
is not disclosed in these preliminary reports, and the Schouten
Islands was the only area for which there were records of the
deaths that had occurred during some specified period. These
indicated a crude death rate of about 14 per 1,000 population in a
year, and as the birth rate there was estimated at about 53 per 1,000
annually, the population of the islands was increasing at about 4
per cent per year. If the crude death rate in each population is
proportional to its infant mortality rate, then two of the populations
are currently increasing at rates of about I /2 per cent a year, two
others at about 2/2 per cent per year, and the other island population
at about 3 per cent.
Though this simple relationship between mortality in the first
year of life and mortality at all ages may not be valid, it does seem
to hold for some populations with similar age structures, especially
those where deaths in infancy and early childhood contribute very
largely to the total mortality. But until the appropriate data are
available for populations such as these, any more elaborate assump­
tions would only convey a spurious accuracy to growth rates which
are probably ephemeral, partly because of the age structure of the
populations, partly because the health measures which were being
or had been instituted in these areas may affect the incidence of
disease and, in turn, the levels of both mortality and fertility. If
mortality falls and the birth rate remains unchanged, growth will
be accelerated, and in some areas at least the present age structure
of the populations is such that current birth rates are likely to
be maintained. The limit to the acceleration of growth is immort­
ality, but the higher the initial level of mortality the faster it is
likely to fall, and the more people who survive through the repro­
ductive period the more babies will be bom. Because improved
health may increase the chances of conception and reduce the likeli­
hood of early foetal deaths, the birth rates may even rise and so
enhance the difference between them and the falling death rates.
Both the timing and the magnitude of changes such as these in
any part of the mainland or islands of New Guinea are totally
unpredictable. The only certainty is that neither will be uniform,
nor even particularly regular. Though little is known of the contri­
bution of specific diseases to the total mortality pattern, their
relative incidence will no doubt be found to vary from one locality
to another, even from one year to another, and the extent to which
they can be controlled will likewise be variable. The principal
causes of death listed in the Annual Reports for 1961-2 were
pneumonia, tuberculosis, dysentery, gastro-enteritis, and malaria;
but the cause of death can be ascertained for only veiy few among
The Demographic Situation 113
all who die in the course of a year. The native diagnoses recorded
by some census patrols are colourful, but seldom specific or particu­
larly informative as to cause rather than symptoms. Even in years
when some particular disease assumes epidemic proportions, its
incidence throughout the Territory is likely to vary: some sectors
of the population may escape infection entirely, others may be
protected by the immunity conferred by an earlier attack so that
only people born since then may succumb, others may be so remote
from the initial source of infection that the infective agent has lost
some of its pathogenicity by the time it reaches them. The possible
sources of variability are endless, and the only safe assumption to
make about the future course of mortality is that it will either remain
much the same as now or decline.
Given this and the not dissimilar assumption that the birth rate
will not change much within a decade, Papua-New Guinea’s popu­
lation ten years hence is likely to be between two and three millions,
though the latter figure is unlikely unless the present population
exceeds two millions. Between 40 and 45 per cent of the total will
probably be aged less than fifteen years, and as about three-fifths
of these would be children of school age, between one-half and
three-quarters of a million children may be seeking primary edu­
cation. There could be the same numbers of adult males in what in
other communities are described as the ‘economically active’ age
groups, approximately one-fifth of whom would be aged between
forty-five and sixty years and consequently unlikely to be seeking
employment outside their villages, though they may well be
economically active there.
There is little point in elaborating these figures: a margin of 50
per cent between the lower and upper estimates makes nonsense of
attempts to translate them into practical terms such as the numbers
of schools and schoolteachers that will be required under varying
assumptions about the proportions of the school-age population
who should be receiving primary education. On the other hand,
expanding the existing staff and facilities by only 50 per cent over
the next decade may do no more than maintain the fraction of the
population of school age which is now attending schools. If this
fraction is to be raised from less than one-third to about one-half
over the decade, expansion of the order of at least 100 per cent
should be planned.
The only statistics currently compiled for the indigenous labour
force relate to persons in wage employment, and their source is the
annual return each employer makes to the Department of Labour
(Labour and National Service 1964). In March 1963, 75,000 males
were receiving wages and 56,000 of these were employed by private
enterprise. The number employed by the Administration had
increased by 4,000 over the previous year’s total, but the net increase
in all kinds of employment was only 2,500. These wage-earners
114 New Guinea on the Threshold
would constitute perhaps one-seventh of the total labour force, and
as more than half of them were employed in some form of agri­
culture (one-third in the production of copra and cocoa), the
numbers engaged in all other kinds of employment would amount to
perhaps one-twelfth or less of the available work force.
No matter what (within reason) happens to this non-agricultural
sector over the next decade, by far the greater part of the prospect­
ive increase in the work force must be absorbed by agriculture,
and the ease with which this can or cannot be done is an inherently
local problem. If the structures of the populations inhabiting the
different regions are as variable as the sparse data concerning them
suggest, the work force component of each will increase in a highly
individual fashion. The net gain to the work force over a ten-year
period depends primarily on the number of children aged five to
fourteen years at the start of the period; and if the initial age
structure of the population is as distorted as those of two Tolai
settlements in 1960 (Epstein 1962), the work force after ten years
could be 55 per cent larger than at the start, whereas the growth
during the preceding five years would have barely exceeded 10
per cent. Only by having more adequate and more reliable statistics
of the populations can contingencies such as this be foreseen;
developmental programmes planned without reference to such vital
facts are likely to benefit neither the supposed beneficiaries nor the
planners.
 I ll

Social Problems
 6

Education and its Problems

o . H. K. S P A T E

T he experience on which this paper is based was mainly obtained

as a member of the Commission on Higher Education in Papua and
New Guinea (1963-4). It seems proper to state that the views here
expressed are not necessarily those of the Commission collectively
or of any other member of it, although there is no substantial
divergence between the Report of the Commission and the con­
clusions put forward here.
T he mission contribution
The three great factors in the Western impact on indigenous society
—administrative, economic, and religious—are virtually of an age;
in both Papua and New Guinea the first permanent missions and
trading stations were established in the 1870s, about a decade before
the first administrations. Apart from earlier abortive ventures, the
London Missionary Society began work at Port Moresby in 1874,
the Methodists in the Duke of York Islands in 1875; on the New
Guinea mainland, German Lutherans were active around Finsch-
hafen from 1886. Somewhat later, permanent Roman Catholic
missions were founded in Papua under the auspices of the Sacred
Heart of Jesus and in New Guinea under the Society of the Divine
Word; these orders drew their workers mainly from France and
Germany respectively. German expansion was of course stopped
by World War I, after which American societies took over previously
German missions, although some of the pioneers stayed on. After
World War II there was a striking increase in missions run by
newer groups, most notably perhaps the Seventh Day Adventists.
The very interesting details of mission history and organization,
and of inter-denominational relations, cannot be considered here.
On the whole, relations between the older and better-established
missions have been reasonably harmonious; and, having themselves
learnt much in over 150 years of work in the Pacific, they have
usually been more cautious in their approach to tribal custom than
the more aggressive newer sects. Even so, their impact on indigenous
117
118 New Guinea on the Threshold
ways of life has been very far-reaching, both in quantity and
quality. In 1963 just about half the population—1,206,000 souls—
were ranked as Christians; of these about 483,500 were Roman
Catholics and 317,000 (nearly all on the New Guinea side) Luther­
ans. Making all allowance for the obviously great variations in the
degree of informed belief, these are impressive figures.
The qualitative effect of the mission effort has been profound:
so far as any one world-view has replaced the congeries of tribally-
fragmented sets of beliefs, it has been predominantly a Christian
one. Undoubtedly the real beliefs of many nominally Christian
indigenes are shot through with animistic survivals; practices such
as sorcery are not confined to those who remain pagan; and the role
of misunderstandings of the Old Testament and the Apocalypse in
the rise of millenarian movements and cargo cults is painfully
obvious (Worsley 1957). Yet it would be callously imperceptive to
deny that sometimes, and perhaps often, the re-integration of belief
has been reasonably complete and coherent (Hogbin 1951).
Missionaries have been pioneers in the introduction of health and
welfare measures, and often in a more intimate way than is usually
possible for administrators and entrepreneurs; they have made
important contributions to cultural studies, especially in linguistics;
and their direct economic role, if at times ambivalent (as in
plantation ownership), is not inconsiderable. It is in education,
however, that their influence has been strongest: of the present
generation of indigenous leaders, perhaps none—certainly no more
than a handful—of those who have received any formal Western
education at all have done so otherwise than in mission schools.
This position will change, but the current validity and significance
of the statement above is reflected in the frequent insistence of
indigenous leaders that the Papua and New Guinea of the future
must be a Christian country, or perhaps indeed a Christian state.
This is natural: since European contact, the history of the peoples,
as distinct from the history of the Territories, has been very largely a
Christian history; and, despite the fact that half the population is
still in the strict sense pagan or heathen, and that animistic beliefs
still have a hold on many of the other half, the country is quite as
much a Christian country as is Australia or Britain or America, and
in fact is probably more truly so styled. After all, it is a long time
since incipient co-operatives or trade unions in those countries
began their proceedings with Christian prayer.
Before World War II, the Administration’s direct share in
education was slight indeed: one school, for Europeans, in Port
Moresby, and in the then Mandated Territory an expenditure which
fell from £18,000 in 1923 to £5,000 in 1937 (N.I.D. 1945). The policy
was to subsidize mission schools, subject to the maintenance of
minimum standards which were sometimes minimal indeed. Numeri­
cally, the missions are still dominant: out of a total of 220,000 pupils
Education and its Problems 119
at all levels in 1963, no fewer than 179,000 (81 per cent) were in
mission schools, including 69,000 in ‘exempt’ schools of standard
too low to qualify for Administration subsidy. In post-primary and
technical schools the pattern is different: in 1963 Administration
schools accounted for 1,640 out of 2,732 secondary pupils and for
almost all of those receiving any but the most rudimentary technical
training (P.A.R. No. 77 (1962/3):250; N.G.A.R. 1946-(1963/4):129).
In part, as is frankly recognized by the missions, ‘This has arisen
because the comity agreements . . . have resulted in each mission
pressing on with its own separate secondary education. None of
these has a school to match the teaching resources of the Admini­
stration, which means the contribution to producing an elite is a
minor one/ (A.C.C. 1965:23.) Although there are shining exceptions,
especially perhaps in seminarian training, standards in mission
schools are by and large lower than those in Administration schools,
by reason largely of even scarcer resources and of less well-trained
teachers. To some extent this is inherent in the natural desire for
the expansion of the Gospel, in which education is rather an
ancillary than an end in itself.
In one important respect some mission education has had rather a
negative effect; this is the preference for teaching in Pidgin1 or in
indigenous languages. Whatever the abstract merits or demerits of,
teaching in the mother-tongue or in English, there can hardly be an
excuse, except one of expediency, for teaching in a vernacular which
is not the child’s mother-tongue. Unfortunately, some missions long
persisted in teaching, even in the Highlands, through Pidgin or the
languages of coastal areas where they had made their first pene­
tration; this on account of mere tradition or the economy of using
already printed educational material. Since 1956-8 the Administra­
tion’s subsidization policy has strongly favoured schools teaching
through English, and so this problem is a receding one.
Much devotion has gone to the building of mission education in
Papua and New Guinea, but it is surely no disparagement to suggest
that the mission approach, though it will long remain essential in the
earlier stages of schooling, has been overtaken by the pressures
of the new times. The effort now needed is beyond the resources
of voluntary association; the wider secular needs of the people now
call for a diversification and intensification of education beyond the
essentially evangelistic purpose of the missionary pioneers. Despite
serious limitations of scope and method, what the missions have
done has been of essential value as a beginning; but it is only as a
beginning.
1 The term ‘Pidgin’ is used in this book in conformity with general practice
in Papua and New Guinea as the name of a structurally Melanesian language
that has become widely used as a lingua franca in the area. Some specialists
prefer to call it ‘Neo-Melanesian’, and this is in many ways a preferable term,
but it is not as yet in general use.
120 New Guinea on the Threshold
Some cultural problems
At present most indigenous people in Papua and New Guinea are
basically dependent on subsistence gardening, supplemented by
commercial cropping which in many areas is still a somewhat pre­
carious venture; really solid economic development, certainly by
indigenes, is confined to agriculture and is very patchy in distribu­
tion. Something like three-quarters of the population, perhaps more,
lives in small hamlets, often tucked away in difficult terrain,
mountainous, jungly, swampy. Not only are these bush hamlets
difficult to reach, but the developed areas are not readily accessible
to one another: from the port of Lae roads reach the Eastern
Highlands and the Wau-Bulolo area, but these two are not direcdy
inter-linked, and yet this is in effect the only system of ‘trunk’
roads. It is true that air transport is highly developed—so much so
that the Safety First lessons in the primary school syllabus begin
magnificently ‘Do not play on the airstrip’; yet air transport in New
Guinea conditions has a friction of its own which is not easily
apprehended by those who do not have to rely on it, and it is
also costly.
The logistics of any sort of Territory-wide development are thus
extremely difficult, and education is certainly not exempt from this
rule. When we add to this the almost complete dependence of the
economy on a very narrow range of primary products (vulnerable
to world market conditions), served by a very limited development
of secondary and tertiary industry (in which the indigenous share is
minimal), and the fact that two-thirds of Territory revenues are
provided by Australian subsidies, it will be recognized that the
material base for an educational programme is indeed slight.
On the cultural side, the difficulties are no less great: the
language problem is perhaps not the greatest, only the most obvious.
It is true that in the Highlands groups of up to say 150,000 people
can inter-communicate in tongues which have little more than dial­
ectal variations, and Pidgin is widespread as a lingua franca, more
particularly in the coastal regions of the Trust Territory. But clearly
neither the Chimbu languages nor Pidgin can well be adapted for
education beyond a very elementary level; there are simply too
many modem ways and devices not dreamt of in their philosophies
but which Papuans and New Guineans must learn to handle if they
are to mn their country effectively. Yet Pidgin at least has its
devotees, who perhaps let their indignation at the unwarranted
slur that it is a mere bastard patois of English blind them to the fact
that at any serious level of abstract discourse—and the capacity for
abstraction is a vital skill in the modem world—it is by far too
concrete and circumlocutory to be of much use. An excellent
language in which to say ‘Take out the spark plug and clean it’, it is
of less use in the task of explaining the function of a spark plug as
an electrical component of an internal combustion engine.
Education and its Problems 121
Since it is clear, and not least to the indigenous people themselves,
that a reasonable command of English is the key to the knowledge
so essential to any kind of advance, there seems less than no point
in interposing another language, which can relatively rarely be a
mother-tongue, as an additional hurdle on a path difficult enough
already; and, while there is more to be said for using some of the
larger Highlands languages as the medium for the earliest formal
instruction, most of them are spoken by so few people that the
provision of even primary-level school material in them seems quite
uneconomic. There is no possible doubt that, except locally and at
a very elementary level, English must remain the chief medium of
instruction. The question—and it is a much more difficult question,
to which we will return—still remains: What sort of English?
There are other aspects of indigenous society, less obvious than
language but not unrelated to it, which make the transition to a
new way of looking at life exceedingly difficult. The very limited
development of counting in some groups; the general absence,
natural enough in an agrarian environment where there is little
seasonality, of any emphasis on or even understanding of the
significance of time; the universal (and again entirely natural) stress
on the local, the particular, the concrete; the weight of loyalty to
tribe and family, at most to the local region; the survival of super­
naturalist explanations even for quite ordinary events—all these
inhibit the growth of a generalized and rational approach to the
problems inherent in the objective of Papua and New Guinea as a
united and independent country.
It seems clear that a traditional approach to the method and
content of education will be self-stultifying. External pressures
towards independence within a limited term of years are strong,
internal pressures are at least incipient, and the introduction of a
House of Assembly with an indigenous elected majority is an
irrevocable change. Yet, in a couple of decades at most, something
like the step from pagan Anglo-Saxon England to a modem state
must be taken. The material obstacles to educational advance in
Papua and New Guinea are great indeed, but at least they are
material and hence tangible: given money, they can be overcome.
No such simple solution can cope with the intangible and intractable
cultural or social obstacles. Here a truly heroic effort of detailed
research and rethinking, for which the Report of the Commission
on Higher Education is merely an agenda paper, must be faced.
It is obvious to the point of triteness that Papuans and New
Guineans must acquire sufficient knowledge and understanding of
the world at large to be able to ‘know their place’ in it (in no
depreciatory sense) and to take that place. How is this knowledge
to be obtained? It seems clear that in many respects the educational
process must be nicely adjusted to the local environment and its
needs; for instance, the history of the British and Australian
122 New Guinea on the Threshold
Commonwealths, in any detail, may be less important than that of a
small backward island, inhabited by savages who paint their faces
and bum, if they do not eat, their prisoners of war, an island lying
just north of a powerful and technologically developed civilized
empire—in short, the history of the change from pre-Roman Britain
to Norman England. It is important that Papuans and New Guineans
should know that other small backward communities have been
subsumed into rich and powerful civilizations, have gone through
the vicissitudes of imperialism, and emerged with their identities not
only preserved but unified and enhanced. Yet of course the political
science of the modem world, as well as its economics, will also be
an essential component.
Again, the existing heavily literary approach to the teaching of
English—as if the road to English were through Shakespeare—seems
wasteful to the point of cruelty; yet we must not be so one-sidedly
utilitarian and functional as to bar the road to Shakespeare through
English: so, once more, what sort of English is a vital question.
Science cannot be understood without stress on the local illustrations,
in geology for example; yet these in turn cannot be comprehended
without understanding of the universal rules, and so the dialectic
of teaching goes on.
At every turn we meet this conflict between the local and immedi­
ate need, empirical and technical, which because of the vast
difference between New Guinea social and cultural traditions and
our own must bulk large in any programme; and against this need
the converse need for an education which, if Papuans and New
Guineans are ever to stand on their own feet, must be much more
than the mere inculcation of Useful Knowledge. The total education
must not neglect the formation of character responsibility in terms
appropriate to a democratic community; it must include training in
thinking and must instil some understanding of the scientific process
as well as awareness of its end-products; must give at once some
geographical breadth and some historical depth to the world-view of
indigenous leaders, and not only the leaders. This is an ideal,
doubtless, which will never be perfectly attainable; it is indeed very
imperfectly achieved in our own society with all its resources of
communication. Yet something like it must at least be approximated;
and the conflict must be resolved in a context in which communi­
cation between the two cultures is exceptionally difficult.
There remain some fundamental questions: do we desire (as
most argument on ‘development’ seems blandly to assume, without
having the guts to say so) that all mankind should be people like
ourselves, doing the same developed things in much the same way,
only some with black faces—mere ‘carbon copies’ of Europeans? If
we do desire this, will the people themselves also desire it? Can they
preserve a proper pride in their own achievements—the architecture
of the haus tambaran and the lakatoi, the dance and the household
Education and its Problems 123
arts—when essential economic development has destroyed the social
as well as the economic bases of such achievements, when they
learn to rely on fertilizers rather than fertility cults?
Short-term, then, the empirical and the technical may seem
paramount; long-term, one cannot be so sure; policy in ultimate
terms must be as ‘open-ended’ as is possible. In the nature of the
case, this may not be very far. It is futile to say—a truism but a
half-truth—that in the long run the people themselves must decide
their course. They can only do so in the context decided by
previous decisions; whatever they build, and when, foundations
must be laid now; and these will determine the superstructure in
the broad if not in detail. All the more care, therefore, must be taken
in laying out the foundations, and it is for this reason that the
Commission on Higher Education gave first priority to an Edu­
cational Research Unit with wide terms of reference; and it also
stressed the urgent need for research into problems of communi­
cation and for experiment in the teaching of the two skills basic on
any line of development, English and mathematics.
T he current position and the economic aspect
After World War II the Administration took a much more direct
and active part in expanding educational facilities, and the results,
quantitatively assessed, have been not unimpressive: expenditure
rose from £303,500 in 1950 to £4,150,000 in 1963-4 (1,400 per cent),
schools from 61 to 485, teachers from 159 to 1,571, pupils from
3,375 to 61,683. More particularly in the last five or six years, a good
deal of effort has been put into research into method and into
teacher training, including a crash scheme (the ‘E’ course) taking in
people with a limited (Intermediate) standard of formal education
but of some maturity; this seems to have been a marked success.
However, one cannot but feel that in the earlier post-war years
this development to some extent sacrificed quality to quantity. The
aim seems to have been to spread some—or any—sort of bush school­
ing as widely as possible. This was in tune with the theory of
‘uniform development’ and its implicit distrust of elites, and might
have been acceptable in a context of slow and steady development
all round. In response largely to external pressures, however, the
political sector has as it were shot ahead, and it is now clear that the
responsibilities which are rapidly devolving upon Papuans and
New Guineans call urgently for the formation of Elites, and from
this angle the policy of the first decade or so after 1945 seems
responsible for a very serious leeway which it will be extremely
difficult to make up. A crash programme for post-primary education
is now essential.
Until quite recently, then, the policy appears to have been un­
balanced, and the policy change has not yet had time to redress
124 New Guinea on the Threshold
the balance. Apart from the three multi-racial high schools at Port
Moresby, Lae, and Rabaul, the first Administration secondary
schools were set up in 1957, and there are now, in addition to these
three high schools, a new indigenous high school and fifteen junior
high schools run by the Administration, and thirty-seven run by
missions. These go up to Intermediate and may become full high
schools in the future. Yet had there been rather less expansion of
what were virtually bush schools some fifteen years ago, and in its
stead an earlier provision of well-found secondary schools, it is
likely that the Territory would not now be in the paradoxical
position of having taken a considerable step towards indigenous
responsibility in government before there was a single indigenous
university graduate.2
On the technical and vocational side, the situation is generally
unsatisfactory. There are a number of teacher training colleges at
various levels, and their work in general is good; though even if
the rate of growth of primary education were to be slackened in
favour of the urgent need for a more rapid expansion of secondary,
technical, and vocational education, there would still remain a need
for a much increased effort in teacher training. The Papuan Medical
College maintains good standards; there may well be some question,
however, of whether these standards are not too much influenced by
the traditional form of medical education in Australia, overlooking
the need for good all-round men for the villages, men who need not
be trained so highly, or at any rate so comprehensively, as the
specialists in base hospitals. The Department of Agriculture has a
variety of training schemes for the lower levels of field workers and
is opening at Vudal, near Rabaul, an agricultural college to turn
out officers at diploma level. At Port Moresby there is a multi­
functional administrative college and the good specialized training
done by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. The three
technical schools at Port Moresby, Lae, and Rabaul have provided
training to tradesman level, associated with apprenticeship.
Nevertheless a great deal more is needed. There is an almost
total blank at the all-important technician level; many jobs which
could be done by indigenes are done by expatriates (at a time when
there is no surplus of such labour in Australia), and the extra costs
involved may average around £1,000 per person per year. Savings
on this account would go some way to offset the cost of a compre­
hensive scheme of technical education.
There are many reasons for the existing imbalance and the slight
development of secondary education, among them the fact that
2 By mid-1965 one indigene had taken a B.Sc. in Agriculture at Sydney and
another had qualified for a pass B.A. in economics at Sydney but was staying
on to do honours, and there were about a dozen Papuan or New Guinean
undergraduates in Australian universities.
Education and its Problems 125
the demand for indigenous people with some degree of education
for minor clerking and so on led to poaching by administrative
departments and private employers, so that bright lads were
siphoned off too soon. The result, however, is a tragic waste of
potential, especially as the further ad hoc in-service training needed
may well be given by persons not particularly fitted to be teachers,
without continuity, and with duplication of instruction in basic
subjects such as English and mathematics. More co-ordination and
a great strengthening of secondary education are manifestly urgent
needs.
This is apparent not only from any realistic empirical assessment
of the Territory’s economic and administrative trends and needs, but
from more general consideration of the investment aspect of edu­
cation. An impressive body of opinion is beginning to question the
wisdom of over-concentration on mass literacy where resources are
so limited that this emphasis would inhibit the training of adequate
technical and vocational cadres. The weight to be given to mass
literacy and to a general humanistic education (‘consumer goods’),
and to a more vocational technologically-oriented education (a
‘producer good’), must vary with the circumstances of the country
concerned. It is no kindness to put the educational clothes of an
affluent society on to the famished body of a backward one; not only
will they fail to fit, but the load of debt may result in further
malnutrition. As the ex-Rector of the University of Rangoon puts it,
the comforting doctrine that the extension of education in the
[consumer] sense will automatically lead to an increase in invest­
ment in human capital in the [producer] sense and will therefore
promote development . . . turns out to be a dangerously mislead­
ing notion (Hla Myint 1962:119).
Where resources are scarce, as they are in New Guinea, ‘those
who make compulsory primary education their first priority are
asking for trouble, and get it’ in the form of disproportionate demands
for clerical jobs for school-leavers and for a plethora of tertiary
institutions (Lewis 1962; cf. Ashby and Harbison 1960). The Terri­
tory is a long way from Arthur Lewis’s target, for sub-Saharan
Africa, of 50 per cent of each appropriate age-cohort in primary
schools, 5 per cent in secondary, and 0-5 per cent in universities;
the respective figures are more like 30, 0 •375, and an infinitesimal.3
While there is bound to be a political demand for the extension of
primary education, in the immediate future its attainment might
well depend on some slackening of its own rate, so that a much
stronger secondary component may be inserted to supply the
necessary teachers, and so that tertiary education (including higher
vocational and technical training) may be provided on a scale
3 To be more exact (in 1963), 0-00015 per cent approximately.
126 New Guinea on the Threshold
appropriate to the needs of an emerging nation—in short, so that the
present glaring imbalance may be rectified. It is a pity not to be
able to advance equally on all fronts; but so far primary schooling
has made the running, and it is educationally imperative to avoid
any further dilution of education.
There are other important aspects of school education in Papua
and New Guinea which can be only glanced at here. Among them
is the lag in female education (in 1963 only 90,294 girls were receiv­
ing instruction against 139,982 boys), which at least in large part is
due to indigenous attitudes natural enough in a tribal society and a
subsistence economy. The length of the school cycle is of peculiar
local significance. In many tribal communities, the male child takes
his first steps from the maternal hearth—into the company of his
father and his uncles—at about five years of age; and to begin
school at six plus would mean a most drastic amputation of what
must be, for that majority of little boys whose life will basically
remain within their own tribe and village, an incalculably significant
phase in the process of growing up. This suggests a later age of entry
to primary school, say seven plus; and this in turn has relevance to
the age of leaving primary for those who do go on to secondary
school. The Territory adheres to the International Labour Office
ruling that the minimum age for taking up paid employment (unless
in training positions) should be sixteen years; if then we start
primary school at five or six plus and give seven years’ schooling,
we have a very nasty gap, and it is not in New Guinea alone that the
awkward social consequences of such a gap in village-based societies
are evident; Fiji is a striking example. A later age of primary entry
would at least help.
Another most important problem is that posed by the necessity
of breaking away from syllabuses designed to suit children in
Australia. There are reasonable doubts as to how well Australian
syllabuses are so suited; there can be no shadow of a doubt that
they are unsuitable to the needs of Papuan and New Guinean
children. The Territory Department of Education is alert to this
problem, and has already devised its own primary syllabus—in
which, it may be noted, there is a good deal of emphasis on the
fostering of national rather than tribal or local loyalties; no trace of
‘Divide and Rule’. The Department is now tackling the more
difficult task of recasting the secondary curriculum, and in this it
can be materially aided by the establishment in the Territory of an
institution of tertiary academic education, so that education at all
levels can be both integrated and adjusted to the real needs of the
people of Papua and New Guinea, rather than forced into the
mould of an Australian state system. At this point, then, it is
appropriate to consider the findings of the Commission on Higher
Education in Papua and New Guinea.
Education and its Problems 127
T he C ommission on H igher E ducation (1963-4)
The Commission was appointed in February 1963 by the then
Minister for Territories, Mr Paul Hasluck, and consisted of Sir
George Currie, originally an agricultural scientist but with much
experience in academic administration as Vice-Chancellor succes­
sively of the Universities of Western Australia and New Zealand;
Dr John Gunther, an Assistant Administrator of the Territory noted
for an unbureaucratic forcefulness of personality; and the present
writer, whose sole claim seems to have been that he was at least a
working academic. It was given very wide terms of reference,
covering technical as well as academic higher education and also
the responsibility for presenting detailed statements for the first
triennium of any institutions it might recommend and general ones
for the second triennium. Between its first and its final formal meet­
ings, exactly one calendar year elapsed. Its Report, presented in
March and published in July 1964, gives much more detail on all
the topics treated briefly in this paper, and on others perforce
omitted here. It would be unbecoming of the present writer to say
that it is a good report, though this disclaimer will deceive nobody,
and least of all those who know him; but at least it is comprehensive
enough to be regarded as a basic document.
The Commission had cognizance of Mr Hasluck’s statement, made
in the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth as long ago
as 11 October 1962, that there would be some institution of uni­
versity type started in the Territory by 1966. It took as its major
premise that the approach to self-determination is not likely to be
slackened; if the general experience and temper of the times are
anything to go by, it is much more likely to accelerate. This
obviously means that the lag in post-primary education must be
overtaken as rapidly as possible by making much more adequate
provision on both the academic and the technical sides. The Depart­
ment of Education’s plans envisage an increase of secondary pupils
to some 30,000 by 1974; this would be about 7-5 per cent of the
total primary enrolment it is hoped to attain by then, and calls for a
very much more intensive effort in the training of indigenous
teachers. This is necessary on any prognosis, even one which
considers the 1974 estimate too optimistic. In the Commission’s view,
the great bulk of the needed facilities for higher education must be
provided within the Territory.
There are severalreasons for this. Apart from the debatable
question of whether it isbetter that the first degree should be
taken overseas or at home (and there are strong arguments on both
sides), it seems likely that the need for tertiary training and the
numbers coming forward from the secondary schools will in a few
years be so large that to meet the demand in Australian universities
would be a matter of some difficulty, except of course in some
special fields which could not reasonably be cultivated in a Territory
128 New Guinea on the Threshold
institution. The most important factor of all, however, seems to be
the necessity of setting up a system of education for the Territory
integrated at all levels. It is axiomatic that school education cannot
be really adjusted to local needs so long as it must be geared to the
needs of school-leavers in New South Wales or Queensland, and
that such local adjustment is essential if teaching is to be generally
effective. But then, there is no point in a Territory school system
which will not take a reasonable proportion of its products on to
further education without additional training, and this implies that
the system should be completed by the provision of tertiary edu­
cation within the Territory itself: otherwise school education must
continue to be geared to unsuitable outside systems or made top-
heavy by a proliferation of uneconomic special courses, or indeed
both.
Moreover, the tertiary needs of Papuans and New Guineans
demand a different approach from that normal in Australian uni­
versities; tertiary education itself must be in some harmonious
relation to the local environment, if it is not to be an artificial
veneer. There is always risk of alienation in the creation of an
elite, and this will be much more acute if higher education takes
place in an environment or on lines completely divorced from the
homeland and its current problems. In method, then, there is a
need for experiment to find the best means of bridging the com­
munications gap; in content, much should be omitted, but much
should be added. The desire for ‘parity of standards’ is genuine
and valid; but parity is not identical with identity.
With the prime need of integration in mind, it seemed obvious
that the whole structure of education in the Territory would have
to be examined: in the last analysis, education is indivisible. In
this difficult task, the Commission received invaluable support from
the Territory Department of Education. It reviewed the school
system and put forward suggestions, some of them doubtless
controversial, concerning the length of the complete cycle of
schooling, the organization of curricula, and the introduction of
new methods. Everything considered, it seemed to the Commission
that entry to primary school at seven plus, followed by a primary
cycle of seven and a secondary of four years, would be a reasonable
structure; as will be seen, the normal time between entering a
tertiary institution and graduating from it would also be four years
instead of the standard three. The suggested school cycle would
also be appropriate for those going on to vocational, rather than
academic, further study; it would go some way to avoid the diffi­
culty, felt in Australian education, that secondary education is too
closely geared to the needs of the minority going on to the uni­
versity, a minority likely (at least after the initial stages) to be
smaller in New Guinea than in Australia. All these matters are
bound up with detailed discussion of social needs and scholastic
Education and its Problems 129
procedures; for instance, the need for new approaches in English
and mathematics teaching, and for a much more intensive effort in
science teaching.
On the particular question of a university institution, a very
specific point in its terms of reference, the Commission decisively
favoured the establishment in the Territory of a fully autonomous
university, rather than a university college. Here again a main point
is the need for a fully integrated system. A university college is
after all an institution subordinate to its parent university, and even
with a ‘special relationship’ is likely to be too closely bound to
traditional academic philosophies and procedures appropriate to a
very different state of society; yet, obviously, a conservative
approach would be totally inadequate to the very novel and
difficult problems of tertiary education in Papua and New Guinea,
and this appears amply confirmed by African and Asian experience.
Again, it seems more than likely that staff of the right sort—the sort
of people to whom it is more attractive to pioneer an entirely new
thing than to walk into an established concern—are not going to be
content with an institution subordinate to a base a thousand miles
from the front line where they will wish to do their own planning
for their own operations.
Staffing is indeed a crucial problem; its difficulties are likely to be
most severe in the pure arts and pure sciences (though even here
there may well be unsuspected research opportunities), least in
those field and social sciences for which New Guinea is itself one
vast laboratory. The problem can only be more acute if it is adver­
tised in advance that the institution will be a subordinated one. Even
within Australia, even within the same state, the university/uni­
versity college relation is not too easy to work; how much more
difficult when parent and child would live in such utterly different
homes!
But while thus insisting on the paramount need for an institution
as it were conditioned by and responsible to the Territory environ­
ment, the Commission was very conscious of the need to maintain
good standards, and to strike the nice balance between the local
and the universal, without which there could be a slide into
parochialism. At the entry end, a university may be its own judge
of the standards it requires; at the exit end, it will be judged by its
peers. Internally, the main recommendation of the Commission
in this regard is that there should be a preliminary year, taken by
all or nearly all students, and devoted on the one hand to further
basic training in linguistic and mathematical skills, on the other
to studies designed to broaden the cultural horizons of the students.
This would make the total course for a pass degree one of four
years, thus going some way to offset the lack of background to be
expected of nearly all students; it would avoid premature speciali­
zation; and it would also form a humane cut-off point for those who
130 New Guinea on the Threshold
could not make the grade. External measures to maintain standards
would include fairly heavy direct representation of Australian
academics not only on the council of the university, but initially
on its professorial board; the use of external examiners (a measure
which would be of value in Australian universities); and the form­
ation of an academic advisory committee on the lines found useful
for new universities in Britain.
A New Guinea university would have to be basically residential,
though with provision for part-time and external studies; and this
will call for a liberal scholarships policy. On the vexed question of
the site, it seemed to the Commission that the choice really lay
between Port Moresby and Goroka—there were of course bids from
almost everywhere except Darn (the Commission did not visit
Darn . . .). The attraction of Goroka as a site is very readily
apparent, but after an exhaustive discussion the Commission felt
that technically there was no real alternative to Port Moresby; any
other decision would have to be made on political rather than
academic grounds. There will be a need for a second university in
the not too distant future, say within twenty years, and by then
Goroka might well be the logical choice. Another question, more
significant in New Guinea than in Australia, concerns the relation
of religious bodies to the university; but pending clarification of
their position by the missions, it was possible only to welcome their
participation—but not their monopoly—in the provision of residential
colleges. (Cf. A.C.C. 1965:29-33.) Many other questions of academic
and organizational detail are canvassed in the Report.
Technical and vocational education are no less important than
academic. On the strictly technical side, the Commission reviewed
in some detail the existing arrangements mentioned above and
recommended the establishment of an institute of higher technical
education, in juxtaposition to the university but not a part of it.
This institute would in general work to diploma standard, and in
particular a detailed scheme was put forward for an engineering
diploma to meet one of the most imminent needs of the Territory—
the creation of a cadre of good generalist engineers, especially on
the civil engineering side. At the same time, the existing technical
schools should be strengthened to the point at which they could be
upgraded into technical colleges. While insisting upon equal
opportunities for women as a general principle, the Commission
drew attention to the scope for some specialized training for young
women in such fields as welfare work.
Other higher vocational training presents more complicated
problems, in part because we cannot start with nearly so clean a
slate as in engineering: teacher training, the Administrative College,
and the Papuan Medical College are going concerns, while the
Department of Agriculture has already done a good deal of work
in connection with Vudal. Although the precise organization must
Education and its Problems 131
differ for each of these fields, the Commission felt that it is of
great importance that they should be in some relation to the
university. The objective is to strengthen standards and to enhance
the repute of these avocations, and so to avoid the ‘arts-law’ fallacy
which has so often led, as for example in India, to over-production
of an ill-equipped semi-intelligentsia. This is in full accord with
indigenous feeling, which has a sharply realist attitude to priorities
—teachers, doctors, diddymans (agriculturalists), engineers—these
are the felt priorities. It is, however, necessary to guard against the
danger that this natural, and to a point entirely correct, attitude
might run away with things and end in the dilution of the university
into a super-polytechnic and nothing more. Oxbridge and ivory
towers are out; the real issues for New Guinea are in the market­
place; but this does not mean that the university should be tied
down to a meanly utilitarian approach.
The Commission gave a high priority to teacher training, so much
so as to recommend that the first teaching faculties should be
education and arts, and the first graduates would most likely be
Bachelors of Education. A science faculty should follow as soon as
possible, while at an early stage deans should be appointed for
planning faculties in agriculture, medicine, and law; for the last of
these, the Commission followed the findings of an independent
inquiry by the Law Council of Australia. The detailed recommend­
ations for these professional subjects are too complicated to be
summarized here, but it may be said that, as the Commission envi­
saged the scheme of things, teacher training would be carried out
by colleges of the university as part of a school of education. A
faculty of law would be an integral part of the normal university
structure; the existing medical college should in due course become
the medical school of the university; and eventually the Admini­
strative College should become an institute of administration within
the university. The agricultural college should be affiliated rather
than completely integrated.
This scheme is complex; so are the problems.
C onclusion : the prospect
The expansion of education is certainly one of the gravest issues
confronting New Guinea today, ranking with those of economic
viability and political stability; and of course all three are closely
bound together. It must be admitted that when the degree of
indigenous political responsibility already attained is put alongside
the degree of indigenous intellectual advancement (in modem
terms), the discrepancy is alarming: on the one hand, an elected
majority in the House of Assembly; on the other, a dozen under -
graduates and only some scores, hardly hundreds, in a population
of two millions, who have even completed a full secondary course.
132 New Guinea on the Threshold
Unredressed, such an imbalance could lead straight to a Congolese
situation.
There is nothing at all to suggest that the proportion of adequate
intellectual capacity among Papuans and New Guineans is less than
the human norm; but it lies fallow, and the vastness of the cultural
gap is strikingly obvious. The lack of background familiarity with
the modern world, the narrowness of horizons, the prevalence of
particularisms, the survival of superstitions—all these must be over­
come, or be on the way to being overcome, before the people can
stand on their own feet. To enable them to overcome these things
calls for an intense effort on the part of the Australian people who,
will they nill they, are responsible and cannot decently shirk their
responsibility—though they might consider sharing it with some of
those who are more prodigal of ideological nagging than of
practical aid.
Were all its proposals fully implemented, the Commission on
Higher Education estimated the total capital costs of the university
and the institute of higher technical education, spread over the first
two triennia, as about £5,343,000. This is a large sum; but—admitting
there are many other demands—it may be put into an interesting
perspective by pointing out that it amounts to just about the price
of half a packet of cigarettes each year for six years for each
inhabitant of Australia in 1964.
There seems no real reason why assistance should not be sought
from agencies such as UNESCO and some American foundations, at
least for specific projects and installations. It is clear enough,
however, that much the greater share of the cost will fall to the lot
of the Australian taxpayer. If he is unwilling to meet this bill, it
might well be that more awkward ones will be presented, in the
form of political developments offering openings for interventions
which could really imperil Australia’s security. The balance of
economic advantage might well be in favour of meeting the educa­
tional demand note.
It may well become evident that the easy antithesis of economic
development and educational growth, as priorities, is a false one.
Any solid economic development will call for very much larger and
better-educated trained cadres, in all fields, than are now available;
any solid educational advance will need a better-balanced economic
development. And political stability depends on both, and affects
both.
Setting this aside, there are of course many unresolved problems,
many hazards, in such a large-scale educational programme. The
dangers of forming an elite divorced from the realities of its local
environment (whence the necessity of adjusting education to that
environment); the dangers of over-raising expectations, so that
education becomes ‘the greatest of the cargo cults’; the difficulties of
staffing so great a project and of maintaining momentum—all these
Education and its Problems 133
should not be ignored. Yet it can be said with confidence that, on
any view of the future of Papua and New Guinea and its relations
with Australia, these can only be worse, not better, if there is not to
be a sufficient number of indigenous people sufficiently well edu­
cated to cope realistically with the manifold problems and activities
of a modem state, however modest its scale of operations. And,
whatever may be thought on details, this quantum of trained
intelligence can only be obtained by a programme at once compre­
hensive, co-ordinated, and not run on the cheap.
The leeway to be made up is very great; but opportunities are
not lacking. There is now a wealth of experience, both positive as
well as negative, to draw upon, particularly in Africa; and to some
extent there is the advantage of the clean slate. Any advance will
need imagination and daring as well as money, and very much of all
three. Yet the refusal to take up this challenge can only lay up
greater difficulties, greater troubles, for Australia, as social,
economic, and political developments in New Guinea become even
more lop-sided. In all probability, an educational policy boldly
conceived and resolutely carried out is the only thing which can
prevent a slide into a messy, anarchic, and quite possibly literally
bloody waste of factionalism; a second Congo, and on Australia’s
very doorstep.
The Currie Commission’s recommendation for an Institute of
Higher Technical Education was accepted by the government
almost at once, but it was not until March 1965, a year after the
presentation of the report, that the Minister for Territories
announced the acceptance of the university. There was some debate
in the New Guinea House of Assembly, mainly concerned with
the question of site, but Port Moresby was accepted. The long
delay in dealing with this central recommendation of the Com­
mission had produced criticism; but a more serious matter has not
received a great deal of attention. This is the failure of the govern­
ment to accept the Currie Commission’s recommendation that at
least for the first two triennia ‘the moneys needed for the develop­
ment of the University and associated institutions should be in the
form of earmarked grants from the Commonwealth Government’.
This means that perhaps the most vitally important single institu­
tion in Papua and New Guinea, apart from the House of Assembly,
must simply take its place in the queue for the annual departmental
struggle for allocations. The objection to this is not only that it is
likely to lead to a university run on the cheap, a type of ‘economy’
which can be ill afforded; much more serious, it is a very likely way
of ensuring the premature politicizing of the university, so that
instead of becoming a unifying factor it might become the object of
factional struggle. If the history of universities in developing
countries shows anything, it shows the social and political dangers
134 New Guinea on the Threshold
of making the university dependent on local politics. It is lamentable
that a government which spontaneously added £10,000,000 a year for
five years to the expenditures proposed by the World Bank
Mission should show itself so penny-wise and short-sighted as
regards the much smaller investment needed to give the Territory a
really well-found university.
 7

Language and Literacy

s. A. W U R M

T he New Guinea area, of which the Territory of Papua and New

Guinea forms a large part, is one of the most complex regions of
the world linguistically. The number of distinct languages is tre­
mendous: at the present state of New Guinea linguistics, estimates
of around seven hundred different languages in the entire New
Guinea area1 do not seem exaggerated. Of these, nearly five hundred
may be located in the Australian part, much of which is as yet
linguistically unknown or only little known, though extensive work
carried out under the auspices of the Australian National University
and the Summer Institute of Linguistics, New Guinea Branch,
during the last few years has greatly expanded our knowledge of
the language situation there (Wurm 1964). It is quite possible that
further research will enable us to reduce this estimate somewhat,
but the number is certainly very considerable.
One fact revealed by recent research has fundamentally affected
the linguistic picture of New Guinea: the discovery of some very
large groups of more or less closely interrelated languages. It had
been believed until quite recently that the hundreds of languages in
New Guinea were either completely unrelated to each other or
that there were only small groups of interrelated languages, each
comprising not more than a few languages (Wurm 1960).
Apart from the large number of the languages in the New Guinea
area, many of them rank amongst the linguistically most complex of
the world.
This forbidding language picture is somewhat brightened
(a) by the presence of two widespread kinds of lingua franca,
Pidgin (or Neo-Melanesian) and Police Motu. These are spoken
and understood over wide parts of Australian New Guinea, and
the number of speakers of Pidgin is increasing rapidly;
1 The Indonesian and Australian parts of New Guinea, including the Islands
of New Britain, New Ireland, Bougainville, Manus and lesser adjacent islands.

135
136 New Guinea on the Threshold
(b) by the existence of eight or so major regional forms of lingua
franca; and
(c) by the prevalence of bilingualism and multilingualism. For
practical purposes multilingualism reduces the number of lan­
guages necessary for communication in Australian New Guinea to
between one-half or one-third of the actual number of different
languages spoken. Many speakers of small languages are equally
at home in a neighbouring large language or languages, whilst
many speakers of large languages also speak at least one other
large language.

The number of Papuans and New Guineans, especially children

and young people, who have a working knowledge of English is
steadily increasing, but is still small.
Although the number of distinct languages spoken in Australian
New Guinea is about five hundred, two facts, in addition to the
prevalence of multilingualism, simplify the picture considerably
from a practical angle:
(a) Of these approximately five hundred languages, thirty-seven
are spoken by groups of more than 10,000 people, and between
them number over 760,000 speakers, or more than one-third of
the total population of the Territory.
(b) Thirty-four of these thirty-seven widely spoken languages can
be arranged into three groups of more or less closely interrelated
languages.

It is an interesting fact that in the New Guinea area large

languages, i.e. languages with a considerable number of speakers,
tend to be interrelated. These form groups of languages with very
large numbers of speakers, whereas small languages show a much
greater tendency to be isolated, i.e. unrelated to each other, though
some can be shown to link with some larger languages. The general
impression given by the linguistic picture of the New Guinea area
is one of geographically and numerically extensive groups of pre­
dominantly large interrelated languages (mostly situated in the
inland, and especially in the mountain areas), each of which is
surrounded by a veiy large number of small unrelated languages
each spoken by only a few hundred people. However, many of the
speakers of such small languages are fully at home in the adjacent
large language or languages, and from a practical point of view can
be treated as additional speakers of these large languages. On the
other hand there are some areas, especially near the coast, in which
there are no large languages at all and, though multilingualism is
present, the general means of intercommunication beyond the
immediate neighbourhood is only Pidgin or Police Motu.
One important linguistic aspect of native education is the
Language and Literacy 137
possibility of using the various local languages for literacy work
and for elementary education. Linguists have long recognized that
basic education, and especially literacy work, in their mother-
tongue has the advantage of very considerably accelerating the
natives’ absorption of education. Progress is much slower when they
first have to familiarize themselves with a foreign, in particular
European, language, especially when this foreign language, as it
usually does, constitutes the reference system of a culture and com­
plex of concepts totally alien to them. In addition, experiments have
shown that natives who were made literate in their own language
first, received their elementary education in it, and then gradually
switched to English for the purpose of more advanced education,
by far outstripped other natives of similar age and background
who received their entire education in English from the start
(UNESCO 1953:123-31). The members of the first group out­
matched the second not only in their general performance and
educational achievements but also in their ultimate proficiency in
English.
It seems, therefore, that for proficiency and speed of basic
education in New Guinea the best linguistic choice would be to use
the individual local languages for literacy work and for elementary
education for, say, one year or more, with a gradual switch to
English after this period. This would provide the most favourable
educational background for the natives’ thorough mastery of
English and for their absorption of more advanced education
through the medium of English.
While this is undoubtedly the best choice in theory, the practical
difficulties it presents are quite staggering.
The most serious problem is that the majority of the New Guinea
languages are either not known at all or not sufficiently known. It
is true that many of these little-known languages are spoken in
uncontrolled or only recently contacted parts of New Guinea in
which native education is not of immediate concern, but quite a
few of them are located in areas in which native education is a
matter for the present. The most important prerequisite for using
a language for elementary education, and in particular for literacy
purposes, is that its phonology, i.e. its sound system, must be well
enough known in terms of modern linguistics for a consistent,
simple orthography to be devised in which each symbol corresponds
to one significant sound unit. With such an othography, natives can
be made literate in their language in a very short time. Once the
sound system of a language has been sufficiently well studied for
this purpose, and a competent linguist has created an orthography,
then native informants under the supervision of the linguist can
prepare primers and teaching materials. For this the linguist need
not be familiar with the language to such an extent that he could
prepare such materials himself.
138 New Guinea on the Threshold
Our knowledge of the sound systems of New Guinea languages
and of the structures of the languages themselves has been rapidly
improving during recent years. This improvement has resulted
mainly from the efforts of the members of the Summer Institute of
Linguistics, New Guinea Branch, and of linguists of the Australian
National University. Primers and other teaching materials have been
prepared in a number of New Guinea languages, and their number
is growing rapidly.
However, it must be borne in mind that to establish the nature
of the sound system of a previously unstudied language well
enough for a reliable orthography to be devised for the language
takes at least several months’ study by a competent linguist. In
view of the large number of languages not yet treated on these lines
in New Guinea, the time factor involved, and the scarcity of trained
linguists in Australia, it would be unrealistic to suggest that the
optimum solution would be to try to carry out this gigantic task
immediately, particularly as compromise solutions, which will be
discussed below, are available.
One argument often levelled against vernacular education is that
the production of primers and teaching materials in a multiplicity
of languages is impracticable and prohibitively expensive. These
difficulties are, as a rule, greatly overrated: once orthographies
suitable for an ordinary typewriter have been created, such materials
can be duplicated by one of the modem, cheap offset processes.
Native informants who are to be trained as the elementary teachers
(see below) can in a very short time be taught to type efficiently in
their own language,2 and are the obvious persons to type such
materials. A single duplicating machine prints a very large number
of sheets in a day’s run, and a modem, low-cost collating machine,
requiring very little skill for its operation, makes collation a quick
and easy task. Moreover, the total number of primers and other
elementary teaching materials required in New Guinea remains
the same irrespective of whether they are all in one language or in a
multiplicity of languages.
Another difficulty commonly raised is the provision of suitable
teachers for literacy work and elementary education in the vernacu­
lars. For obvious reasons, Europeans are only in rare instances (e.g.
some missionaries and members of the Summer Institute of Linguis­
tics) capable of carrying out this work, and local native teachers
have to be used. The informants who are to help the linguists to
devise the orthographies, and who are to prepare the primers,
literacy materials, and other elementary teaching materials under
2 Members of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, Australian Branch, trained
uneducated Australian aborigines to touch-type in their own languages. After
a few weeks’ training, these aborigines were able to touch-type extensive text
materials in their languages (oral communication from W. Oates, Director,
Summer Institute of Linguistics, Australian Branch).
Language and Literacy 139
the supervision of the linguists, are also the best persons to be
trained for the purpose of literacy work and elementary teaching.
Such training could well be given by the linguists supervising the
preparatory work, for their knowledge of the vernaculars should
be sufficient for this and for the supervision of the teaching at
several schools, even if their active command of the languages is
insufficient for them to carry out the teaching themselves.
As has been pointed out, this linguistic choice, while being the
optimum solution in theory, is practicable only where the necessary
linguistic work has already been carried out or is in the process of
being finished. In such cases, it provides the best way to rapid
literacy and the quick assimilation of some elements of basic
education and—this is most important—the most advantageous
background to literacy in, and mastery of, the English language. It
must be made quite clear in this connection that education in New
Guinea beyond the elementary stage must be in English. This
alone can give the natives the key to the knowledge of the civilized
world and enable them to proceed to the secondary and tertiary
education which they have to absorb in much greater numbers if
their country is to undergo the development it needs. In this, how­
ever, the important question is how the natives can best be prepared
for their education in English, with a view to speeding up this
education and to making its results more far-reaching and satis­
factory. It appears that prior literacy in the vernacular, and some
basic education in it as outlined above, is the best, if the require­
ments for such vernacular education are already available or can
relatively easily be obtained. This does not mean, of course, that
the study of further languages for the provision of such basic
requirements should be discouraged, but it will often not be
practicable to wait for the results of such studies before under­
taking education work in a given area.
There is, however, one kind of situation in which it seems justifi­
able to advocate the vernacular-first approach, even if the necessary
linguistic work has not yet been carried out. This is where the
language is one spoken by several thousand people in an area in
which education is to be introduced. Under these conditions it
would be better to try the vernacular approach rather than the
compromise solutions reviewed below. In actual fact, there are
only a few large languages left in Australian New Guinea whose
phonologies and structures have not been studied sufficiently for
the purposes discussed, and it does not seem very likely, to judge
by our present state of knowledge of New Guinea linguistics, that
further unknown large languages will be discovered.
It will be noticed that in suggesting that the vernaculars be used
for basic education no distinction has been made between large
and small languages where sufficient knowledge about them is at
hand. There is no linguistic reason for not using a small language
140 New Guinea on the Threshold
just because of the limited number of its speakers; nor are the
practical difficulties overwhelming. The one instance in which a
distinction ought to be made is in the case of vernaculars not yet
properly studied: as has been pointed out, large languages deserve
priority over small ones in such study.
Before proceeding to the alternative solutions, a word or two
may be said about the elementary introduction to mathematics,
which is one of the most important subjects of basic education.
Many New Guinea languages lack higher numerals, and even if
they possess numerals going up to ten and beyond they are mostly
very clumsy and unwieldy and sometimes lack precision. Clearly,
these languages are unsuitable for teaching mathematics beyond an
absolutely primitive level. At the same time, the teaching of
mathematics in English brings the natives face to face with a formid­
able problem: they are to absorb a thinking process largely alien
to them (i.e. mathematical principles) which utilizes alien concepts
(i.e. higher numerals), and all of this is explained to them in a
foreign language which they often understand only rudimentarily
and which is the vehicle and reference system of a culture alien to
them. Natives who know Pidgin or Police Motu (as most do) will
be in a better position in at least being familiar with the notion of
higher numerals. However, when the vernacular is used for first
literacy work and elementary education, it seems most appropriate
to use the English numerals as the basic symbol-words from the
start, and to give the explanations of the numerals, the numerical
system, and the basic mathematical operations in the vernacular.
This is perfectly possible, and it leads to far better understanding-
on the natives’ part, and in a much shorter time, than when English
alone is employed.
Therefore, wherever sufficient information is available on a
vernacular, the most satisfactory and speedy results will be
achieved if the vernacular is used for literacy work and elementary
education before the switch to English is made.
There remain, however, many native languages on which the
information is inadequate or non-existent, and of which the number
of speakers is too small to warrant special study on the lines already
indicated. For these there are several possible approaches.
As already mentioned, the prevalence of bilingualism and multi­
lingualism reduces the number of distinct languages necessary for
communication. In theory, this ought to simplify the situation quite
considerably, because for the purpose of literacy work and element­
ary education a second language mastered by such speakers as
proficiently as their own language is just as satisfactory as their
own vernacular. In practice, however, the general benefit derived
from the presence of bilingualism and multilingualism in New
Guinea for vernacular teaching is much less than might be expected,
because this phenomenon is generally confined to males above
Language and Literacy 141
school age, and can therefore not be relied on for the education of
children in the vernacular. Only in relatively few instances, in
particular in very small speech communities with a local vernacular
of their own adjoining a large speech community speaking a
different language, will all or most members of the former com­
munity, including the children, be found to be bilingual. In these
special cases the second large idiom can be utilized for vernacular
education just as effectively as if it were the native language, but in
most cases this will not be so.
The next possibility is offered by the existence of about eight
major local varieties of lingua franca. Most of these have been
spread through the activities of various missions, i.e. Kate, Yabem,
and Graged3 by the Lutherans, Wedau (in the Milne Bay District)
by the Anglicans, Dobu (also in the Milne Bay District) by the
Methodists, Kuanua (in New Britain and New Ireland) by the
Roman Catholics and the Methodists, Toaripi by the Anglicans and
the Roman Catholics, and Kiwai (in the Fly Delta area) by the
Anglicans. The result is that, while the number of natives under­
standing and speaking one variety of lingua franca in addition to
their own vernacular is quite considerable (in the case of Kate
over 40,000), the great majority of these natives have already
received some education through the missions in the course of
which they were familiarized with the lingua franca. These varieties
of lingua franca can therefore not well be considered for the basic
literacy work and elementary education under discussion. However,
in some of the areas in which such varieties of lingua franca are
used, a number of natives are familiar with them without having
undergone any formal education or literacy training, and this
applies not only to adults but also to children. This is particularly
so in the areas in which Toaripi and Kuanua are used. For such
children (and young adults, if adult education is envisaged) a
lingua franca could well be employed for literacy work and
elementary education instead of the various vernaculars encount­
ered in the area, with the practical advantage that there would
probably be available a sufficient number of native teachers, and
also of European teachers with a fair command of the lingua franca,
to make such a task feasible from the start.
This leads to the often debated question of the merits or demerits
of using, for literacy work and basic education, a native language
other than that with which the natives to be educated are familiar
at the time when their education is to begin. Such another language
could either be an established native lingua franca or a large local
language which is artificially extended beyond its natural bound­
aries for educational and other purposes. In other words, natives to
be educated would receive their introduction to literacy and their
3 The first two in the Morobe District, with Kate also used in the Highlands
Districts, the latter in the Madang District,
142 Neu) Guinea on the Threshold
elementary education in a native language which they themselves
would have to learn first.
The main argument usually levelled against such a procedure is
that it is wasteful of time and effort; if the natives to be educated
have to learn a foreign language to receive their literacy training
and basic education, such a foreign language might just as well be
English in the first place.
This argument overlooks the fact that, for a New Guinea native,
it is totally unrealistic to place the learning of English and the
achievement of literacy in it on the same level as the acquisition of
a working knowledge of another native language and of becoming
literate in that. New Guinea natives experience relatively little
difficulty, and need only little time, to become quite proficient in
another New Guinea language, particularly if the latter is typologi-
cally similar to their own language. Its sound system and gram­
matical structure are not fundamentally divergent from those of
their own language, even if the vocabulary may be different. It
serves as the reference system and vehicle of communication of a
culture quite comparable to their own, and does not abound in totally
alien concepts. At the same time the orthography of such another
native language is simple and consistent, so that achieving literacy
in it is a relatively easier task for natives to whom being made
literate is a novel experience. By way of contrast, the sound system
and grammatical structure of English are totally and fundamentally
dissimilar from those of any New Guinea language, the language
constitutes a reference system to a culture whose very essence is
completely alien to the natives, and it abounds in concepts which
they cannot even begin to understand on first being confronted
with them. In consequence, the mastery of English is a very hard
task indeed for the natives, especially for those who have had no
previous education of any sort, and the achievement of literacy in
English, with its highly complex and inconsistent orthography, is
a long and difficult process.
The argument that the natives might as well be taught English
from the start, if their education and their becoming literate are
to involve their learning another language anyway, is therefore not
soundly based. On the contrary, being made literate and receiving
some basic education in another native language greatly facilitates
their prospects of absorbing literacy in English and of achieving a
good command of it.
At first sight, therefore, there seems to be every reason to suggest
that in New Guinea, when vernacular education is impractical, the
local lingua franca should be used for the purpose of making natives
literate and of conveying some basic education to them, before they
are taught and made literate in English. However, conditions in
New Guinea usually present a simpler and easier practical approach
to the problem. There is only one situation in which utilizing a
Language and Literacy 143
kind of local lingua franca may perhaps be preferable to the
suggestions made below: if a large language is found to consist of a
number of divergent dialects, it may be possible to select one of
these dialects and use it as the standard form throughout the entire
language area for the purpose of literacy work and basic education.
It will be of advantage if the dialect chosen has some prestige value
amongst the natives (for instance because it may be spoken in the
area in which a ceremonial ground or a patrol post or mission
station is located), because this will help overcome the resistance
which speakers of other dialects may offer to it. Linguistically,
speakers of other dialects should have only very little difficulty in
becoming accomplished in the standard dialect.
In all other instances in which the vernacular cannot be used, and
in which the natives would have to learn another language first, it
seems most plausible to resort instead to a language which the
majority of the natives already know, and which is perfectly suited
for this purpose: a lingua franca already in general use over wide
areas of Papua and New Guinea: Pidgin or Police Motu.
The attacks which have been made upon the former on a variety
of grounds are very largely emotionally based or are attempts to
rationalize emotional attitudes. It is indeed unfortunate that Pidgin
happens to be spoken in an area in which the European population
speaks English and finds its ears insulted by the form of a number
of Pidgin words which resemble uncouth English words, though
their meanings are in fact quite different and harmless. The
suggestion that Pidgin is clumsy, ambiguous, and a very inadequate
vehicle for communication is largely unjustified, and stems from
the fact that the number of Europeans in New Guinea who have a
really proficient command of the language is astonishingly small.
The suggestion that Pidgin is a debased language invented by the
Europeans for the purpose of keeping the natives in their place is
contradicted by the fact that Pidgin is essentially a native creation,
is structurally a Melanesian, i.e. a native, language, is spreading
amongst the native population without active participation of the
Europeans, and is not really well known by more than a small
portion of the European population in New Guinea.
The fact that Police Motu, which is just as much, if not more, a
‘pidginized’ language as Pidgin itself, is rarely the target of com­
parable attacks, demonstrates quite clearly that the attacks on Pidgin
have their root mainly in the emotional, and rationalized emotional,
attitudes of English speakers. To them Pidgin sounds unpleasantly
familiar, whereas Police Motu sounds as alien as any other native
language; and they think they can easily ‘pick up’ Pidgin (mostly
with disastrous results), but that Police Motu calls for more serious
study.
Whatever the reasons for attacking Pidgin may be, be it in New
Guinea itself, in Australia, or at the United Nations, it appears
144 Netv Guinea on the Threshold
highly unrealistic and wasteful not to utilize a language well known
by a large portion of the native population, including children, for
the purpose of literacy work and elementary education. Provided
it is realized that a good command of Pidgin requires a certain
amount of concentrated study, Pidgin has the great advantage that
European teachers can relatively easily be trained in it. Also,
literacy and basic teaching materials can be produced in it more
readily than in vernaculars for which native informants have to be
trained first, and the number of users of the same materials is very
great. Much the same, with little more complication, holds true for
Police Motu, which is a well-known and fairly simple language.
One argument frequently heard against the use of Pidgin in
literacy work and for elementary education is that it is likely to
prejudice the chances of the natives to learn good, i.e. ‘correct’,
English afterwards. This argument is based on the erroneous
assumption, held by most Europeans in the Territory, that Pidgin is
in fact only ‘incorrect’, or ‘corrupt’ English. This may well be true of
the ‘Pidgin’ spoken by many Europeans in New Guinea, but is
certainly wrong with regard to correct Pidgin, which is very much
a native language. One other important factor which such critics
persistently overlook is the fact that the natives to be educated are
usually quite fluent in Pidgin already, even before receiving any
instruction, and its use for literacy work and elementary education
therefore does not introduce an additional factor which may ad­
versely influence their subsequent learning of English. On the
contrary, being made literate in an orthographically simple and
consistent language like Pidgin, which they already know well, and
receiving some systematic training in organized thinking through
basic education with Pidgin as a medium of instruction, will have a
beneficial influence upon their ability to learn English properly
afterwards and to become literate in it.
What has been said of Pidgin applies equally to Police Motu as
the medium of elementary instruction and first literacy work, except
that no comparable fears and criticisms are, as a rule, voiced
concerning its use.
At this point the obvious question arises of whether, because of
the comparative ease and simplicity of their application in practice,
Pidgin and Police Motu may not be more appropriate for first
literacy work and elementary education in all instances in New
Guinea than vernacular education in those areas in which this is
feasible. The answer is that in all instances vernacular education
constitutes the optimum means for achieving literacy and conveying
elementary education prior to the switch to English. The reason:
Pidgin and Police Motu, while completely native in their basic sound
systems and grammatical structures, and familiar to the natives in
constituting reference systems of essentially native cultures, reflect
Language and Literacy 145
the phonologies of local vernaculars in the finer details of their
sound systems in given areas. In consequence, it is not advisable to
assume that the pronunciation of Pidgin as spoken by the natives
of a given area will exactly correspond to the Pidgin phonology
underlying its orthography, so the teachers, or the linguists assigned
to undertake this task, must observe the local peculiarities in
pronunciation carefully and must take them into account in
literacy work. This is exactly the same problem which faces teachers
in elementary schools in English dialect areas, especially in the
British Isles, in which regional pronunciations of English require
special attention for literacy work. This problem is therefore nothing
unusual or additional to ordinary elementary teaching activities,
and teachers in New Guinea would require only a little additional
training to cope with it. An example may illustrate the problem in
Pidgin: in several areas of New Guinea, speakers of Pidgin do not
differentiate between l and r sounds, but use only one, e.g. r. This
reflects the phonology of the vernaculars spoken by these natives,
and is not a fault of Pidgin. In making these natives literate, the
teachers must give special attention to their learning to distinguish,
in pronunciation, between l and r, which they are taught to keep
separate in writing. If this is not done, they will carry over their
failure to distinguish between these two sounds into English, but
not because they were first made literate in Pidgin; the trouble they
have in separating the two sounds is due to the nature of their
vernacular. If they were made literate in their vernacular first, they
would become acquainted with only one of the two symbols in
writing, e.g. with r, and recognize it as representing an r-sound.
When switching to English, they would be familiarized with the
written symbol Z as something new, and would associate it readily
with one of the new alien sounds of the English language, i.e. the
Z-sound. A good parallel example from European languages is the
difficulty which some German speakers have in distinguishing
between / and v when learning English: both these symbols are
associated with the /-sound in the German orthography (as both
the letters Zand r are associated with an r-sound in Pidgin in some
areas), and German students of English tend to associate both the
letters / and v with the pronunciation of /.4 At the same time, they
will have less difficulty with the English th-sound which is alien to
them, and which they associate readily with the equally strange and
new written symbol th (as natives having become literate in the
vernacular and knowing only the r-symbol readily associate the new
symbol l with the alien Z-sound when learning English).
The last, and at present officially adhered to, linguistic solution
to make New Guinea natives literate, and to introduce them to
4 They are of course in a more favourable position than the Pidgin speakers
referred to, because the u-sound exists in German, whereas the Z-sound is absent
from the regional types of Pidgin under discussion.
146 New Guinea on the Threshold
elementary education, is to utilize English from the start. This has a
number of obvious advantages: one set of literacy and elementary
teaching materials can be used for the whole of New Guinea,
teachers can be trained relatively easily, can be of lower proficiency
than those needed for supervising vernacular or some other native
language teaching or even than those required for teaching in
Pidgin and Police Motu, and are therefore more easily available
and in more plentiful supply, and there is no need for a switch of
the language of instruction as the education progresses beyond the
basic elementary level. On the debit side there is the fact that the
natives face the extremely difficult task of having to learn a totally
strange language serving a culture utterly alien to them, to be made
literate in its highly complex and inconsistent orthography, and to
cope with the problems of the incompatibility of the sound systems
of their vernaculars with those of English (like those described
above with reference to l and r in Pidgin) at the same time. These
difficulties have already been discussed above, and there is no need
to repeat them. Suffice it to say that the overall difficulties confront­
ing the natives in this situation are of a much higher order than
those of the other approaches discussed. Results would be more
speedily achieved by one of the alternative methods in the long
run, and would be of a much better quality than those produced
by the utilization of English from the start, even if the oral method
of teaching English is used first and literacy work in it left for later.
It remains to look at a situation in which none of the possibilities
discussed so far apply, i.e. in which the vernacular has not been
studied and the natives to receive education are not familiar with
another known vernacular or a local lingua franca, or with Pidgin
or Police Motu. Such situations are not likely to be encountered
frequently in areas in which native education is to be introduced,
but they are a possibility to be reckoned with. In such a case one
of the following two courses of action seems likely to yield the most
satisfactory results in the long run:
(a) Every effort should be made to have the local vernacular
studied by a competent linguist sufficiently well for vernacular
education to be initiated. This may, however, prove to be a
lengthy task if the bilingual approach to linguistic study cannot
be applied, i.e. if the native and the linguist have no language in
common, so that the linguist has to use the slow monolingual
approach. This method would, however, be impracticable where
a number of different small vernaculars are encountered in the
area in which native education is to be introduced, with no single
one of them spoken by a sufficient number of bilingual or multi­
lingual speakers of the other vernaculars to make feasible its use
as the language of first education. In such instances, approach (b)
should be resorted to.
Language and Literacy 147
(b) An assessment of the language situation should be made to
establish which known language or existing lingua franca is
likely to spread shortly into the given area in the near future-
one of them certainly will if the area is brought sufficiently under
government and/or missionary influence for the introduction of
native education to be seriously considered for it. Once the nature
of the wider language has been established, its introduction and
spread should be encouraged, the language actively taught if
necessary, and it should be made the vehicle of the natives’
literacy work and basic elementary education before they are
introduced to English. As has been pointed out above, the intro­
duction of English from the start is not likely to yield results
comparable in the long run in speed or quality with those
achieved if the suggested approach is followed, and they would
be particularly unsatisfactory in a situation such as this because
of the natives’ total inexperience with European culture and the
complete absence of a means of communication between them
and the English-speaking teachers.

As this chapter has stressed, one of the most important first goals
of native education in New Guinea is to make the natives literate
and proficient in English in large numbers in order to enable them
to progress towards higher, and eventually tertiary, education. The
teaching of English must be done as quickly, thoroughly, and
proficiently as possible, for which it is of great importance that the
surest and most efficient ways be found. What has been demon­
strated in this chapter constitutes the author’s opinion of the
linguistic methods most suited to arrive at this goal. In summary,
they are:
(1) Natives should first be made literate and should receive some
elementary basic education in a language with which they are
already familiar before their formal education begins.
(2) This language should be the local vernacular whenever
possible, i.e. whenever the vernacular has been sufficiently well
studied for a linguistically correct, consistent orthography to be
devised for it.
(3) If a given vernacular is insufficiently known, compromise
solutions are suggested because the study of unknown vernaculars
is a very slow process the results of which may be too slow for
the purpose of native education. The compromises suggested are:
(a) making use of the phenomenon of bilingualism and multi­
lingualism in using a well-known vernacular; or
(b) employing a local lingua franca already known to the
natives to be educated; or
(c) using Pidgin or Police Motu, if the natives to be educated
are already familiar with either.
148 New Guinea on the Threshold
(4) If in a given area none of the compromise solutions mentioned
under (3) is applicable, and the local vernacular is insufficiently
known, either:
(a) the vernacular should be studied and utilized, or if this is
impracticable,
(b) the introduction or spread into the area of that large
vernacular or lingua franca which is likely to be introduced
or to spread into the area in the near future should be
actively encouraged and it should be employed for native
education.
(5) The use of English for literacy and basic education from the
start produces difficulties for the natives which are greater than
those they encounter if one of the methods mentioned above is
first employed and the education is subsequently switched to
English.

The very important educational goal of making the natives of

New Guinea literate and highly proficient in English is likely to be
achieved sooner, and with more satisfactory results, if one of the
methods referred to above under (l)-(4) is followed, than if English
is used from the start for native education.
 8

Social Change and Social Movements

PAULA BROWN

Social and cultural change is continuous in all societies. The

changes which take place in an isolated non-literate community are
largely inaccessible to scholars; archaeology and the analysis of
traditions provide limited information, but this work has hardly
begun in New Guinea. For the most part, we discuss social change
as it occurs in communities which are in contact with vastly different
societies or are in transitional periods of revolutionary or especially
rapid change. But the description of change we might attempt for
an isolated community has to be concerned with somewhat different
problems, problems like population growth and decline, adaptation
to environmental variations, diffusion of the relatively small stock
of ideas taken from other communities, and the acceptance of
internal discoveries and inventions.
Our lack of knowledge about social change in pre-contact New
Guinea cannot be remedied. Even if we were to discover and study
a hitherto isolated community, our very presence there would be a
source of change. Many cultural descriptions by anthropologists
assume that a relatively static situation preceded discovery and
contact with Western society. The ethnographic description is of a
timeless pre-contact way of life. When we talk about social change,
we talk about those changes which have occurred since discovery by
Europeans, and sometimes that which has taken place during some
specified period. Changes which follow contact between greatly
different societies and cultures are of a more traumatic kind than
those which take place either within an isolated community or
within a complex Western society. These changes can be viewed
in the context of colonization, and for our purposes we can contrast
two broad types, without attempting to include all possible colonial
situations.
1. Colonists occupy the land and the aboriginal population be­
comes a dwindling minority with a decreasing proportion of full-
bloods, as has been the case in North America and Australia.
149
150 New Guinea on the Threshold
Such colonies develop from the standard of the immigrants, and
rapidly become economically advanced and politically indepen­
dent.
2. Where the area has a dense indigenous population and/or is
unattractive to the colonists they enter in small numbers and
establish a few settlements, plantations, etc. They assume political
control and introduce Western techniques, economic forms,
religion, and culture. The aboriginal inhabitants mostly remain in
their own communities. They become the objects of educational,
medical, and administrative activities and religious missions.
Often large-scale changes are introduced, such as economic de­
velopment programmes to raise the standard of living. This has
been the form of colonization in most of Africa, southern Asia,
and the Pacific. Many of the former colonies of this type have
now achieved independence with an economic and cultural stan­
dard far different from that before their discovery and colonization.
But most of them have higher birth, mortality, and illiteracy
rates, lower incomes and standards of living than Europe or
former colonies of the first type.
The Territory of Papua and New Guinea is one of the second
type, a dependent country; it is one of the backward parts of the
world, largely undeveloped and primitive. There are still a few
New Guineans who have never seen a white man. I shall not
examine the historical, political, or economic reasons for this back­
wardness. But I shall ask whether there are any special character­
istics of the people of New Guinea and their communities which
help to account for it. My principal interest is in social movements
as organized efforts to change social conditions. Cargo cults will be
discussed as a form of social movement, and I shall suggest some
reasons why they occur in New Guinea and the conditions under
which they may disappear.
N ew G uinea societies
Many writers have remarked upon the very large number—many
hundreds—of distinct languages in Papua-New Guinea (see Chapter
7). The exact number may never be known, since some will have
become extinct before they can be recorded, and linguists will
disagree about the distinction between language and dialect. How­
ever, the counting of languages and differentiation of language
families is a side issue; what is significant is the separateness of
native communities. Melanesia is notable for the small scale of
indigenous political organization, the absence of any central
authority or formal legal procedures within a tribe or even a
village, the constant intertribal and intratribal warfare. These
conditions prevailed even in areas where tens of thousands of people
spoke the same language and shared the same culture. In the
Social Change and Social Movements 151
highlands of New Guinea the largest language and cultural groups
of Melanesia are found, but even there the largest unified group
which restricted internal warfare and joined together in occasional
ceremony was a tribe of a few thousand people. And in these no
central authority could prevent internal conflict and fighting.
The small local community, rarely more than a few hundred
people, was normally the largest effective political unit. Beyond
this, most people had relatives and partners in trade and ceremonial
exchange. Outsiders were on the whole regarded with suspicion;
one did not travel among strangers. Intervillage and intertribal
raids and attacks might occur at any time.
There were no great differences in forms of political organization
between New Guinea communities; none was differently armed,
more productive, or stratified so as to achieve domination over
another group; there were no states, no slaves, no rulers or ruled.
However, there were some differences in the size and area of
community and in the number of people who combined to fight or
to hold a ceremony.
Colonial administrations in Africa and Asia have had to overcome
established systems of local authority and privilege to form a
Western style of administration on the large scale necessary for a
modem nation. They have had to meet organized conservative
resistance to innovation, and have had to substitute other selective
procedures for hereditary privilege. In New Guinea these problems
do not exist. There were no centralized states, no hereditary
positions of political authority, no competing organized systems of
government. Some local leaders in a few parts of Papua-New Guinea
were called ‘chief, and there was a ‘Paramount Chief in the
Trobriand Islands, but these did not have officially established
power nor any important legislative, judicial, or executive functions.
Such absence of indigenous political structures has given the
colonial power no foundation on which to build modem govern­
ment; but it has also relieved it of the necessity, so common else­
where, of breaking down the old hereditary system and transforming
it into a modem one (Brown 1963). Once tribal warfare is stopped,
larger associations can be introduced. It does appear that regional
alignments may precede a national one, but there does not seem
to be resistance to the idea of a central government.
There is, in some respects, a kind of sameness about these small
and separate New Guinea communities. Before the Europeans
arrived all these communities were technologically at more or less
the same level, using stone, wood, and occasionally bone or shell
for tools, making pottery in only a few places, working vegetable
fibres into clothing, belts, and containers, cultivating tubers, bananas,
sugarcane, and vegetables, raising pigs, building houses of wood,
reeds, leaves, and grass, and using bow and arrow, spears, and
occasionally clubs and shields to fight. However, there are striking
152 New Guinea on the Threshold
regional differences: the advanced agricultural techniques of the
highlanders as compared to shifting cultivation in the lowlands and
sago gathering in the coastal swamps; specialization and trade in
food or other products between coastal fishing and inland gardening
communities; large villages in the Eastern Highlands and dispersed
houses in the Western; and arts, cosmological beliefs, myths, rituals,
and magic were distinctive in different areas. The people were
generally disinterested in tradition, myth, genealogy, and other
ways of preserving the past. Thus in some places cults were adopted,
spread, and abandoned as soon as new cults were introduced (Ryan
1961; Williams 1930).
Subsistence did not fully occupy the time and energies of the
people; they had leisure to fight, to trade, and to celebrate. A
dominant interest throughout New Guinea is material wealth—not
only in the possession of it but in its use for exchange. In the
absence of fixed hereditary positions of authority or the accumu­
lation of heritable property, prestige is gained by participating in
the exchange system. Essentially, a man gains prestige by his
application and shrewdness in exchange relations; he arranges
marriages and ceremonial distributions, takes a leading part in
group activities, adopts younger men who become his dependants
and supporters, takes several wives, who produce food and raise
pigs for distribution, and enters into exchange relations with his
wives’ brothers and his sisters’ husbands.
Leadership fluctuates as men’s fortunes and activities wax and
wane. A young man has not the productive resources, the accumu­
lation of exchange partnerships and credit, to be a leader; an old
man has no longer the energy to keep up his obligations. Achieve­
ment is the result of hard work and intelligent investment. Native
ideas of power and wealth are concerned with gaining supporters
and dependants within the local community to help the leader hold
a successful ceremony or win a single battle. There is no permanent
accumulation of power or wealth, no inheritance of privilege. The
valuable goods—shells, stone axes, bird of paradise feathers, etc.—
circulate within and between communities through a complex
exchange system based upon personal ties of kinship and marriage.
R eactions to contact
New Guinea was discovered early in Pacific exploration, but until
the late eighteenth century there were no European settlements.
Explorers, missionaries, and commercial companies preceded ad­
ministration in many places. Only in the late nineteenth century
was administration at all regularized, and this was restricted to
the coastal fringe and smaller islands. Administration changed from
British to Australian in Papua and from German to Australian in
New Guinea long before the interior was visited and patrol posts
were established.
Social Change and Social Movements 153
Interior New Guinea was explored in the present century, with a
more advanced technology than in the exploration of Africa, Asia, or
America. The first view of Europeans that most inhabitants had was
of a well-equipped patrol composed of one or two Australian
officers, a native police force, and a line of native carriers. Many
such patrols carried radios and cleared areas for aeroplane landings
or airdrops of supplies. The dominance of the European, his wealth,
and his material possessions have been evident from first sight. The
Australian differs enormously from the Melanesian in power and
wealth. The unschooled native knows nothing of the history of
Western technological, political, and economic development. He
sees the European in possession of material goods, but he sees no
mine or factory; he may only know that these goods arrive from
outside in ships or aeroplanes. In remote government stations
nowadays several planes arrive daily, carrying passengers, mail,
and a great range of goods, from frozen foods to power equipment,
for the station officers. Native prisoners unload the planes and
crowds gather. The plane then departs for unknown places to
reload and bring further supplies. The European does no menial
labour to obtain these things; he sits in an office and sends messages
by letter or wireless.
The goods and power of the European (and of the natives
associated with him as assistants, police, etc.) are very attractive to
New Guineans. Cloth and metal are eagerly sought, and, while they
are very rare, confer prestige on their possessors. They are often
incorporated into the system of valuables used for prestige-giving
exchanges. Money becomes a valuable, a vital part of ceremonial
payments; European goods such as knives and axes replace native
manufactures in ceremonial exchange at marriage and death. But
European manufactures are also a coveted part of a rising standard
of living—clothing, tools, and domestic hardware are quickly in­
corporated into daily life.
New Guineans can obtain none of these things as easily as the
Europeans seem to get them. Only small quantities come through
hard work, often as a plantation worker far from home, or by trade.
Not only does the white man own many of these things, but he sets
the terms of trade and the wages whereby the natives can get them.
Only occasionally does he introduce a cash crop or other source of
cash income, and these incomes are often pitifully small. A high
value is attached to European goods, and people want them. At
first they may be just novelties, but later they are incorporated
into daily life as luxuries or even as necessities.
S ocial m ovem ents

Movements, cults, and protests have been reported in many parts

of Melanesia. Only a few of these have been reported in any detail
by scholars who have remained in the communities long enough to
154 New Guinea on the Threshold
gain the confidence of leaders and participants and compile a
description, history, and analysis of beliefs and actions. Several
writers have attempted to state the general characteristics of cults.
Here I draw upon some accounts of social movements, my own
experience in New Guinea, and the general discussions, to deter­
mine the place of movements in general, cargo cults, and protests
in the changes now occurring in Papua-New Guinea.
The feelings of the indigenous people towards Europeans have
been aptly described as ‘hopeless envy’ (Mair 1948:67). The people
are not always content to wait for the ordinary processes of edu­
cation and economic advancement to reach them through the slow
expansion of services by the Administration. In a number of places,
at different times since the 1890s (Hogbin 1958:207), native-led
social movements have had as their goal the quick acquisition of
European goods, and often also of power. I consider cargo cults
to be a kind of social movement.1
A great deal of attention and concern has focused upon ‘cargo
cults’ in New Guinea, and this shows no sign of abating. Jarvie
(1964) devotes a book to the problem of explaining the cults, and a
number of studies have appeared in recent years (Schwartz 1962;
Burridge 1960; Worsley 1957; Lawrence 1964). Most of these have
emphasized the bizarre nature of the beliefs and the behaviour of
the adherents—destruction of property, trembling, credulity. They
are often regarded as phenomena quite apart from social develop­
ments, retrogressive, fantastic, hysterical, led by insane or pretendant
prophets. Some writers have directed attention to the political and
economic factors and the problems of the people undergoing change
in Melanesia (Stanner 1953; Worsley 1957; Hogbin 1958): their
tensions, crises, and their poor and apparently hopeless plight in
comparison with Europeans. The general situation is comprehen­
sible, but the appearance of a cult at a particular place and time is
more difficult to explain (Inglis 1957). It depends upon certain
common conditions as well as upon the presence of an outstanding
leader who may have visions and the gift of prophecy. It also
requires acceptance by the community.
Stanner (1953:63-4) lists six common characteristics of cargo
movements:
1. Leadership—the initiative of distinctive personalities.
2. Contact with the spirit world; visions, swoons, etc.
3. Orders, charters; systematic instruction of followers. These
vary and may include positive or negative exhortations and
the abandonment of old ways.
1 King (1956:27) presents an appropriate definition of social movement: 'A
group venture extending beyond a local community or a single event and
involving a systematic effort to inaugurate changes in thought, behaviour, and
social relationships’.
Social Change and Social Movements 155
4. Prophecies: the arrival of a ship or plane sent by the spirits
with a cargo of non-traditional wealth for the natives.
5. Mass demonstrations, often hysterical or eccentric.
6. Symbolic Europeanism in articles and forms of organization.
Of these characteristics all but the second occur in social move­
ments which are not cargo cults.
Many movements with goals similar to those of cargo cults have
occurred in Papua-New Guinea. They have a number of character­
istics in common with cargo cults: a leader, moral reforms with
orders and charters, co-operative community effort, expectations of
wealth, mass demonstrations, symbols of Europeans in the form of
books and papers, and quasi-military discipline. They often bring
together members of a number of communities, former enemy
villages and tribes, and sometimes several language groups. A
common feature is the re-siting and re-building of villages with new
architectural styles.
An example of this, the Tommy Kabu movement in the Purari
Delta of Papua, has been well reported (Maher 1958, 1961). Tommy
Kabu returned from wartime work with Australians in 1946 and
began a programme of change. ‘The aim of the movement was to
establish the Purari economy on a co-operative tribal basis so far as
productive effort and its returns were concerned, but what was
produced was to be sold for cash on European or native markets in
Port Moresby’ (Maher 1961:58). The economic programme ‘was only
part of what was planned and attempted. The already tottering
ceremonial system was swept away . . . Christianity was held up,
at least in name, as the proper religion for the new order’ (ibid.:59).
‘Villages formed their own police force, raised a flag and copied
military ceremonies some of the people had seen in Port Moresby’
(ibid.). ‘Wherever he established a more or less permanent head­
quarters, he had an “office” set up with tables, chairs, and official­
looking papers which he had gathered from various places’ (ibid.:
60).
Given the strong and common desire for change, the negative
aspects of the program were rather easily accomplished . . . the
rejection of the old, both real and symbolic, could be done, or at
least appear to be done, with desire and a moment’s action, but
the construction of the new required continuing activity and a
knowledge of specific techniques which were also essentially
new (ibid.:61).
New village sites and new architectural styles replaced the old. The
Kompani, with contributions from the people, purchased a boat in
which produce of the Purari Delta was to be transported to market.
The scheme foundered because the specific knowledge and tech­
niques were lacking, the boat was lost in a fire, account books were
156 New Guinea on the Threshold
not kept, the distribution centre in Port Moresby was inefficient
and expensive, and the business was badly run. The movement
brought together in one organization for the first time a number of
Purari tribes, but it did not obtain help from the Administration,
and the necessary management skills were not acquired. Although
the Kompani continued, it had much reduced support and few
achievements. ‘As failure became apparent, disillusionment with
the Kompani spread but the Purari’s interest in “doing business”
remained strong’ (ibid.:73). Tommy began a much more modest
business venture in 1955, but except for this there was no further
organized effort.
Maher suggested that the failure of the movement might be
followed by apathy and stagnation, or by a cargo cult for which
some ideas were present (1958, 1961). The second alternative has
not been reported, but it has been a later phase of other movements
in New Guinea. Paliau and Yali began as leaders like Tommy Kabu;
their early efforts for practical programmes were quickly re-directed
into cargo cults. Guiart (1952a) describes a borderline type of cargo
cult’ in Malekula, in the New Hebrides.
In order for people to join any movement for social change, their
wish for a different life must be strongly held. Their wishes can
vary greatly in content. They can wish to return to the golden age
of the past (as in the American Indian Ghost Dance); they can wish
for a somewhat better standard of living in the present (a labour
movement); or they can have millennial dreams of a perfect age
and salvation. In its common Melanesian form the wish is for the
achievement of European wealth and power. These feelings are
often linked with resentment at the native’s present position. ‘The
white man shall go’ is a common, though not universal, element;
nationalism is often involved as well (Guiart 1951).
There have been many types of movement in other parts of
Melanesia (Kouwenhoven n.d.; Allan 1951; Guiart 1951, 1952a), and
indeed in undeveloped territories everywhere. Movements and cargo
cults are not restricted to Melanesia, although some of their features
may be distinctive. Goals other than European goods may be sought
(for example in North America, the religious movements of Hand­
some Lake and the Shakers, and African separatist churches).
In Papua-New Guinea few adults are literate and fully trained
for any sort of clerical employment. The majority have had at most
a few years in a mission school under poorly educated teachers.
This ignorance makes it impossible for the prominent men to
understand the administration, economy, and technology in which
they live or towards which they are moving. Yet some of them are
remarkably adaptable and enthusiastic for economic and political
development. One such man is Kondom, a Chimbu who was a boy
when the first Australian patrol explored the New Guinea highlands
in 1933. Without any formal schooling, he has during the past
Social Change and Social Movements 157
twenty years, with administrative support, been a luluai, member
of the District Advisory Council, observer at the pre-1961 Legis­
lative Council, observer at conferences of the South Pacific Com­
mission, President of a Native Local Government Council, and
elected member of the Legislative Council for the Highlands 1961-4
(Brown 1963). He failed to be elected to the House of Assembly in
1964, but is President of the newly-formed Co-operative Society in
Chimbu. He led the local people in developing cash crops and
growing coffee, and in 1954 built a large hall of woven bamboo with
a thatched roof and instituted meetings to encourage reform and
development. A sort of record was kept of points made in these
meetings either by a native recorder or government officer attending.
The introduction of cash crops and problems of processing coffee
and marketing produce were the main matters for discussion. A set
of rules was put forward:
My name is liduai Kondom. The meeting is about the govern­
ment laws. I want the natives to hold these laws. These are the
rules:
1. Man must not kill other human beings.
2. Man must not commit adultery with young girls and old
women.
3. Men must not bum the house.
4. Men must not steal someone’s property.
5. Men must listen to their head man or Luluai or Tultul.
6. The women must not kill the young child that was born.
7. Man must not play with someone’s wife.
8. The best and most important one is education.2
Meetings I attended in 1958 were of a similar character. An
agenda in Pidgin-English was put on a blackboard, with items on
cash crops, schools, taxes, prohibition of fighting, and the beginning
of local government. On these occasions leading men spoke in
favour of progress, and the audience cheered, expressing unanimous
approval. In 1959 a Local Government Council was established in
central Chimbu. The councillors elected were, in comparison with
the previous appointed officials, young, progressive, and mostly
fluent in Pidgin-English. The monthly meetings of the Council are
held in a building of timber and corrugated iron; members sit on
benches facing the President, who wields a gavel and proceeds
formally through an agenda, with the help of the clerk and super­
vising officer. Members stand to address the chair, propose motions,
vote, form committees, and so on; the ritual of procedure is more or
less learned, but it has no meaning beyond being the white man’s
way of conducting Council meetings. The main Council business
concerns the use of the few thousand pounds’ tax: proposals for
2 From a notebook given to me by Kondom, with spelling corrected, entry
dated 19 July 1954.
158 New Guinea on the Threshold
expenditure on certain projects, estimates, and calculations are
made by the supervising officer. Chimbu Council meetings are
occasions for government officers to speak to Councillors and
announce new developments. The Councillors raise questions of
interest to them—such matters as payment for work on roads and
the sale of coffee. The Council is more of a centre for complaint
and information than an organ of government in the terms of the
Ordinance.
The confusion of the people can perhaps be conveyed in a few
examples. One Councillor bought a cow, and then at a Council
meeting asked the government to provide a milking machine. In
discussing the high price of locally raised chickens and the relatively
low price of imported tinned chickens, Kondom remarked that the
tinned ones are cheaper because they are made in a factory.
Although the decline in world coffee prices was responsible for
lower payments for coffee beans in Chimbu, this explanation was
never accepted by the people; lower prices were responsible for
much anti-European feeling.
Such an atmosphere of ignorance is a fertile field for the
Melanesians’ belief that the desired manufactured goods may be
delivered to them by their ancestors. ‘Cargo’ beliefs and incipient
cults are common in Melanesia; many of them fail to attract
sufficient followers to become a cult, or are stopped by government
officers, or die out before many communities are involved (Salisbury
1958; Read 1958; Bemdt 1952-3; Burridge 1960, on Manam). Firth
(1955:131) calls them ‘prototype cargo-cult phenomena’. He says
there can be a ‘cargo’-cult type of behaviour, without its attaining
the organized coherence of a movement or cult development.
C ults
The desire for social and economic improvement may be expressed
in social movements which include confused and mistaken beliefs
about money and the manufacture of goods. A ‘cargo’ cult is one
form of such a movement. A message is communicated in a dream
or vision, the prophet foresees a millennium of prosperity and
plenty, nearly always of European goods. To attain this the believers
carry out rites, often destructive of traditional property; they may
appear hysterical, entranced, etc. Other common beliefs are that
the Europeans have the secret of obtaining wealth which had been
withheld from the natives, and that the ancestors or spirits have now
sent a ship or aeroplane loaded with cargo for the natives.
During the time the white man has been present in our land, so
it was told, we have seen the many ‘good things’—steel tomahawks,
steel knives, laplap [cloth], saucepans, etc., and the good foods,
which have all come to our country from outside . . . these good
things have always been sent to us by our predeceased forefathers,
but instead of finding their way direct to us, the white man knew
Social Change and Social Movements 159
how to intercept them and did so. Then instead of passing the
goods on to us, they put them into trade stores, and we had to
work very hard to get even a part of them. However, our prede­
ceased forefathers have found out what has happened to all these
goods and now they will be bringing them direct to us.3
A few studies have traced the origin and development of such
movements. Lawrence examines traditional beliefs and the several
stages of contact, including elements of Christian belief.4 His study
of Yali, a cult leader, first shows him being supported by the
Administration in his efforts to raise the standard of living in his
area of the Rai Coast, Madang District. At that time there was no
cargo cult dogma involved, but later some members of the Letub
cult group took charge of the movement and it became a cargo cult
with Yali as its figurehead. Lawrence concludes, ‘Although Yali was
the accredited leader of the pagan Cargo Cult, I do not believe
that he was its sole or true originator’ (1955:12).
Yali seems to be a different sort of man from Mambu of Bogia,
who had an entirely mystical programme in which the secret of the
white men was revealed; Mambu performed miracles and produced
money. However, in the stories of their followers, both Yali and
Mambu were mythical figures, ‘symbols which focus ideas in Cargo.
. . . So far as they exercised political authority in accord with the
myth-dream, they were as divine kings’ (Burridge 1960:207).
Perhaps the fullest documentation to date on any movement in
New Guinea is on the one led by a man named Paliau in the
Admiralty Islands. Several phases were observed and reports and
analyses were given by Mead (1956) and Schwartz (1962). The
people of Manus were greatly affected by troops stationed there
during World War II; American Negro soldiers especially impressed
them. .After the war their discontent with the old way of life was
expressed both in social movements and in cult. In his monographs
on the Paliau movement, Schwartz distinguishes various phases:
1. Local phase: secular and partial programmes of change
were organized independently by leaders in their own villages to
eliminate certain aspects of the old culture.
2. Initial movement: Paliau instituted a programme of social,
economic, political, religious, and cultural transformation in a
movement for all Manus. This rejected the old culture and drew
on Christian belief for new goals.
3. First cult: during the events which are known as ‘The
Noise’ people destroyed their property and had convulsive
seizures. The cult spread rapidly and collapsed rapidly in many
villages. The first cult maintained Paliau’s original goals; Schwartz
3 From Report: Lieut. R. J. Stevenson, P.O., Akuna Police Post, 28 October
1944 to D.O. Bena Area; Patrol Report, Bena No. 8 of 1944/5; Agarabe area,
p. 12. Quoted in Bemdt 1953:231.
4 Lawrence’s major study (1964) was published after this paper was written;
these remarks are based upon his earlier work (1955).
160 New Guinea on the Threshold
characterizes the belief system as sparse, underdeveloped, un­
standardized.
4. Organizational phase: the movement was in the forefront,
and the development of a council, native courts, and co­
operatives was anticipated by new forms of organization. New
villages were built on the beaches, government recognition of
new forms of organization was sought, and government schools
were requested.
5. Plateau phase: a period of imposed waiting, drift, and
decline in morale, and conservatism.
6. Second cult: the main emphasis was on ghosts and the
reconstruction of cemeteries. This developed at a time when
establishment of a council and of a co-operative were expected
shortly. However, these were considered to require hard work.
The cult was a short route to Paradise.
7. Officialization phase: the council was established, and a co­
operative was to be instituted. This phase has not yet been
reported upon by Schwartz or Mead.
The people of Manus wanted the sort of wealth they saw among
the American troops. Several local leaders had small-scale pro­
grammes to achieve this. Then Paliau developed an inclusive
programme. After this, cult and movement alternated: the move­
ment demanded hard work for modest rewards; the cult promised
easy success. It may be that the obviously slow progress of secular
cultural transformation produced strains and impatience which
inclined the people towards the immediate rewards promised by the
cult. Collapse of the first cult was followed by a more practical pro­
gramme, but morale declined with delays, and yet another cult spread
through the area.
Schwartz’s account is the fullest yet available, and we can only
inquire whether this alternation of movement and cult is usual.
Reports of cults in Biak (de Bruyn 1951), the Vailala River (Williams
1934), Tanna (Guiart 1952b), and Buka (Worsley 1957) show that
cult beliefs often persist after the ritual stops and that the cult
behaviour may recur. ‘The persistence of these movements on Buka
shows that mere failure of a prophecy is no assurance that a cult
will lose its hold on the people’ (Worsley 1957:122). Descriptions of
Melanesian traditional religious cults with the aim of increased
food, pigs, shells, etc. suggest that they have many characteristics
in common with cargo cults (Williams 1930; Blood 1946; Ryan
1961).5
5 The belief systems involved in New Guinea cults have been studied by
only a few scholars; the accounts of Schwartz (1962) and Burridge (1960)
should be compared with one another and with that of Lawrence (1964).
Further examination of the similarities and differences between cults and social
movements would be of interest; so would a study of those Melanesian com­
munities which have neither. The influence of traditional beliefs and Christian
teaching on modem beliefs also needs to be studied.
Social Change and Social Movements 161
Attempts to understand and direct the course of social change in
Papua-New Guinea have been bedevilled by the consideration of
cargo cults as enigmatic phenomena and evidence of primitive
gullibility, suggestibility, and credulity (Williams 1934). Officers
and settlers are apprehensive of any suggestion of the presence of
cargo beliefs and cults. But while only some of the movements have
as their aim the ousting of the Administration, missionaries, or
settlers, many Europeans assume that all the cults are anti-European.
However, some movements, for example Marching Rule (Allan
1951), John Frum (Guiart 1952b), and the ‘Johnson movement’,
merely want to replace the present administrators with other
Europeans.
The destruction of property and neglect of subsistence, the
refusal to pay tax, the mass hysterical demonstrations and false
hopes are indeed serious matters for the Administrators who must
restore order. Overt cult manifestations can be stopped by police
action. However, cult belief pervades even where no ritual is
observed. Cults thrive on ignorance and wishful thinking. Cults
may alternate with secular movements or with a rather static and
apathetic state. Movements which are practical both in their ends
and in their means may incorporate the sort of false beliefs which
are common in cults, for example members of his movement
believed that ‘Tommy Kabu was married to a daughter of the king
of England and that they had two children’ (Maher 1961:61).
O ther forms of political and economic change
The movements which have been discussed are on a fairly large
scale for New Guinea, bringing together several communities in a
secular movement or a cargo cult. There have been many small-
scale communal enterprises led by local men with a little education
and entrepreneurial ability, such as Numbuk of Erap (Crocombe
and Hogbin 1963), Gulu at Amele, and Simogun at Dagua (Anon.
1951). Other community projects have had no single leader but a
small group of men have taken charge, as at Milne Bay (Belshaw
1955), or a group of villages have joined together, as at Sissano
Lagoon. Such undramatic enterprises, with or without official
support, are a common form of development in all colonial terri­
tories.
In Papua-New Guinea the government has sponsored Native
Local Government Councils, rural progress societies, co-operative
societies, agricultural extension projects, marketing projects, and
other political and economic programmes. Most are still in their
early stages, and without detailed studies it is difficult to assess
them. The best known and apparently most successful of these
has been the development of cocoa as a cash crop, combined with
advances in education, health, and local government, among the
Tolai of the Gazelle Peninsula, New Britain.
162 Netv Guinea on the Threshold
From time to time New Guineans demonstrate against govern­
ment-sponsored activities. They may refuse to support a project or
to pay a tax. These actions are sometimes attributed to cargo cult
beliefs, but they are nevertheless protests: they are organized
oppositions to the Administration. Our knowledge of their origin,
leadership, and organization is unfortunately slight. They seem to
be short lived and do not become social movements.
Papua-New Guinea has had few associations of employees or
trade unions. Several organized political and economic actions have
taken place or been led by police or military groups. Twice, Rabaul
has been the locale of a strike. In 1929 a one-day general strike was
organized by the police and extended to include other employees. It
was quickly suppressed. In June 1964 the native police in Rabaul
went on strike for some hours for better working conditions and
pay. The Pacific Islands Regiment has also demonstrated against
its rates of pay in recent years. The structure of these groups, the
skills and continuous service of their members give them the basis
for organized action which has not developed in labour lines on
plantations or among the employees of small private firms. When
such a group strikes, their action may be viewed as disloyalty rather
than as the expression of a labour grievance.
The labour movement in New Guinea has barely begun. When
the Public Service was reorganized in 1964 there was an immediate
reaction against discriminatory salary scales. But as work associ­
ations develop, employees must be expected to strike or protest to
demonstrate their views.

C ults and other movements

In his discussion of the Mansren cult, de Bruyn (1951:3-5) makes
some significant general points about these movements. He says
the movement is
a communal expression of the renunciation of the struggle for
life. It symbolises the efforts of a people to re-order and re­
organize its way of life as a result of changed conditions. . . .
Such movements, although they sometimes show strongly re­
ligious, syncretic features, are, I believe, merely psychological
reactions to existing situations. They are the people’s attempt to
gain relief or release from their distress, through the intervention
of supernatural powers in the efficacy of which they firmly
believe, which powers either belong to the indigenous religion or
are an element in an alien religion with which the people have
become familiar. . . . There is no essential difference between
these mystical and religious cults, and the aggressive movements
whose political nature is becoming more and more prominent.
From the psychological point of view both types of movement
are the same.
Social Change and Social Movements 163
Social movements are common in Papua-New Guinea; the
Melanesian type of movement is most often directed towards
obtaining an improved standard of living, including the accumu­
lation of European goods in quantity, and often the obtaining of
political power. It is a form of ‘revitalization’ movement: ‘a deliber­
ate, organized, conscious effort to construct a more satisfying culture’
(Wallace 1956:265). It is not nativistic or revivalistic, but reform­
ative and/or millenarian (Voget 1959).
Movement and cult have many common characteristics, but, as in
any historical event, each phase of a movement or a cult is in some
ways distinctive. The overthrow or departure of Europeans is not
always part of the programme. Nor need it include destruction of
property. In both the secular and cult movements the programme
commonly includes a list of reforms—leaders urge the people to
reject their old evil ways and become tidy, peaceable members of
the new society. The rejection of the past is accompanied by a
strong desire for a future in which the people have wealth and
power. The preparation for the arrival of new property may include
the re-siting of villages, new community plans, and new buildings.
The new property may be expected to arrive as cargo gift from
ancestors or as a result of community enterprise.
Various attempts have been made to pick out the defining features
of cults. From Stanner’s list we might select three: contact with
the spirit world, prophecies, and hysterical mass demonstrations.
But these characteristics are not limited to cults. Prayer is a common
preliminary to political meetings in New Guinea; when a co­
operative society was discussed in Chimbu, increased wealth was
prophesied as the result; and Kondom’s meetings were a mass (but
not hysterical) demonstration of a desire to change.
Hogbin (1958:215) has advanced a somewhat different set of
common characteristics of cults: the belief in the cargo, the cere­
monies, the feasting, the constructional work, the emergence of
leaders with their codes of correct behaviour. But while the belief
that cargo is being sent is a defining feature of cargo cults, cere­
monies and feasting can be part of any cult ritual; and leaders and
codes of correct behaviour are as characteristic of social movements
in general as they are of cults.
Margaret Mead distinguishes cult from movement while noting
that they can occur in combination. She concludes that:
The essential features of a cargo cult manifestation are these: An
innovator, inspired by a supernatural revelation, announces . . .
the arrival, by supernatural agency, of a cargo made up of a large
assortment of objects emanating from the world of the European;
at the same time, the invading whites will go away. . . . The
inauguration of the new order may be accompanied by some
natural hazard . . . those who will be its beneficiaries are urged
to prepare themselves for the millennium by destroying their
164 Neto Guinea on the Threshold
property. . . . Acceptance of the prophecy usually is followed by
a period of great excitement, often accompanied by convulsive
seizures of a contagious nature (1964:194-5).
Movements . . . include programmes of directed change,
modeled on Euro-American culture, that call for local autonomy,
political identity and the adoption of real (not merely symbolic)
aspects of modem culture (ibid.: 196). Sometimes cargo cults and
movements have occurred in association; at other times they have
occurred separately. But they do have several features in com­
mon . . . both are future-orientated. . . . Leadership also is very
important. . . . Whereas cargo cults had become endemic in the
New Guinea area, political movements were epidemic in the
immediate post-war atmosphere. Cargo cults depended on super­
natural means of bringing about an immediate Utopia, and
thrived on dreams, visions, and suggestibility. In contrast, move­
ments depended on politico-economic means of realisation and
thrived in the political atmosphere in which colonialism was being
abandoned (ibid.: 197-8).
Jarvie (1964:64-6) summarizes the distinctive features of cargo
cults under eight points:
1. Cults are founded and led by a single prophet who receives
the revelation and propagates it.
2. Prophets are hardly educated and are misinformed about the
workings of society outside Melanesia.
3. Cults borrow European rituals, both secular and religious.
They have a charter of systematic instruction.
4. New beliefs are grafted on to older local beliefs.
5. Cults predict the coming of a millennium in the very near
future, and in material form: the cargo will be of non-traditional
wealth.
6. There is organized activity of gardening and building, and
various kinds of collective hysteria—visions, seizures, dancing,
manias, etc.
7. The area is colonized but economically underdeveloped, iso­
lated, politically acephalous and not given to violent resistance
to white rule.
8. There have been attempts to Christianize the natives by
missionaries.
This, too, is a mixed aggregation of criteria. The fourth, seventh,
and eighth are true of nearly all rural communities in New Guinea;
the second characterizes all members of the community, not merely
prophets. The other characteristics are true as well of secular
movements, when the non-magical, non-supernatural, and abnormal
are removed. Thus movements have leaders with programmes, not
revelations; movements use European rituals and make new rules
Social Change and Social Movements 165
of behaviour; movements state that the people will obtain non-
traditional wealth; movements organize their adherents into working
parties for construction and gardening. In fact these things—leader­
ship, new procedures, expectation of material improvement, com­
munal activity—are common to any ordinary development pro­
gramme, but enthusiasm and conviction may be lacking.
The distinctive features of cargo cults are the dream or vision
of the prophet, the belief in access to supernatural beings, miracles,
the swoons, and seizures of individuals, and massed dancers, etc.—
those elements of belief and behaviour which are magical, super­
natural, and abnormal.6
C onclusion
The natives of Papua-New Guinea are going through a difficult
transitional period. They have a strong wish for the power and
wealth which they see held by the white man. Their own traditional
beliefs, and some of the Christian influences which have reached
them, sometimes make them expect wealth as a gift from gods or
ancestors. Few natives have even now reached a standard of
education to comprehend Western culture; beliefs in sorcery and
other unscientific notions of causation are prevalent among schooled
and unschooled. Dreams and visions told by prophets are readily
accepted, especially when no alternative mode of attaining the
unsatisfied desires has succeeded.
New Guineans lack both the general education to understand
Western history and technology and also the training for skilled or
professional work. They depend upon Europeans, mostly officers,
but to some extent missionaries and settlers, for all of their inform­
ation about the outside world. Only a limited number are now
receiving the education which will give them this understanding
and skill; the majority of today’s youth will become illiterate
subsistence farmers with very small cash incomes. Their longing
for power and wealth it not likely to be satisfied by political means;
their envy is likely to remain hopeless. In this situation they may
find the rate of change unbearably slow. Their ignorance of
technical processes, combined with their awareness of the inequali­
ties of wealth and power between Europeans and themselves, pro­
duce movements aimed at social and economic improvement,
millennial cults, and social protests. If these are to become increas­
ingly realistic and progressive, it will be necessary to introduce a
practical programme which will include fundamental education
under enlightened leadership. One most important requirement of
this programme is that its results be visible to those people of New
Guinea who are supposed to benefit from it.
6 Sinclair (1957:44) sees the cults as ‘a false belief . . . a resulting dislocation
of normal thinking and activity with its replacement by abnormal thinking and
behaviour of an hysterical nature’.
 9

Women in Transitional Society1

MAR I E REAY

The customary status of women2

P apua-N ew Guinea, with all its linguistic and cultural diversity,
was originally a man’s world. Female members of the traditionally
fragmented societies were kept busy with routine drudgery and had
little place in public life. Some women of outstanding personality
and strong character were able to influence events indirectly
through their menfolk, but the scales were weighted against them
so long as the important matters of life, including warfare and
politics, were explicitly the concern of men. Woman was ‘completely
overshadowed by the male’, as Williams (1930) put it, and in many
regions she was ill-treated, though the cultures of the Territory
differed greatly in what compensations, if any, they allowed women
for the disadvantages.
Women have occupied an anomalous place in a set of social,
economic, and ceremonial transactions carried out by men, namely
the payments connected with marriage. In many regions women
have been objects of exchange between groups of men, often with
pigs and material valuables being exchanged too. The Orokaiva of
the Northern District of Papua gave an initial payment (a-dorobu),
1 The Department of Territories, Canberra, kindly allowed me to consult a
useful report on the status of women and also supplied me with specific
information when this was available. My particular thanks are due to Miss
Patricia Rossell, Senior Welfare Officer (Female), Social Development
Section, Department of District Administration, Territory of Papua and New
Guinea, for giving me detailed information on women’s clubs and discussing
problems treated in this chapter; also to Lady Cleland, President of the Girl
Guide Movement in Papua and New Guinea, for detailed information on the
movement; and to Mr David Moriewitz, vacation scholar, Australian National
University, for information on the Young Women’s Christian Association.
2 References to the Orokaiva are from F. E. Williams, Orokaiva Society, 1930,
and those to the Minj people are based on my own fieldwork in 1953-5 (Reay
1959) and 1963-5. The position of women in matrilineal societies of the Territory
does not seem to have differed from the situation in these patrilineal ones,
except in detail, according to the literature.

166
Women in Transitional Society 167
which had to be reciprocated with a return payment (bi-dorobu).
The Minj people of the Western Highlands District of New Guinea
had to balance their primary payment (amp kolma) with ‘adequate
return’. The term for the Minj people’s initial payment means
literally ‘a woman’s kolma’, but the word kolma occurs in no other
context and cannot be directly translated into English. It was as
much a ‘repayment’ as a primary payment: public recognition of a
marriage was the occasion for its giving, but it was really a clan’s
method of rewarding or expressing material thanks to another for
having borne and cared for a vehicle for its own continuance. The
debt to the bride’s clan was for bringing to maturity her capacity
for child-bearing and making this available to the groom as a
member of the clan providing the kolma.
‘B ride-price’ and conflicting values
A widespread misunderstanding of the obligations and sentiments
involved in this transaction has altered radically the local people’s
own idea of marriage payment in recent years. The misunderstand­
ing came about partly through resident Australians’ tendency to
view marriage as a bond between particular persons, rather than a
transaction between groups, with a bride and a groom as principals
rather than simply instruments in group relations. Baiim meri is the
only concise Pidgin expression for the transaction, and the common
use of this term in the Trust Territory has contributed to the
misunderstanding through emphasizing a word which can express
no subtler payment than purchase or bribery and gets readily
translated into English as Buy’. These days, many men do indeed
‘buy’ women, or at least seem to hope they are doing so, when they
make their marriage payments. Government officers have often
contributed to this change by making the transfer of the primary
a-dorobu or amp kolma the critical criterion for the legality of
marriage. They have insisted on the groom handing over his ‘bride-
price’ at the time he receives the bride, though some New Guinea
societies did not traditionally require any payments to be made until
the marriage was well established as a social fact. They have
neglected to sanction the bi-dorobu or ‘equivalent return’ in a
parallel way, partly perhaps through unawareness of this reciprocal
obligation and certainly sometimes because they have judged that
the bride is ‘worth’ every penny of what the bridegroom has given
for her and that he should not be encouraged to claim any of it
back. Government officers have tried to peg the price of brides, and
some have advised people that a physically unattractive girl should
go for relatively little whereas a real peach (gudpela meri tumas)
could be expected to bring an unusually high price. This idea is
acceptable to men who view their own daughters and clan
daughters as attractive and use it as a ground for wrangling with
bridegrooms and their clansmen over how much money should
168 New Guinea on the Threshold
change hands at the marriage of particular girls. The custom of
men transferring to other men payments connected with marriage
has spread widely and rapidly as pacification has enabled them to
negotiate for brides from different cultural regions. Men who are
seeking brides when marriage payments in their own region are
grossly inflated can get them more cheaply from regions where
such payments are novel and girls’ male relatives are not aware of
their cash value. The idea of a ‘bride-price’ as the valuation of a
bride and her subsequent purchase is modem, not traditional,
custom among people who used to barter bride for bride and pay
not for a woman herself but for rights over her offspring. Being
modem, however, makes it no less valid as custom when European
acceptance has frozen it in this form.
The increasing substitution of money for traditional items in the
transfer of bride-wealth has weakened the ceremonial aspect of
marriage as well as strengthening its modem resemblance to a
cash purchase. People whose experience of using money has been
short and who still have very limited access to it need to have
some on hand to contribute to marriage payments and to pay taxes.
On the one hand, they have to participate to an unprecedented
extent in a modified exchange system which deprives them of
traditional return payments. On the other hand, they have to be in
a position to withdraw annually from the funds circulating in
intergroup exchange an amount of money sufficient to cover the
taxes due from the members of the group. Often the two needs are
conflicting, and in many areas the dilemma evokes response in cults
with novel foci and in a social climate dominated by widely held,
unstable fantasy structures (made up of rumour, folk legend, and
local reinterpretations of religious and political evangelism). A
balanced appraisal of scarce money as a reward for service and a
means of achieving a satisfactory and enjoyable life is unlikely so
long as men have to buy their way into marriage and pay in hard
cash for the right to have children.
Some of the leaders in the Highlands recognize that the obsession
with money for marriage payments is obstructing development and
have voiced the private opinion that their people cannot benefit
from their access to money without a total ban on its use in these
transactions. Five councillors told me that they would suggest this
course in formal meetings if they were not in danger of depriving
themselves of payments due to them later or of being accused of
trying to avoid their obligations to contribute. All are personally
involved in the delayed exchange of money to such an extent that
they cannot afford to take a public stand on the question, even
when they recognize in private conversation the magnitude of the
problem. For most, however, the total banning of ‘bride-price’
appears to be impossible as well as undesirable.
Women in Transitional Society 169
Attempts to peg the price of brides offer no complete answer to
inflated marriage payments. It is hard to see how such attempts
can be successful: so long as a man can expect to be sooner or
later a direct or indirect recipient of a cash payment he will resist
strongly (and, if need be, surreptitiously) any attempt to deprive
him of the chance of getting the greatest amount he can prize
from the donors. In areas where local government councils are
required to prohibit cash payments over a certain amount, council­
lors can be tempted to act corruptly. I propose to cite three instances
(from the Highlands) of such temptation.
A councillor who told me later that he had been on his way
somewhere else heard the shouts of joy that greet the appearance
of a marriage payment coming clearly from a site not far from the
road in a certain clan’s territory. He knew the families of the
bride and groom and was aware that the ceremony of presentation
was due to occur, for the question of this marriage had recently
concerned the courts. It was well known that an Administration
officer had sanctioned the marriage in the teeth of strong opposition
from the bride’s group, provided the bridegroom gave the bride’s
father exactly £40 on this particular day and received her in
exchange the same day. The bridegroom’s family accumulated
hurriedly as much money as they could scrounge from relatives who
had a traditional obligation to contribute and on the appointed day
they gave the bride’s group £75. The councillor had no traditional
right to any part of the payment, but he stayed on for the distribu­
tion and accepted about £8 when it was offered to him. The bride,
a girl of unsettled character at whose instigation the marriage had
taken place, changed her mind several times and soon learned that
she could earn more money for her brothers and her father by
going home to them then agreeing to return to her husband as
soon as he added a few more pounds to the already inflated pay­
ment. By the time she appeared to be settled finally with her
husband, the amount he had given to her family was over £90 and
at least one penniless close relative of the harassed bridegroom had
committed a theft to make this possible. Having entered the
transaction in a manner that was explicitly prohibited (giving a
higher ‘price’ than the one specified by the court), all were anxious
to prevent the question of this marriage from reaching the courts
again—with the possible exception of the bride, who threatened on
one occasion to run away to a certain other man if her monetary
demands were not met. The councillor who had witnessed the
original presentation of the payment followed all the subsequent
events with interest but evidently felt no obligation to report either
the events themselves or the original flouting of the prohibition.
I have described this case in some detail because of its relevance
to some of the other problems mentioned in this chapter. Another
illustration is the presentation, a few days after an official had
170 New Guinea on the Threshold
pegged the price of brides at no more than £50, of a marriage
payment in which the dominant item was £169 10s. in cash. This
presentation was organized by a man whom the president of the
council had charged with the duty of seeing that his people knew
about and respected the ban on large payments. Yet another
example is the payment by a councillor of a much larger amount
than this for an extra wife at a time when he was well aware of the
prohibition and indeed had based his own court judgment of
another man’s marriage on the assumption that the pegging of
‘bride-price’ was law.
A Highlands councillor named £1,000 as the payment he wanted
for his daughter. He knew that no local man could raise this
amount but hoped that her good looks and education (Primary-T
standard) would induce a white man to pay it. He saw a white
son-in-law as a means of access to unlimited wealth, but had not
found one at the time of writing. Hoping for one presupposed that
a white man would be willing to pay a ‘bride-price’ proportionate
to his apparent wealth, and that a white man, like a local man, would
be proud to be known to have given a large marriage payment.
Much of the ‘anti-European feeling’ observers have noted in centres
where sophisticated local men are concentrated is directly due to
their resentment at white men evading the obligation to pay ‘bride-
price’ when they enter extended associations with native women.
This resentment is understandable when the modem custom of
‘bride-price’ (as distinct from the traditional custom of payments
connected with marriage) is one of the few native institutions that
have been respected and preserved in Papua-New Guinea.
Even in more backward areas, the traditional exchange of women
between groups is tending to become an exchange of money involv­
ing at each step the purchase of a young girl for cash. A girl may
suffer a personal indignity by having a price put upon her eligibility
for matrimony when her bridegroom’s group or a councillors’ court
decides that she is not worth the price her clansmen are asking. In
areas where the traditional pattem of behaviour was for her to
protest vehemently against being treated as a chattel in exchange,
humane officials have encouraged her rebellion against the
authority of the men and have insisted on her being allowed
untrammelled freedom of marriage choice, in the belief that this is
a necessary step in raising the low status of women. A mle known
by the Pidgin term laik bilong meri (‘what a woman wants’) prevails
in formal and informal courts dealing with marriage and divorce.
This mle has so dominated litigation in these matters that equality
in marriage choice can only be achieved if a counter-principle is
introduced to consider also laik bilong man (‘what a man wants’).
Insistence on the rights of women has led ironically to a neglect of
the rights of men, and youths who want to delay settling down
until they have received further education or seen more of the world
Women in Transitional Society 171
are often coerced into uncongenial marriages through a coalescence
of interests between heavy fathers and would-be brides.
Ironically, too, it has led to group relations, which are still crucial
in every sphere of Highlands life, being determined by the whims
of the least responsible members of society: teenage girls who are
no less a beat generation because they strum tradestore jews’ harps
instead of more sophisticated instruments, and who prolong the
patterns of adolescence beyond marriage because the maturer
people now lack real sanctions to ensure that change of residence
brings about a rapid transition to adulthood. Without raising in any
way the position of the women who do the work their sex is heir to,
girls are able to flaunt traditional marriage prohibitions when they
are too immature to realize that these expressed a society’s stand­
ards of decency and decorum and when they have not learned any
other settled mores. In fact the older women’s burden is heavier
than ever, since a young man’s family and clanspeople are no longer
able to discipline his bride and ensure that she does her share of
work.
Men in Papua-New Guinea take for granted the inferior status of
women, though women themselves are no longer accepting every
aspect of this inferior status without question. This has occurred
also in some parts of Africa (Baker and Bird 1959:120-1). Opportuni­
ties to get 'cheaper’ brides from areas where ‘bride-price’ has not
long been established have hastened the spread of the custom to
such areas. Educated men giving their opinions on ‘bride-price’
discuss women as bought and paid-for possessions of their husbands;
one even defined a wife as ‘a piece of furniture that does the house­
work’ and justified ‘bride-price’ by saying that a man had no means
of preventing others from removing household goods he had not
paid for. It is extremely unlikely that the men of Papua-New Guinea
will appreciate their women as human beings so long as the cash
purchase of brides is not only permitted but sanctioned as ‘native
custom’. An outright ban on ‘bride-price’ would be unpopular with
those men who have already bought their wives; but is the only
way women in the Territory would be able to achieve any firm
status as persons.
Status-raising and welfare policies
The official attitude towards native women seems to have been
advancing quickly beyond the policy of deliberate (and abortive)
status-raising towards an appreciation of women as ordinary citizens,
as an earlier emphasis on ‘the education and advancement of women’
gives way to broader approaches to community development. The
status-raising approach fitted well with the concept of ‘welfare’
that had been central to native policies in Australian territories
during the last few decades. The conception of native peoples as
‘under-privileged’, like the poor of earlier times, was essentially
172 New Guinea on the Threshold
patronizing. Women’s clubs were established with a tendency to
emphasize the teaching of elementary hygiene and something
called ‘social advancement’. This was vaguely defined but generally
involved persuading people to turn their backs on their own
methods of organizing social life to adopt new ways somehow
judged to be better for them. The clubs developed in a govern­
mental climate dominated by the official idea of female indigenes
as a stodgy pudding that could not be ignored so had to be stirred
for its own good. One suspects that a good deal of the emphasis on
‘welfare’ has been window-dressing. Unsuitable females have been
pushed embarrassingly into public office, and yet the administrative
centre of the Territory (Konedobu) still has at least one lavatory
with labels directing ‘Women’ to use one section and ‘Hahine’
(Papuan women) to use another.
One may deplore a particular policy and yet admit that the
achievements of this policy have been remarkable, probably on
account of the abilities and interests of the persons charged with
putting it into effect.
Positive achievements. Women are being trained as schoolteach­
ers, welfare officers, and nurses. Because they are women, they tend
to give up using their training professionally quite soon after they
have qualified, even when they have managed to complete their
training before marriage. I know of only two exceptions to this, a
confirmed spinster and one who is still young by Australian stan­
dards but who is getting too old to expect a native of her own
country to seek her as a wife. There may be others I do not know
about, but the proportion of trained women who give up work in
order to become fulltime wives and mothers is undeniably high.
Certainly we can expect them to influence the narrower circle of
their own families, and perhaps they may be more confident and
vocal in the affairs of their village than they would have been
without vocational training. Nevertheless, practical difficulties in
the way of enabling more than a thin trickle of girls to undertake
vocational training at anything approximating to Australian stan­
dards make it impossible to contemplate an occupational structure
of Australian type as a feasible development in the foreseeable
future.
One of the traditional careers for women in Australia, general
nursing, became available to girls in Papua-New Guinea only in
1958 when a training based on Australian standards as to length of
course and the subjects studied began. Up to this time the local
equivalent of a nursing service had been the corps of native medical
assistants, who still serve in hospitals and aid posts throughout the
Territory. These were men, and it was natural that the establishment
of a training course in general nursing should attract men also. In
contrast to Australia, where male nurses are still a minority, only
A young woman in traditional dress, Nondugl
A teamen s clubhouse, Oki Yufa village

Social mixing on the sports field

Women in Transitional Society 173
46 of the 102 persons who had graduated in nursing by mid-1963
were women.
It is hard to secure the exact rates of failure in various training
courses and of leaving the service soon after training is completed,
but everyone directly concerned with training whom I have con­
sulted is unanimous in the judgment that the number of trained
women who continue to practise their skills professionally is dis-
couragingly small. In view of this loss to the professions, it may be
wiser to encourage the continuation of general nursing services as a
predominantly male concern and encourage girls who are interested
in this kind of career to consider some of the alternatives available
to them. By mid-1963, 496 young women had successfully com­
pleted their training as infant and maternal welfare nurses, 141
holding both certificates. These figures are impressive, even when
compared with the total number of nearly 900,000 females of all
ages in the Territory. This particular occupation is evidently one
which girls find congenial, and it is the one most relevant to most
of their lives when they decide to cease professional practice. At
30 June 1962, 13,048 girls were enrolled at Administration schools,
and although female pupils in some areas seem reluctant to out­
shine and shame their brothers, it is reasonable to suppose that in
a few years a number of girls from these schools and also from some
schools of equal standard conducted by missions will be prepared
to seek higher education, vocational training, or employment that
requires a measure of literacy. One may hope that when these girls
drop out through marriage they will do so in circumstances which
allow them to use their education and training to advantage in
supporting the aspirations and social adjustment of equally educated
husbands; but comparability in educational background often
appears to be irrelevant to marriage choice. The unique experience
of one such woman in the Highlands is lost to her people through
the inability of her husband, who has had no formal education or
special training himself, to appreciate and understand it; similarly,
many men who become prominent in modem political affairs keep
their unsophisticated wives away from the public eye to avoid
embarrassment. A study of marriage choices among the younger
sophisticates, however, may reveal that the children of educated
Papuans tend to marry each other, irrespective of where they come
from; if so, they may form a core of educated families whose com­
mon culture consists of what they have learned at school.
Womens clubs. In June 1964, 513 women’s clubs had been set up
by the Social Development section of the Department of District
Administration. During the two preceding years the number of
these had increased by 100 per annum, despite an evident shortage
of trained welfare officers. These clubs are more developed in
Papua, where the movement began and where 317 such clubs
now operate together with some 250 village women’s committees
174 New Guinea on the Threshold
in the Milne Bay District. In the most populous part of the Terri­
tory, 30 women’s clubs are operating in the Eastern Highlands and
7 in the Western Highlands. These are all very recent and it is
early to judge their success, but from the sketchy information
available they seem to be popular and effective means of diffusing
an unusual range of skills (from baseball to needlework) previously
unknown to women in these regions. In areas where women’s clubs
are still contemplated but not yet started, local women find it hard
to grasp the idea of a 'club’ that is not specifically a place for men
to meet and drink liquor. The success of some of the women’s clubs
in the Highlands seems to be due largely to enthusiastic campaign­
ing by influential men, and this suggests that it may be advisable to
integrate women’s clubs with other community ventures through a
committee with people of both sexes serving on it. Indeed this is
already being tried, though only in exceptional circumstances.
E ducation and urbanization
There is a growing recognition in the Social Development section
of the Department of District Administration that 'female indigenes’
are not an undifferentiated lump of common problems but an
analytically separable segment of a population which embraces
communities in a variety of social contexts. In many areas people
usually described as ‘station women’ and ‘local women’ (native
women living off the government station) are recognized to be
facing very different problems of social adjustment, and women in
the greater urban centres such as Port Moresby, Lae, Rabaul, and
Madang are differently situated from those living on the largest
stations. I have met various women in Goroka, Mount Hagen, Port
Moresby, and other places, but know well only five 'station
women’ in the Highlands—two at Minj (the Papuan wife of a
station employee, and a ‘local’ girl married to a Papuan) and three
Minj girls living at Goroka, Kundiawa, and Mount Hagen. I know
well many more of the ‘local women’ of the Minj area.
There is no common meeting ground and mingling between the
‘local women’ and the ‘station women’, with the exception that
‘station women’ who are ‘local’ girls by birth maintain strong ties
with their relatives and age-mates in the bush, even when they are
able to hold their own with the more sophisticated Papuan and
coastal women in the town. These latter have sometimes had
experience of women’s clubs in the phase when these stressed
elementary hygiene and social advancement. They tend to disdain
the ‘dirty bush kanakas’ as people who have no sense of hygiene,
not understanding that Tanakas’ have a different idea of hygiene
which places less importance on personal cleanliness but often
includes some realistic measures to protect public health. An
English-speaking Papuan woman once told me that it was impos­
sible for her to associate with the ‘local’ women. ‘They can’t help
Women in Transitional Society 175
it,’ she said condescendingly. ‘They’re primitive, like our ancestors.’
The gulf between ‘station’ and ‘bush’ is greater for the women than
for men who can come together on a football field or at the bar of
their club. It is less likely to be bridged by periodic interaction, and
indeed such bridging may have a disorganizing effect. ‘Station’
women have fewer domestic chores and much greater leisure than
‘local’ women, who have to devote their time to growing vegetables,
caring for pigs, and picking home-planted coffee; and mothers with
young children in both town and bush are limited in the amount of
travel they can comfortably undertake.
It is consistent with the change in emphasis of government policy
from uniform development to the encouragement of elites to concen­
trate on educating the women of the great urban centres and the
townships. Although the majority of women’s clubs are ostensibly
for ‘village’ women, the ‘villages’ affected are all too often those in
the immediate vicinity of the station, with mainly ‘station’ women
as office-bearers. While welfare programmes divert the leisure
interests of an under-employed class on the government station from
quarrelling and gambling to games and useful crafts, the ‘local’
women emerge from their remote homesteads or villages only to
dispose of vegetables they have grown for sale or to attend a court
case or visit a relative who is in hospital. Meeting and growing to
know women of both classes makes one regret that recruitment to
female elites takes place only on the basis of degrees of or access to
urbanization. It would be a pity if leadership in women’s organi­
zations and prominence in public life depended simply on an
ability to be in the forefront of a group of women united only by a
knowledge of the lingua franca, an interest in gambling, and an
absence (imposed by residence among people from different
cultures) of other aspects of a shared way of life. In some areas,
however, a particular village or local group has been selected as the
spearhead of women’s organization in the district and the women
of this village become prophetesses or forerunners of a different
kind of life, more akin to that of European women and ‘station’
women, with access to sewing machines (and hence to clothes that
fit properly), participation in sports, and the chance to meet women
from other places without being snubbed. Women of widely varying
abilities and ranges of informal influence, including the village
shrew, the eccentric intellectual, the public-spirited rebel or con­
formist, and so on, are neglected in both cases unless they live
close to the station or in the particular village selected. It would
seem opportune, therefore, to consider whether opportunities
granted to a random elite could be extended to all women through
links which would require as little organization as possible.
A danger in such a procedure is that it could easily stimulate
quite embarrassingly a demand for women’s clubs and similar
institutions for community development far exceeding the capacities
176 New Guinea on the Threshold
of persons available to guide them. Such institutions cannot, of
course, develop without external stimulation of some kind, but the
idea of starting them is readily acceptable to women both on out-
stations and in the bush and is often met with great waves of
spontaneous enthusiasm. This enthusiasm is not always enduring.
Indeed, complaint is sometimes made that clubs decline and even
wither as soon as a European officer ceases to visit them. I would
endorse the judgment of Patricia Rossell that ‘enthusiasm should
be geared towards particular projects which will not be of too long
a duration’. A related difficulty is that ‘local’ women are slow to
realize that these clubs are appropriate vehicles for the expression
of personal initiative and the development of leadership, so they
tend to wait for a European officer to come and tell them what to do
or at least make concrete suggestions they can follow. Perhaps this
difficulty may be overcome in clubs being freshly formed by the
officer initiating a project which logically requires further steps
which the club women themselves are likely to suggest without
prompting.
Social welfare work. The danger of engendering enthusiasm which
may be wasted because there are not enough officers to guide it is
a real one. There was only one welfare officer in the Highlands
(stationed at Goroka) until a second one was able to go to Kundiawa
in July 1964. One trained social worker for every 200,000 head of
population (the proportion employed in 1965) seems pathetically
meagre, and much of the burden of welfare work among women has
had to be borne by experienced immigrant and expatriate women,
mostly trained nurses who have lived in the Territory for some years.
These include Miss Fairhall of the London Missionary Society and
eight wives of present or former Administration officers. The
participation of these women of varied experience in a government
welfare programme has inevitably given a special character to the
service itself and particularly to the training of local girls to help in
this field. The present training of local social welfare assistants
entails twelve months’ apprenticeship (preferably in their own
districts), then nine months at the Ahioma Training Centre, and
finally three months’ more intimate work with individuals and
families in urban areas. The course has been shortened by one-third
with the reorganization of the public service, and the number of
girls in training has been increasing swiftly in 1964-5 from twenty-
three to thirty or so. Two of the present local women working as
social welfare assistants were originally teachers who transferred to
do this work. The demands of a woman’s domestic roles intervene
in this modem career as in others and it is not expected that many
will complete their training. As with certain kinds of nursing,
however, the skills acquired up to any stage of training are likely to
be a help to a woman engaged fulltime as a family member. A
special homecraft officer mns courses to disseminate these skills.
Women in Transitional Society 177
Welfare officers are stationed in at least ten of the administrative
districts of the Territory, and the diversity of their background and
experience suggests that it would be misleading to generalize too
broadly about the effects welfare programmes have been producing
on the women of the Territory. When more detailed information is
available, we may find diverse patterns emerging in different regions
in respect of such questions as the emphasis of welfare programmes
on homecraft and family life or the participation of women in public
affairs. How enduring these special influences may be can only be
tested in areas such as Hanuabada in the vicinity of Port Moresby,
where the valuable work of Miss Fairhall and similar outstanding
persons engaged elsewhere in the Territory has been continuous
over many years. I do not know enough of the special history of
welfare work in particular regions to form an opinion on whether
the missionary zeal of some secular welfare workers, who tried with
different degrees of success to organize local women in urban areas
to protest against liquor reform, has managed to develop a formid­
able female sector of public opinion in those regions, nor even
whether these ‘organizing angels’ (as another research worker in New
Guinea has dubbed them) are common in the service: certainly the
actions of two such welfare workers were out of harmony with the
officially held aim of the Social Development section to stimulate
local people to express their own opinions and form their own
decisions. The point I wish to make here, however, is that welfare
work seems to have followed such diverse courses in different
regions that certain generalizations one would like to be able to
make about women in the Territory are impossible. This situation
has stemmed directly from the shortage of trained staff of particular
kinds and the consequent necessity for administrations to choose
whether to use the severely limited staff with the appropriate
training for the benefit of a select few or to disperse the energies of
those persons who, while lacking professional training in the appro­
priate field, have had considerable experience of the problems in the
local situation and often have some skills which are somehow
relevant.
Education for ichat? The danger of engendering enthusiasm
which may be wasted because there are not enough officers to
guide it (mentioned in respect of women’s clubs, above) points to
a grave weakness in any kind of training schemes in New Guinea,
particularly but not only for women. The staff resources for edu­
cating people whose need for education grows increasingly urgent
are so far from adequate that the trend is to teach few people
besides those who will themselves be teaching. This has the effect of
keeping standards low by beginning teacher training (and the
training of trainers) at a low academic level and shortening the
training itself. Thus two girls sat for the Intermediate Certificate
only after beginning their training as social welfare assistants, and
178 New Guinea on the Threshold
the educational standards of other trainees are evidently variable.
The work allotted to them at the end of their training seems
equivalent in duty and responsibility to that of a junior almoner
or some other kind of social worker with a brand-new diploma.
A serious effect of the shortage of staff in all fields of training is
that few, if any, local people in the Territory receive an education
adequate to allow them a genuine choice of occupation. The only
female university student from the Territory has done two years of
social work training at the University of Queensland. Her course has
recently been suspended while she has a baby, and it seems unlikely
that she will continue. If she should do so, her Administration
scholarship does not formally require her to return to her country
when she has finished her studies; but her legal rights might be
unclear if she wanted to stay in Australia permanently, and in any
case she would be under considerable pressure to return to work
for the Administration. Some of her energies will inevitably be
diverted and much of her privacy is bound to be lost as she
satisfies predictable demands to contribute to public relations—
conversing with visiting United Nations officials; being interviewed
by press, radio, and television; representing Papua-New Guinea in
overseas conferences—as a mainland aboriginal girl has already
interrupted her studies to represent Australia; above all, being a
living demonstration of what Papua-New Guinea can achieve
against formidable odds.
The old idea of an elite was of ‘the privileged few’, and there
have been phases in the history of democracy when it has been
hard to justify the encouragement of such a class. In Australian
territories, however, the continuing pattern of ‘welfare’ and ‘social
development’ has brought about a sharp division between an
elite whose superior access to information and to official aspirations
has obliged them to bear the heaviest burdens and the masses who
are still able to enjoy some of the leisure and privacy that were
originally among the diacritical privileges of elites.3
The elite is expanding. But it is losing its elite character. The
handful of students in Australian universities will be returning to
the Territory, it is hoped, as graduates of equal standing with
Australians who have graduated with them. They will be outnum­
bered by local people who have never left the Territory but who have
pursued the essentially makeshift courses available to them there. It
is important that those who stay in their own country to acquire the
training offered there, which is almost invariably adapted to the
special conditions of the Territory, be acquainted with its makeshift
character from the start. Any uneasiness in race relations can find
quick expression in allegations of equivalences that do not exist,
3 Cf. Weber’s idea (1947:352) of a ‘ritually trained’ class and honoratioren;
also Mannheim’s ideas of älites as ‘classes which create and assimilate culture’
(Mannheim 1946:84) and as specially privileged classes (ibid.:92).
Women in Transitional Society 179
such as the wild assertion a man trained as ‘Assistant Medical
Officer’ once made that he would be taking over the post of the
Regional Medical Officer (who was much better qualified) as soon
as the white people left. I am certain that this man saw the training
he had received as equivalent to that of the European medical
officer. If Papua-New Guinea is pushed too speedily towards
independence, his allegation may turn out to be true and the health
and hospitalization of the people of a vast region may become the
responsibility of a man whom no junior interne in an Australian
hospital could accept as a professional colleague.
F uture prospects

The training and general education of women cannot be considered

out of the context of the education of people in general in Papua-
New Guinea, nor apart from the probable structure of the society
that will use their training and benefit from their education. Any
estimate of likely trends over the next decade must be conditional
on highly unstable circumstances remaining constant or changing
in specified ways. Some predictions can be made if we assume (1)
that the Territory is pushed into independent nationhood within
ten years; (2) that recent evidence of official thinking in terms of a
black New Guinea, pruned of expatriates, continues to be borne
out; and (3) that ‘bride-price’ continues to be regarded as inviolable
native custom.
The first prediction that can confidently be made is that the
handful of students at present doing courses in Australia will
swiftly accede to positions of unusual seniority for persons of their
particular training and experience, compared with the posts avail­
able to Australians who graduate with them. A girl with a diploma
in social work is likely to go to the top quickly in the Social Develop­
ment section if she stays with the Administration and does not resign
for domestic reasons. Primary degrees in law, agriculture, and
economics are likely to lead other students (all males) to top
postings for which Australians have had to spend decades waiting
for the appropriate grades of seniority and the right opportunities.
By 1974 we can expect the musing service and hospital admini­
stration in the Territory to allow for the unusually high proportion
of males undertaking and completing training and the still higher
proportion of males, compared with females, remaining in the
service. Within the context of both local and Australian attitudes
towards women in employment, it would be unrealistic to envisage
a local matron of a general hospital with predominantly male nurses
on her staff. Probably the only top posts open to women would be
those as matrons of specialized obstetric and children’s hospitals
and also in infant welfare services; any girl who seeks a nursing
career in the general hospitals would be able to aspire no further
than being an officer in charge of a specialized section (for example,
180 New Guinea on the Threshold
female wards) requiring only female nurses. Similarly, women
schoolteachers are only likely to become prominent educationists so
long as they contain their ambitions within the context of special
girls’ schools and do not hope for advancement in competition with
male teachers.
There will be a comparatively low percentage of girl university
students in the Territory. Given the continuation of local attitudes,
those girls who do become undergraduates are unlikely to find
themselves interacting with male students on conditions of intel­
lectual equality. We can expect females among the earliest gradu­
ates to be unusually subdued in their expressions of opinion and
timid in making independent decisions, a tendency already observ­
able in female teacher trainees and social welfare trainees in the
Territory.
No women seem likely to become national leaders within ten years.
In a few regions where they may be able to influence public opinion
they are likely to do so indirectly if at all. Public opinion in 1974
may be sharply divided into two sectors. Vocal public opinion is
likely to express the dissatisfactions shared by a substantially
literate elite, consisting largely of public servants either with no
direct involvement in national politics or with experience of political
defeat. There is likely to be, in addition, a substratum of public
opinion with no effective organs of expression apart from direct
acts of displeasure which need not stop short of rebellion. Resent­
ments already expressed in populous, underdeveloped areas against
certain aspects of selective development could easily crystallize in
unwillingness to recognize the legitimacy of an indigenous public
service recruited from more favoured areas. Trouble over women
and ‘bride-price’ is not likely to be resolved without violence, and
lawlessness among men would lead almost inevitably to violence
against and reactionary suppression of women. There would seem
to be no means available to avert such a situation, provided the
three conditions outlined above continue. In case such a pessimistic
view of the future should be borne out by events, it is relevant to
inquire how the women of the Territory are being prepared to live
in a changing, difficult, and perhaps even chaotic world.
V oluntary work
The Girl Guide Movement. Even more striking than the achieve­
ments of governmental agencies have been the efforts of individual
white women to prevent the local girls from lagging too far behind
the men in learning to live in a new kind of society. As early as the
1870s, women missionaries and wives of missionaries were trying to
teach native women practical items of home care and handicrafts.
In 1928 Mrs Chatterton, of the London Missionary Society, formed
a Girl Guide company in Hanuabada, Port Moresby. By the begin­
ning of World War II the movement was well established in Port
Women in Transitional Society 181
Moresby and Rabaul and Mrs Ure, also of the London Missionary
Society, had been conducting a company of Rangers at Hanuabada
since 1934. While the Administration was still primarily concerned
with pacifying the increasing number of native communities being
contacted by white people, these women concentrated on bringing
to native women in long-pacified areas some character-training and
practical skills which they assumed quite rightly would be needed
in the years to come. The Girl Guide Movement, though interrupted
by the war, has nevertheless grown to include 154 Guide companies
and Brownie packs with at least 3,240 local girls being trained in
company with Australians and Chinese in places as widely scattered
as Darn in the south-west of the Papuan Gulf and Kavieng in New
Ireland, as far apart as Wewak on the north coast of the Trust
Territory and Bwagaoia in the islands off the south-eastern tip of
the Papuan mainland. Residential training centres have been
established in Port Moresby and Rabaul, and at least 180 of the 230
Guiders are local women. Many more have been trained but have
been lost, as in other fields of training, to the necessity to devote
themselves to domestic tasks. The loss is not, however, so permanent
as it seems to be in fields where women have to be employed full­
time if at all, and they tend to resume Guiding activities when their
children have grown old enough to be independent of close maternal
care. The training does not differ materially in content from that
given to Guiders in Australia, though it is given in a simplified form.
Two of the twenty-eight trained Commissioners and eight of the
ten salaried Guide Trainers are local women. Seventeen of the
sixty-six members of the Girl Guides’ Territory Council and three
of the twelve elected members of the Executive are local women.
The remarkable success of the Guide movement in Papua-New
Guinea seems to rest on three factors that have been missing from
bureaucratically processed programmes of development: the simple
determination of a few women to carry out clear and realizable
goals; the assumption, which seems to have been acted on early,
that companies and packs should welcome members of all races;
and that consistent character-building offers a way of preparing
people for life in a changed society, where they will have to work
out valid values. The Guide Law, here as in other countries, stresses
honour, loyalty, service, amity, courtesy, kindness to animals, obedi­
ence, cheerfulness, and thrift. It may be a rare girl who manages to
develop this full constellation of virtues, but at least everyone who
enters the movement becomes aware of this set of values, and there
is a good chance that women who have been Guides will try to
instil them into their children. An explicit aim of the movement in
the Territory is to ensure that an elite of educated local leaders will
be able to find wives who can live in equality with them. There is
no guarantee, of course, that character-training of the kind the
movement offers will increase the attractions or availability of a
182 New Guinea on the Threshold
particular girl for an educated local leader who is looking for a
wife. Such evidence as we have suggests that local leaders may
admit the general desirability of education and domestic virtues for
women and yet choose their own marriage partners on the basis of
totally different considerations.
This situation contrasts strangely with that in some African and
Asian countries which have gained independence in recent years,
where education is an asset to a girl in the marriage market and
legend has it that even a girl who is a failed B.A. has a better
chance of making a good match than one who has not completed
secondary schooling. There is no doubt that schoolchildren of both
sexes benefit greatly when the parent they are closely associated
with in their developing years is well educated, and this parent in
Papua-New Guinea will be the mother. It may be significant that
although educated men of the first generation in Papua-New Guinea
do not tend to choose educated wives, their sons seem to do so.
The Young Womens Christian Association. The aims of this
association in Papua-New Guinea are to ‘encourage amongst women
and girls the development of balanced personality and self-govern­
ment through a programme of recreation, study and service on the
basis of Christian principles’ and to ‘strengthen Christian character
by training of body, mind and spirit’. The activities of the Y.W.C.A.
in Port Moresby have included various training courses embracing
training in ‘good housekeeping’, cooking demonstrations, and a
leadership training club. A teenage club has met once weekly, and
an evening coffee club enables members to discuss ‘interesting
features of life in the Territory’. The association aims to develop in
young women a sense of social responsibility and ‘a right public
conscience with regard to civic, national and international affairs’. It
emphasizes the participation of native women, and although the
constitution stresses ‘bringing together women and girls of all classes,
creeds, nationalities and races’ the absence of Australian and
Chinese girls from ordinary membership gives it an appearance of
do-goodery which the organizers may not have intended. The
absence of Australian girls from the teenage club and the house­
keeping classes is commonly attributed to this section of the popu­
lation being at school or at work in Australia; but young Australians
are numerous enough in all urban centres to organize dances and
other forms of recreation among themselves, so clearly this is not
the entire explanation. Australian girls in the Territory are not likely
to be interested in receiving training in domestic skills and social
graces in company with and on a level with native women, and they
are unlikely to see the work of the Y.W.C.A., here as elsewhere, of
‘integrating members into their social environment’, as relevant to
themselves (Fiawood 1959:95).
The Y.W.C.A. is building, with the help of the Administration, a
hostel for girls in Port Moresby. This is not explicitly planned as a
Women in Transitional Society 183
segregated hostel, but it is plain from the proposed design and
from the expressed hopes concerning the problems it may help to
solve that it will serve largely as a residential centre for native girls
undergoing various kinds of training in Port Moresby. The propor­
tion of unmarried girls whose training is interrupted by pregnancy
appears to be high, though it is hard to obtain precise figures, and
some responsible persons see stricter supervision of residential
arrangements as a possible control.
W o m en as culture carriers

Far from transforming the oppressed creatures of traditional Papua-

New Guinea into latter-day feminists, aggressive towards their men­
folk, the government’s programmes of social development and the
voluntary work concerned with character-development and moral
stability in changing times have both proceeded on the assumption
that a woman’s most important role will be as fulltime family
member during the period when her children will depend on her
personal care. Where these influences have affected local women,
there has been a considerable increase in the self-sufficiency of the
individual family unit. Where these influences have been absent,
change has proceeded in a less directed way and has resulted in
disorganization of old ways without any stable forms of some new
kind replacing them. I mentioned earlier the tendency for teenage
girls in a part of the Highlands to use a kind of surreptitious femin­
ism to demonstrate their recently acquired power over men and free
themselves from the burdens of undergoing traditional character
development and accession to social maturity. The programmes of
governmental and voluntary agencies are geared for continuing
expansion, and it is reasonable to expect eventually a Territory­
wide increase in the self-sufficiency of the individual family unit
which will make the typical family of Papua-New Guinea resemble
the Australian family more closely than any of the local traditional
forms of domestic organization.
Along with this tendency we must expect trends in change which
will reduce the cultural diversity of the country to strands of
uniformity which will have in common with each other close
resemblances to the Australian system. The special adaptations of
this system to Territory conditions will not be enough to fill the
cultural vacuum created by the removal of diacritical aspects of
traditional culture. This situation, in which cultural and spiritual
impoverishment seems to be the fate of the majority of the Terri­
tory’s inhabitants, calls for a special kind of applied anthropology:
one which can suggest how to introduce compensation for cultural
losses. One suggestion can be made immediately, in which local
women would have an important part to play. Every people has its
past, and every literate people has some kind of written history.
When the people of Papua-New Guinea are substantially literate, it
184 New Guinea on the Threshold
is important for their history to recount more about their past than
the discovery and development of ‘primitive stone-age savages’.
Many traditions, which are fast disappearing not only from com­
munal life but also from ‘memory culture’ (the remembrances of the
past), should be recorded as a matter of urgency before it is too
late. Insights from archaeological and other research can be used
for interpreting mythological accounts of the past prior to European
contacts.
Much of Papua-New Guinea’s cultural traditions will remain the
specialized province of anthropologists and ethno-historians, but
much can also be preserved in the family circle. As this becomes an
individual family of the Australian type, women will be taking over
from the men the chief role in transmitting awareness of the past.
This can easily be misinterpreted as women learning by rote exotic
little legends to tell their children as bedtime stories; but what I
really have in mind is women, as carriers of culture, learning to
appreciate that an essential part of their heritage is belonging to a
lively people who worked out for themselves certain modes of
adjustment that were different from the modem modes. With this as
background, a child need not grow up ashamed of a black skin
that prevents him from being more than an imitation white; instead,
it can be a symbol of his distinctive identity and history. There
should be no need for him later to rely on the biased accounts of
people who see unadulterated evil in pre-Christian, pre-pacified life,
nor to choose between discrediting the past and developing a
nostalgia for it. The people of the Territory are under considerable
pressures to accept all we have to offer them, and the pressures are
so strong that there is little alternative besides total acceptance and
total rejection. As we prepare them for fuller participation in the
modem world we offer them the skeletal framework of our own
social forms and political institutions. We (and they too) must see
that the skeleton is clad healthily in the flesh and blood of personal
and cultural identity.
 IV

Political Problems
 10

The Growth of Territory Administration

R. S. P A R K E R

B ackground
A dministration is important for the success of any kind of govern­
ment. In a colonial territory like New Guinea the Administration
(capitalized to denote the whole Territorial apparatus of public
officialdom) is synonymous with the government, though subject to
control from Canberra and to some influence by the House of
Assembly on the law it administers (see Chapter 12). Moreover, the
Administration there helps to shape the whole community’s affairs
to a degree unparalleled in those developed societies which are not
totalitarian. There are some obvious quantitative measures of this.
Expatriate members of the Territorial public service form well over
half of the non-indigenous breadwinners in the Territory. In the year
ended June 1963 the Administration was responsible for about £10
million in capital investment in the Territory, compared with £6
million by private enterprise—the government share being spent
mainly on public works to provide the basis for a modem economy.
Qualitatively, the influence of public servants is more dominant still
—through their work in promoting education, social services,
economic development, industrial and employee organization, and
extending the rule of law and order which is also a basic prerequisite
to the building of a unified modem nation. Hence the staffing,
education, organization, co-ordination, and morale of the Admini­
stration can make or mar the whole process of growth and change
to which New Guinea is committed.
Perhaps this was why the first Minister for Territories, Mr Paul
Hasluck, counted administrative reform high among the memorials
of his regime. Looking back in 1958 with something of personal
pride’, he claimed ‘with complete confidence that one of the sub­
stantial and lasting achievements has been the building of sounder
foundations for a better public service’ (Wilkes 1958:114). Among
these foundations he listed the reorganization of the Territorial
departments, raising the levels and rates of recruitment, improved
187
188 New Guinea on the Threshold
training and education, the systematic classification of officers, the
introduction of ‘Organization and Methods’ techniques, the estab­
lishment of the Auxiliary Division to admit and train indigenous
people, and the strengthening of the Department of Territories in
Canberra. This chapter describes and appraises such administrative
changes since 1945 and estimates the significance for future develop­
ment of some trends and problems not mentioned in Mr Hasluck’s
1958 review.
The environment of administration. There is always a clash
between the addiction to uniform structures and practices among
sophisticated architects of administration and the need to adapt
every administrative system to its particular natural and human
environment. An acute form of this clash occurs in colonial situ­
ations, where the administering power is tempted as a matter of
course to transplant its own institutions to the dependent territory.
Mr Hasluck’s list of reforms, and the manner in which they were
applied, clearly reveal this tendency, and any appreciation of them
must begin with a reminder of the special problems the New
Guinea environment sets for a European-style bureaucracy.
The difficulties of communication across mountains, valleys,
swamps, and straits have a number of administrative implications.
They break the country into distinct districts, regions, and island
groups, each of which needs to be relatively self-sufficient in some
basic services. They increase administrative costs through unusual
dependence on the radio and aeroplane, expensive methods of
communication whose rapid expansion has possibly discouraged to
some extent the growth of other forms, especially roads. They
subject many officers to working and living in sustained isolation
from their fellows, calling for special care in recruitment and train­
ing. They demand unusual delegation of discretion to field staff if
local decisions are not to be intolerably delayed. At the same time
they hinder the flow of information from the centre to the field and
back and hence the adaptation of policy to local needs and of local
action to changing policy.
The regional diversity of the country, combined with its transitional
social and economic condition, calls for a highly decentralized
system of administration by districts, but with strong integration of
effort at the district level. There is diversity not only in the value
and kind of economic resources and potential in different districts,
but also in the stages of development they have reached and the
relative rates of change that are possible. It is diversity that requires
considerable local autonomy in the application of policy in a district.
It is the need for co-ordinated growth along all fronts together that
requires a firm integration of administrative effort within each
district.
The poverty and primitiveness, by Western standards, of the New
Guinea economy narrowly limit the sources and amount of local
An Assistant District Officer supervising villagers at ivork, Eastern Highlands, 1957

A luluai discusses a gardening programme at Lufa, near Goroka

A meeting of the Kui Native Local Government Council, Mount Hagen

A meeting during the 1964 elections for the House of Assembly

The Growth of Territory Administration 189
public revenue, though demanding substantial public investment
and public services of all kinds in order to combat them. The
expense of rapidly expanding administration since 1950 has had to
be borne in increasing proportion by Australia, which now supplies
about two-thirds of it. But the total government expenditure is still
at an extremely low level, serving a population of over two millions
with a budget about the same size as that of a middle-sized state
business enterprise in Australia. Thus, although the public service
is so important among Territory institutions, in numbers and outlay
it is tiny compared with the public bureaucracy of a modern state
with a similar population.1 Tropical and otherwise exotic conditions
of service require special forms of compensation for expatriate
staff, and together with political uncertainty cause exceptional staff
turnover and recruitment problems. ‘Localization’ (replacement of
expatriate by indigenous staff) is a corollary of the advance to self-
government, and presents its own challenges. It seems inherent in
the situation that the tasks to be faced will long be in inverse
ratio to the administrative resources available.
There are other challenges which, like these, are common to
colonial administrations elsewhere, though perhaps more acute in
New Guinea. The language barrier, a largely illiterate population,
racial tensions, are some of them. Indeed, although the Australian
government dislikes the term ‘colony’ being applied to New Guinea,
and insists on the Territory’s uniqueness, very little of the basic
context of politics and administration is peculiar to it, though that
little is quite important. It consists chiefly in the very limited extent
of alien economic exploitation, which is related to the long-standing
policy of protection of native interests, most significantly reflected
in the fact that over 97 per cent of the country’s land still belongs
to the indigenous people (though the alienated land includes some
of the best and most accessible). This has both positive and negative
implications for administration. Most importantly, it has minimized
overt conflicts of interest between the minority and majority races,
and so has created on the whole a receptive or at least acquiescent
attitude towards the Administration’s policies and programmes. It
has thus simplified the problem of planning for the peaceful and
evolutionary development of a substantially indigenous-owned
economy. On the other hand the long decades of inaction before
1940 and relative inattention to economic development up to 1960
have left a great leeway to be caught up under insistent pressures
of time and external change. And popular acceptance and acquies­
cence also mean dependency and economic conservatism, where
1 The total of employees of the Administration in June 1964 was 26,891,
including Administration servants, warders and police, and unskilled labourers,
and excluding local government employees (see Appendix). The population was
estimated at 2-2 millions. At the same date central government employment in
New Zealand, with a population of about 2-6 millions, totalled at least 126,000.
190 New Guinea on the Threshold
they do not conceal that frustrated sense of inequality and inequity
which finds disguised expression in cargo cults. It is this subtle blend
of economic and psychological factors, of compliance and tension,
that comprises whatever is unique in the New Guinea context of
administration.
Impact of the Japanese war. The present Administration is in
membership and structure largely a post-war creation, but it in­
herited important legacies from the past. Outstanding among these
were the system of district administration and a core of experienced
officers who had helped to operate it in the two pre-war decades.
The decentralized system of divisions under Resident Magistrates,
following British colonial practice, had been introduced by Dr
(later Sir) William MacGregor as soon as he became the first
Administrator of British New Guinea (later Papua) in 1888.
The Resident Magistrate system formed the backbone of the
whole administration, for on these men devolved the task of
applying in detail, in the areas under their control, the policy
formulated at the centre. Almost nothing was beyond their com­
petence. Theirs was the responsibility of maintaining order and
settling disputes; of arresting offenders and trying them; of
opening up the country and establishing relations between
government and native village; of supervising the smooth func­
tioning of labour ordinances; and, in general, of directing all
functions of government in their respective divisions (Legge 1956:
62).
The conditions calling for this type of administration still exist in
large and populous areas of the Territory, some of which have
been ‘opened up’ as recently as coastal Papua had been when Mac­
Gregor took charge. He, too, founded the native constabulary and
the system of village constables to represent governmental authority
at the grass roots.
A system of essentially similar constituents had been inherited by
the Territory of New Guinea, seized from Germany in 1914 and
placed under League of Nations Mandate to Australia in 1919; the
administrative divisions were there called ‘districts’ and the local
native headmen, appointed in the villages by the Administration,
were called luluais and tultuls, as they had been by the Germans.
Following the Japanese attacks on Rabaul and Port Moresby in
January and February 1942, civil administration was suspended in
both Territories, and by the end of March the Army had appointed
most of the officers of the two civil services, and many other men
experienced in the territories, to the Australian New Guinea Admini­
strative Unit (ANGAU), which administered the areas under Aus­
tralian and Allied control for the rest of the war.
The regime of ANGAU had permanent effects on the shape of
New Guinea administration. It paved the way for the administrative
The Growth of Territory Administration 191
union of the two territories of Papua and New Guinea, having
itself been formed by merging, after only a few weeks, the two
separate units at first set up in March 1942 to establish military
administrations. It also confirmed, on a uniform pattern for the
whole country, the system of integrated administration within
relatively autonomous districts. The former New Guinea terms
‘District’ and ‘Sub-District’ became universal, replacing the corres­
ponding terms ‘Division’ and ‘District’ in Papua. The general admini­
strative officials in charge in these respective areas became the
District Officer and the Assistant District Officer, superseding the
Resident Magistrate and Assistant Resident Magistrate. Their re­
sponsibilities during the war became even more extensive. In addition
to maintaining patrols, law, order and police, and seeing to the feed­
ing, clothing, health, and welfare of the people, they had to provide
and control native labour for the war effort, prevent fifth column
activities, operate radio stations, provide guards for vital routes and
installations, and generally keep close liaison between the fighting
troops and the supporting activities of the local communities. The
range and exercise of their functions were supervised by the
District Services Branch of ANGAU. The rehabilitation and man­
agement of food, rubber and copra plantations and the provision of
civilian transport were controlled by the Production Services branch,
wrhose functions were transferred to a Production Control Board in
1943. The post-war trend to separation of specialized functions from
district services was foreshadowed by the successive establishment
within ANGAU of a Native Labour Service, a Medical Service, and
a Legal Service. The war period saw an unprecedented expansion of
medical services for the people and the beginnings of governmental
educational and agricultural services. All of these activities, unin­
hibited by the pre-war doctrine of financial self-sufficiency for the
Territories, resulted in a greatly expanded Territorial service,
including field staff, by the end of the war. And in February 1944
the G.O.C. ANGAU summoned the first general conference of
headquarters and district staff ever to be held in either Territory,
when discussion ranged over native administration, medical and
dental services, native welfare, education, labour and land policy,
and native agriculture.
Return to civil control: the Provisional Administration. At about
the same time the preparation for the post-war administration
began. A standing sub-committee of the Australian Cabinet on
Territories was formed, with a small Department of External Terri­
tories (which had been separated from the Prime Minister’s Depart­
ment in 1941) acting as its secretariat. Simultaneously a small
‘Army Research Section’, which had established itself in Melbourne
under the Adjutant-General, was re-named the Army Directorate
of Research, attached directly to the Commander-in-Chief, and
charged with advising him on the exercise of his powers in respect
192 New Guinea on the Threshold
of the administration of Papua and New Guinea, maintaining liaison
between the Army and the Department of External Territories, and
undertaking research on Army administration and on matters of
post-war policy in the Territories referred to it by the Cabinet sub­
committee. This eccentric military formation was a way of legiti­
mizing one of the enterprises of the redoubtable Mr Alfred Cordon,
who had gained the ear and the confidence of the Prime Minister
and General Blarney and gathered round him a group of like-
minded enthusiasts, mainly academics and lawyers, in the hope of
injecting some constructive thought into the rehabilitation of New
Guinea.
The group was re-formed by Cabinet in March 1945 as the ‘Pacific
Territories Research Council’, with the Commonwealth Director of
Education as formal Chairman and with the addition of officers
from the Territories administration. The most constructive achieve­
ment of tills group was the planning of a School of Civil Affairs to
train patrol officers for ANGAU and become a permanent research
and training institution. First established in Canberra in February
1945 under the Directorate’s control, a year later it was transferred
to the Department of External Territories and moved to Sydney,
and in May 1947 given a continuing role as the Australian School of
Pacific Administration with its own semi-autonomous Council (swal­
lowing, incidentally, its own parent, the Pacific Territories Research
Council). Imaginatively conceived and ably headed and staffed, this
School laid firm foundations for administrative training and edu­
cation in the Territory, under the uneasily watchful eye of a
Minister and Department always sceptical about the value of free
discussion for this purpose.
Meanwhile civil administration of the Territories, on a unified
basis as under ANGAU, had been restored. In July 1945 the Papua-
New Guinea Provisional Administration Act was passed to provide
tentative arrangements for civilian control until the fate of the
Mandated Territory should be decided. By the end of October a
single Provisional Administration Public Service had been inaugur­
ated and taken over from ANGAU all of the Territories south of the
Markham River. In June of the following year the Provisional Ad­
ministration assumed full control of both Territories under a single
Administrator, Colonel J. K. Murray, a former Professor of Agri­
culture at the University of Queensland who was then Chief
Instructor at the School of Civil Affairs. In December 1946 the
United Nations General Assembly approved a Trusteeship Agree­
ment for New Guinea which permitted it to be brought into a
customs, fiscal or administrative union’ with other Australian terri­
tories. In November 1947 the government announced its intention to
form a permanent administrative union with a single administrative
head, a single legislative body, and a common public service. These
aims were effected by the Papua and New Guinea Act, 1949, which
The Growth of Territory Administration 193
retained the single Supreme Court already established, ratified the
Trusteeship Agreement for New Guinea, and established a new
Legislative Council for the combined Territories without altering
their separate identity and status. This Act also replaced the pre­
war Executive Council by an ‘Administrator s Council’, intended ‘to
advise the Administrator’ but, unlike the Executive Council, includ­
ing the Administrator himself, together with three official members
of the Legislative Council and three non-official members of whom
two must be elected members.
Post-war policies and administrative patterns. The general pattern
of post-war administration was set by Mr E. J. Ward, Minister for
External Territories, when introducing the Provisional Administra­
tion Bill in 1945. First he rejected the pre-war principle that the
Australian official effort should be limited to what the Territories
themselves could finance:
This Government [he said] is not satisfied that sufficient interest
had been taken in the Territories prior to the Japanese invasion
or that adequate funds had been provided for their development
and the advancement of the native inhabitants. Apart from the
debt of gratitude that the people of Australia owe to the natives
of the Territory, the Government regards it as its bounden duty
to further to the utmost the advancement of the natives and
considers that can be achieved only by providing facilities for
better health, better education and for a greater participation by
the natives in the wealth of their country and eventually in its
government (C.P.D. 1945 Vol. 183:4052).
Next he proposed to abolish the indenture system of securing native
labour for European enterprises and to establish a separate Native
Labour Department to improve and supervise working conditions
and pay for natives. Third he promised ‘a vigorous programme of
education in its broadest sense controlled and directed by the
Administration’ (which had left education almost entirely to the
missions before the war). Fourthly he announced that in future the
basis of the economy of the Territory would be native and European
industry, ‘with the limit of non-native expansion determined by the
welfare of the natives generally’, rather than, as before the war, By
the markets available and the supply of native labour that could be
obtained’. With the exception of the last point, these policies of the
post-war Labor government were accepted by the Liberal govern­
ment which succeeded it at the end of 1949. An unprecedented
expansion of Administration expenditure, staff, and activity followed,
especially under Mr Hasluck, who held the Territories portfolio
from 1951 till the end of 1963.
In June 1946 when the Provisional Administration was fully
established the public service consisted of 643 Australians and some
thousands of native people known as Administration Servants and
engaged in minor skilled and unskilled labour. They were organized
194 New Guinea on the Threshold
in eleven departments: the Government Secretary’s (then including
the Registrar-General’s Branch, Crown Law Office, and Police
Force); the Treasury (including the Government Printing Office,
Government Stores, and Post and Telegraph branches); District
Services and Native Affairs; Native Labour; Education; Public
Health; Agriculture, Stock and Fisheries; Trade and Customs (re­
named Customs and Marine in 1948); Forests; Lands, Surveys and
Mines; and Public Works (which operated under the authority of
the Commonwealth Department of Works and Housing). By the
time of the passing of the Papua and New Guinea Act, followed by
the change of Australian government in 1949, there were about
1,200 expatriate officers and about 8,500 Administration Servants,
while the Government Secretary’s Office had absorbed the Depart­
ment of Native Labour.
By a Territory Ordinance of 1949 this public service was placed
in the care of a Public Service Commissioner, whose duties were to
effect economies, promote efficiency, and check and supervise the
activities and methods of each department. The Commissioner and
his staff were located in the Department of the Government Secre­
tary. Though given a separate department in 1954 the Commissioner
has never had the quasi-judicial independence of Public Service
Boards in Australia. He holds office at the pleasure of the Governor-
General and reports to the Minister for Territories. And his juris­
diction does not extend to those Commonwealth agencies outside
the Territorial public service, such as the Departments of Works
and Civil Aviation and the Australian Broadcasting Commission,
which operate extensively in the Territory.
The tasks of this administration were unusual not only by reason
of their special environment but also because of the constant change
in that environment produced largely by its own activities, and the
different stages and rates of change existing simultaneously in
different parts of the Territory. The pattern of change is not uniform,
but the first stage in each area is ‘to make contact with the people
of the country, stop fighting among those who have been traditional
enemies, and establish law and order’. Then follow (as the Native
Affairs Department has described them) the tasks of improving
village sanitation and hygiene, developing inter-village roads and
tracks, applying the laws of the Territory as required, introducing
improved food crops and methods of cultivation, encouraging
reforestation, supervising recruitment and employment of labour
and through various field surveys, compiling data on which to base
future work. The next stage is to apply and develop the special
techniques of local government and co-operation. This requires
more detailed supervision and instruction by the field staff. Next,
when a group of peoples has been in contact with European ways
for some time (and the time varies greatly), new economic activities
may begin, often meeting problems of land usage and tenure,
The Growth of Territory Administration 195
capital investment, resettlement, and labour relations. This stage
may call for more differentiated and specialized public services, and
as the spread of communications makes the more recently opened
areas safer and more accessible, experts from various functional
departments can establish more formal provisions for agricultural,
experimental, and extension work, for the protection of public
health, for education, public works, afforestation, and the admini­
stration of lands and justice.
To increase the scale, the level of technical competence and the
concentration of effort in these functional departments was one of
the chief administrative concerns of Mr Hasluck from 1951, when
he became the first Minister for Territories and the first Minister
who had ever been given the Territories as his sole responsibility
(they included the Northern Territory and a number of other Aus­
tralian dependencies). He later said of this time:
Quite frankly, . . . I was appalled at the state of the Territory
Public Service, . . . dismayed at the delays and the ineptitude and
indeed the lack of the basic craftsmanship of the service (Wilkes
1958:115).
And so, ‘as one who had had some experience on the public service
side of handling public business’ (he was an officer of the External
Affairs Department during and after the war), he set out from the
beginning to impose his own pattern upon the administration—a
pattern of specialization and centralization as he foreshadowed in
his first year of office:
For some years to come, it is inevitable that Papua and New
Guinea will be administered as a territory and that the admini­
stration will become increasingly centralized in Australia. This is
due to the fact of the constitutional superiority of the Common­
wealth Parliament, the fact that the expenditure in the Territory
will be financed by the Commonwealth, to the fact that the
Commonwealth Government alone holds the responsibility before
the world and (in the case of New Guinea) to the United Nations
for administering the territory according to certain standards and
cannot delegate that responsibility to anyone else, and to the fact
that the Commonwealth Government must of necessity maintain
the security of the Territory and the observance in the Territory
of the fundamental principles of national policy. This centraliza­
tion of administration will also be promoted and facilitated by
the improvement of communications and by the growing speciali­
zation of all human activities (Hasluck 1952:227-8).
T he administrative structure
‘Centralization and specialization. With Mr Hasluck’s appoint­
ment to the new portfolio of Territories in 1951 the former depart­
ment of External Territories and the Northern Territory section of
the Commonwealth Department of the Interior were amalgamated
into a single Department of Territories in Canberra, with a total
196 New Guinea on the Threshold
staff (including the Northern Territory administration) of 623.
Within a year the division of the Department into sections dealing
with each territory as a whole had been superseded by a ‘functional’
organization so that ‘problems of a like nature in all Territories’, as
the Public Service Board said, ‘will now be handled by a common
staff’. The main Divisions dealt with General Administration, Wel­
fare and General Services, Industries and Commerce, and Inter­
national Relations. Despite some internal reorganization and changes
of Division titles, this structure has remained essentially the same,
but in the thirteen years to mid-1964 the size of the Canberra staff
rose to 1,771—an increase of 184 per cent. (In the same period the
Papua and New Guinea Territorial Public Service was increased
from 1,174 officers and employees, all expatriate, to 6,473, of whom
1,384 were indigenous people—a total increase of 451 per cent, most
of it in the territorial headquarters at Port Moresby.)
Within the first year of his administration Mr Hasluck terminated
the appointment as Administrator of Colonel J. K. Murray, known
for his firm views on native policy, and replaced him with Mr (now
Sir) Donald M. Cleland, former Chief of Staff to the Military
Administration and wartime chairman of the Production Control
Board, and later W.A. Vice-President and then Federal Director of
the Liberal Party in Australia. The Administrator has ‘the duty of
administering the Government of the Territory on behalf of the
Commonwealth’, but geographical proximity to Australia and
modem communications have enabled his role (like those of his
counterparts in other Australian territories) to be confined within
much narrower limits than that of a Governor in a traditional British
colony. Though he has the right of direct access to the Minister, his
more important decisions are normally subject to Canberra approval
of recommendations submitted through the officers of the Depart­
ment of Territories. In some matters involving the functions, organi­
zation, and staffing of the public service his recommendations must
be countersigned by the Public Service Commissioner; in purely
public service matters the Commissioner alone makes recommend­
ations. Though his Administration is responsible in New Guinea for
nearly the whole of the functions which are carried out in Australia
by state and federal governments together, his administrative dis­
cretion and authority are in practice scarcely equivalent to those of
a single departmental permanent head in Canberra.
So much for ‘centralization’. The growth of ‘specialization’ was
encouraged by the development of a departmentalized Territorial
Service on the model of the Australian public services. In particular,
specialized functional departments were multiplied and expanded
both numerically and geographically. Former sections of existing
departments which were made independent included the Crown
Law Office (1950), the Departments of Posts and Telegraphs and
Public Works (1955), and of Labour and Police (1961). In 1961,
The Growth of Territory Administration 197
also, a new Department of Trade and Industry was created, absorb­
ing the functions and staff of the former Department of Customs
and Marine. In the following year the Division of Extension Services
in the Administrator’s Department was given full status as the
Department of Information and Extension Services, its function
being to promote understanding among the local people of the
policies and measures of the Administration. At the same time
high priority was given to the growth of previously established
specialist departments such as Agriculture, Education, and Public
Health.2 In addition, most of these departments were steadily
developing their own field organizations, at District and Sub-District
levels, while some of them introduced a new ‘Regional’ level of
organization of their own, intermediate between the District and
headquarters.
The policies of ‘centralization’, in the form of a large and powerful
bureaucracy in Canberra, and ‘specialization’, in the form of
multiplied functional departments with their own local hierarchies
in the Territory, were complementary to each other. The strength­
ened lines of command, from every specialist officer in the field
through his own departmental headquarters in Port Moresby to the
Department of Territories and Minister, were calculated to concen­
trate decision-making in the hands of the Minister and his immedi­
ate advisers. To be fully consistent, such a system could scarcely
tolerate other points of strong co-ordination and authority (even
though delegated), the obvious candidates for which were Port
Moresby and the Districts. It is not surprising, therefore, to note a
distinct Ministerial resistance to fully co-ordinated administration at
these levels.
Co-ordination at Port Moresby. The relatively limited autonomy
2 A rough indication is given by the following comparison between public
service increases in two broad groups of departments and in the Department of
Native Affairs (District Administration), in two successive periods. The first
group ‘Law, order and basic services’, includes the departments of the Admini­
strator, Civil Affairs, Customs, Lands, Law, Police, Posts and Telegraphs, the
Public Service Commissioner, Public Works, and Treasury. The second group,
‘Specialist services’, includes Agriculture, Education, Forests and Public Health,
all in existence in 1957, and Trade and Industry, Labour, and Information and
Extension Services, all created since 1960. (The movement of some staff from
the Department of the Administrator and the Customs Department into Group 2
departments after 1960 makes little difference to the basic comparison. If Public
Works and Posts and Telegraphs had been included in the second group the
contrast in rates of growth would have been more striking, as these departments
also grew rapidly.)
Increase in Public Service Staff
Departmental groups 1957-60 1960-4
% %
Law, order and basic services 45 16
Specialist services 60 123
Native Affairs Department 29 21
198 New Guinea on the Threshold
of the Administrator has already been noted. Other potentialities of
concerted decision-making at Port Moresby were avoided with
equal care. In the immediate post-war structure, for example, there
was an appearance of traditional colonial practice in the survival of
a Government Secretary’s Department, which had had a certain
primacy over other Territory departments as the right hand of the
Administrator. Even then, however, this department was not the
co-ordinator of district administration. As an experienced critic
observed in 1951:
At the centre, the dualism of the Government Secretary’s office
and the Department of District Services comes straight from the
primitive colonial past. It is a reflexion of the view that the
control of ‘native people’ is some kind of esoteric art divorced
from the ordinary matters of government. . . It makes a properly
co-ordinated policy impossible. For this reason, the former ‘native
affairs departments’ . . . in territories under the United Kingdom
have in every case been abolished, and their duties have been
transferred to a central Secretariat (Davidson 1951:6).
In New Guinea, by contrast, the Department of District Services
and Native Affairs was perpetuated and in 1955, as if to emphasize
the limited, functional conception of its role, was renamed simply
‘Native Affairs’; while in the same year the Government Secretary’s
Department was abolished and its staff transferred to a Department
of the Administrator which had been created in 1952.
The history of the last-named department is instructive. Despite
its title, it never has been directly headed by the Administrator. At
its foundation a new post of Assistant Administrator was created to
provide it with a separate departmental head. After an important
general administrative reorganization in 1955 the official description
of its functions made it look like the true heir of the Government
Secretary’s Department. They were to include responsibility for:
The smooth working and efficient functioning of all the Depart­
ments of the Administration; organisation of research for and
planning and promotion of developmental policies; investigation
and co-ordination of the plans and programmes . . . prepared by
Departments and the determination of final programmes in re­
lation to available resources; co-ordination of Administration
activities with those of Commonwealth Departments and Instru­
mentalities operating in the Territory; channels of communication
with the Department of Territories; and so on.3
But it is doubtful whether the Administrator’s Department ever
played such a role, since six years later the Minister was impatiently
telling his advisers that there was still a marked tendency to over­
elaborate the structure of the Department of the Administrator. He
directed that it was to be mainly a secretariat in the narrow meaning
of that term and was not to be a clearing-house, brains trust, or a
3 Circular Memorandum H.H. 180, issued by the Administrator on 15 June
1955.
The Growth of Territory Administration 199
planning authority for the whole Administration. Instead, he
approved (in 1961) the appointment of a second Assistant Admini­
strator; the separation of both these offices from the headship of
any individual department; and the creation of a Central Policy and
Planning Committee at Port Moresby, consisting of the Admini­
strator, the two Assistant Administrators, and the Territory’s
Treasurer. (The Director of Native Affairs was added in 1964.) The
Department of the Administrator was to be headed by a Secretary,
but it was explicitly stipulated that he should be in the ‘second grade
of Departmental Heads’, with a lower salary than his predecessor,
and was not to be a member of the Policy and Planning Committee.
Reminiscent of the 1955 announcement of the functions of the
Department of the Administrator was the 1961 public description
of those of the Central Policy and Planning Committee:
i. To ensure consistency in the overall application of policy in
all departments of the Administration;
ii. To bring under notice all phases of the administrative effort
and of the situation in the Territory before recommendations
on policy are made to the Minister; and
iii. To ensure that forward planning is realistic and comprehensive
(T.P.N.G. 1963b :3).
More indicative, as before, of the real state of affairs was the Mini­
ster’s instruction to his own officers that the Policy and Planning
Committee should not bring any change to the processes of planning
or making policy. All the planning, all the prompting of policy and
all the detailed investigation were to come upwards out of the
functional departments and not out of the Department of the
Administrator. This showed pretty clearly where the Policy and
Planning Committee stood, and this is pretty much where it has
remained—as an occasional sifter of departmental propositions.
Probably at least as effective, as a gesture towards co-ordination at
Port Moresby, was the ‘assignment’ under the 1961 arrangements of
the general oversight of three groups of departments respectively to
the Administrator and the two Assistant Administrators.4
4 The ‘Assignments’ were authorized by the Administrative Arrangements
Ordinance, 1961. The grouping arranged at that time was:
Administrator Assistant Administrator Assistant Administrator
(Services) (Economic Affairs)
Department of the Ad­ Education Agriculture, Stock and
ministrator Public Health Fisheries
Treasury Native Affairs Forests
Law Labour Lands, Surveys & Mines
Police Public Works Trade and Industry
Information & Extension Posts and Telegraphs
Services
Since the replacement of the Department of Native Affairs by that of District
Administration, the latter has been ‘assigned’ to the Administrator and the
Department of Information and Extension Services has been transferred to the
Assistant Administrator (Services).
200 New Guinea on the Threshold
Alongside the Policy and Planning Committee as potential plan­
ning and co-ordinating bodies at the Territory level are the Land
Development Board, consisting of the Assistant Administrator
(Economic Affairs) as Chairman, with the Directors of Agriculture,
Lands, Forests and Public Works; and the Administrators Council
(see Chapter 12). Between the three of them as they actually
function it seems safe to assume that Port Moresby cannot, as a
co-ordinating or planning centre, seriously purport to challenge the
more closely knit Department of Territories.
The problem of district administration. It has already been
suggested that the New Guinea environment makes the role of that
Territory department which has variously been called ‘District
Services’, ‘Native Affairs’, and ‘District Administration’ unique
among its fellows, both in principle and practice. And yet, partly
for this very reason, partly as a by-product of the policy of ‘centrali­
zation and specialization’, and perhaps partly from accidents of
personality, its organizational status has always been equivocal.
Among landmarks in its chequered post-war history were, first, the
creation outside this Department of the new office of District Com­
missioner (see below); next, the reorganization of 1955 which erased
‘District Services’ from its title, transferred some of its more routine
functions to a new Department of Civil Affairs, and nominally
shifted the Government Secretary’s co-ordinating responsibilities to
the Department of the Administrator; next, a connected series of
official investigations, reports and recommendations in 1959-61
which only resulted in removing further functions from Native
Affairs; half-despairing suggestions at various stages for dismember­
ing what remained of the Department and ending its identity; in
1963 another official investigation and report; and finally, in 1964,
another change of title to Department of District Administration
and one more definition of its ‘role . . . in Territory administration’.
And throughout this period until the 1964 reorganization, no state­
ment of the Department’s functions (though many were tendered)
was ever formally approved by the Minister. Instead, it suffered
steady attrition by ad hoc transfers of activities to the specialist
departments—its Labour Branch to the Department of Labour, the
Co-operative Section to the Department of Trade and Industry, its
Publications, Radio, and Films services to the Information and
Extension Department, and so on. Threats of further surgery were
endemic: a new department of Local Government and Community
Development should take over these functions; field officers should
shed their police powers and authority in land matters; and so it
went on.
Behind this vacillation lay sharply conflicting views of the De­
partment’s proper status. Territory officials—and sometimes also
those in Canberra—who examined the problem posed the issues
very clearly. The 1959 committee of review was sure that the line
The Growth of Territory Administration 201
of command was confused by the implication in the 1955 reorgani­
zation that the Department was unus inter pares, that it was another
technical department with technical functions ‘to take care of the
Natives’ as though this was something quite distinct from the
responsibilities of other Departments. It was asserted that the 1955
reorganization failed to make clear that the responsibilities of the
Department of Native Affairs were essentially of a general admini­
strative nature involving the integration and co-ordination of the
work of other Departments.
In 1960, nearly ten years after Professor Davidson had made a
similar observation, the ‘overwhelming view’ of local officials, as one
of them put it, was that ‘the present status of the Department of
Native Affairs as an organisation distinct from the Department of
the Administrator, and in the field, as concerning staff, distinct from
the District Commissioner, was a source of confusion and frustra­
tion’. They accordingly advocated ‘the removal of the separateness’
between these departments. Their conception was that ‘the primary
role of the present Native Affairs organisation is to serve as the
instrument of central administration at lower levels’, especially in
‘the co-ordination of planning at the district level’. But the authorita­
tive view, as published by the Administrator himself in 1958, was
quite different. He said it was the Department of the Administrator
which was, ‘in broad terms, responsible for the general co-ordination
of the work of other Departments’, while
The Department of Native Affairs is primarily concerned with
the detailed aspects of native administration in the field. . . . Its
activities include—to mention but a few—establishment of patrol
posts, patrolling, administration of law and order, Courts of
Native Affairs, native land matters, and the control and protection
of those indigenes who enter the field of employment (Wilkes
1958 :xiv).
As a matter of history, the deep ambivalence of administrative
practice lent some plausibility to each of these views simultaneously.
Because of its title, and because in more recently-opened areas it
acted as agent for all other departments, the Department of Native
Affairs had indeed been tempted to ‘regard itself as the whole
Administration in so far as natives are concerned’. Truly, ‘native
administration’ could involve every activity and therefore every
department of government. But the whittling away of its own
functions, as well as the transfer of its agency functions to ‘technical
departments’ in more settled areas, seemed to imply in the long run
a limited, ‘functional’ role for Native Affairs. This did not mean that
‘native’ concerns as a whole could be segregated from other policies
and programmes of the government, but that this Department
might be confined to certain aspects of ‘native’ administration:
exploration and pacification of new areas, establishing and main­
taining patrol stations, acting as a primary point of contact with
202 New Guinea on the Threshold
native communities, and advising other departments on the appli­
cation of their specialist techniques at the ‘grass roots’. This was the
concept distinguished in one report as ‘bringing the natives to some
stage of development after which the technical Departments will
take over’. It was given some countenance by Ministerial directions
about the investigations of 1959-62. They were to explore the
Department’s handing over of magisterial and police powers in
certain areas, its liaison in the field with other departments, the
relief of Native Affairs officers from the performance of agency
functions. The Minister was unconvinced by arguments in favour
of placing ‘direct administration, exploration and agency functions’
(he was referring to Native Affairs) within the Department of the
Administrator, presumably because he saw these as specialized,
technical functions in which that ‘secretariat’ should not become
involved. On the other hand, the Department of Native Affairs was
entrusted with the initiation, development, and continuing super­
vision of the native Local Government Councils, which were seen
as the means of introducing the people to organized political life
and as an important medium of general economic and social de­
velopment. Surely this was a ‘generalist’ responsibility which might
be thought to involve the Department in the co-ordination of many
other departments’ efforts in the field? These ambiguities were
puzzling enough. But the strangest anomalies of all were generated
by the system of District Commissioners.
Before 1951 the District Officer, belonging to the Department of
District Services and Native Affairs, had been the nearest approach
to a co-ordinating authority in the field—if only because the field
organization and activities of other departments were still relatively
rudimentary. In that year a new office of District Commissioner
was established, outside the Department of District Services, and
with ‘a dual administrative role’:
Firstly—As senior executive officer he is responsible to the Govern­
ment Secretary for the co-ordination of all the activities of the
Administration within the District in respect of matters other than
those concerning native administration.
Secondly—In relation to all matters concerning native admini­
stration he is responsible to the Director of District Services and
Native Affairs.5
On the face of it, this arrangement was consistent with the notion
that District Services was a purely technical department, and that
an independent authority was required to co-ordinate its district
offices with those of other departments in the field. However,
authority (as distinct from ‘responsibility’) was precisely what the
District Commissioner was not given. He also had no staff of his
5 Circular Instruction G.H. 548 issued by the Territory Administration on
13 January 1951, para 7.
The Growth of Territory Administration 203
own, and was required to divide his administrative allegiance be­
tween two masters. Naturally enough, it was soon being said that
‘the position of District Commissioner is far less attractive than
that of pre-war District Officer’,6 and a state of uncertainty and
periodic exasperation set in among field officers, calling forth suc­
cessive ‘clarifications’ which remained obstinately beside the point,
and if anything rendered confusion worse confounded.
Following the 1955 reorganization, a new Memorandum an­
nounced that the District Commissioner was the representative of
the Administrator within a District and was now on the staff of the
Department of the Administrator.
District Commissioners will be responsible within a District for
the observance by all Departments of the Administrator’s direc­
tions on policy and for the achievement of the objectives of
policy. Additionally, they will ensure smooth working and co­
operation between Departments working in the District.
This time the withholding of the authority necessary to achieve
these results was made explicit:
The direction of the policy of a Department may not be restricted
by a District Commissioner in any way, but should a District
Commissioner consider that some feature of the policy of a
Department is not in the best interests of a District, he is to
communicate his views to the Departmental Head or the Assist­
ant Administrator as the case may require.7
It was also provided that District Commissioners should be kept
acquainted with policy changes and departmental actions, that they
could call conferences of departmental representatives to secure co­
operation in the District, and that they should continue to preside
over Town and District Advisory Councils (see Chapter 12) and
transmit their advice when necessary to the Administrator.
Two years later, at a District Commissioners’ Conference, it was
still ‘apparent that some uncertainty exists as to exactly what his
position is, particularly in relation to Departmental and Technical
Officers and to the general co-ordination and direction of admini­
stration in his District’. Yet another Memorandum was issued,
talking of ‘the need for the closest co-operation between Depart­
ments and District Commissioners’, ‘mutual consultation’, ‘the
District team’, ‘the general supervision of the District Commissioner’,
6 Remarks of a senior District Services officer in 1953, listing some anomalies
that would arise ‘while this Instruction remains in force’. Incidentally, one of
the reasons advanced for the establishment of District Commissionerships was
that existing District Officers were men of ‘insufficient education’ for the
post-war tasks of district co-ordination and leadership; however, up to 1962 at
least, every post of District Commissioner was filled by a former District Officer.
7 Both extracts are from Circular Memorandum H.H. 180, issued by the
Administrator on 15 June 1955.
204 New Guinea on the Threshold
‘common objectives’, ‘endeavouring to secure agreement on
measures’ at the monthly meetings of district departmental repre­
sentatives; reiterating that the D.C. was ‘personally and directly
responsible to the Administrator for the peace and good order of his
District and for the . . . observance by all Departments of directions
on policy’; and yet reaffirming that:
The District Commissioner will not normally intervene in Depart­
mental matters, but in matters of detail and routine any reason­
able request addressed by him to local Departmental Officers
should, as a matter of course, be honoured.8
His only power to issue orders on his own responsibility was ‘in cases
of emergency’. Unsupported by membership of any departmental
hierarchy in the District, without command of any executive
apparatus of his own, and facing specialist officers whose allegiance,
interests, and primary duty of obedience lay firmly with their own
departmental headquarters in Port Moresby, the D.C. was in reality
no more than a liaison officer, dependent on persuasion and person­
ality for whatever influence he could wield.
The difficulties of this system were repeated at the Sub-District
level, where Assistant District Officers, responsible in matters con­
cerning their own Department of Native Affairs to the District
Officer, and also for agency functions on behalf of other depart­
ments, were ‘to be regarded . . . as the agent of and responsible to
the District Commissioner’ for the purpose of inter-departmental
co-ordination and co-operation at Sub-District level. Relations
with other departmental representatives in the Sub-District were
prescribed in the same hopeful terms as for the District Com­
missioner, and the rest was left to the ‘good sense of Officers and
their common devotion to the interests of the public and of the
Service’.9
The 1964 reorganization. It took thirteen years of protest from
within the service and a change of Minister to amend the more
obvious defects of this system of district administration. The con­
sensus of those who had to work it was remarkable, as expressed in
reports of District Officers’ and District Commissioners’ Conferences,
Senior Officers’ Courses at A.S.O.P.A., interdepartmental ‘Policy
Workshops’ (conferences of senior officers), and the 1959 and 1963
Committees of Review. As crystallized in the last-mentioned report,
the consensus ran as follows.
The very creation of the office of District Commissioner recog­
nized the need for integrated execution of policy by all departments
in the field. Unified planning and budgeting on a District basis
were also necessary. Rut all of these, to be effective, required a
8 Circular Memorandum H.H. 1/57, issued by the Administrator on 16 May
1957. My italics.
9 Circular Memorandum H.H. 2 /5 7 (undated).
The Growth of Territory Administration 205
unified executive authority and administrative apparatus in the
District which the D.C. lacked. Moreover, he needed the support
of an effective policy-framing and executive co-ordinating machine
at the Territorial headquarters. In fact he was attached to the
Department of the Administrator which had been denied both
policy-making and executive functions and had no organization of
its own in the field. There he was required to rely on the help of the
A.D.Os., thus straining their obligations to their own Department,
but he was denied that of the most experienced potential adviser,
the District Officer, who as a result was kept less informed about
overall district administration than his own A.D.Os., yet was ex­
pected to deputize for the D.C. when the latter was absent or on
leave! The A.D.Os. in their turn had to spend more time on agency
and general administrative work than on native advancement prob­
lems, which tended to be left to very junior officers. In the absence
of authoritative co-ordination at the District level and a unified
chain of command from the centre, the advantages of decentrali­
zation were lost and integrated decision-making had to be concen­
trated in Port Moresby or Canberra. We have already seen
that this was precisely what the Minister wanted in 1952, but
the conclusion drawn from the 1963 investigation was that the
organizational separation of District Commissioners from field
officers of the Department of Native Affairs had proved inadvisable.
The present system was formally unworkable, had resulted in
considerable confusion in most districts, and worked satisfactorily
in others only through the good sense of the officers concerned.
There should be a reversion to the single chain of command which
existed prior to the 1955 reorganization.
The reorganization of 1964 accepted most of the recommendations
which followed from this analysis. The Department of Native
Affairs was renamed ‘Department of District Administration’, whose
functions as announced by the Administrator ‘include a clearcut co­
ordinating role within administration districts and responsibility for
promoting political awareness at all levels’.
The Director of District Administration is directly responsible to
me and is a member of the Central Policy and Planning Com­
mittee. . . The strengthening of the generalist administrative
organization, both at the central level and within administrative
areas, and the establishment of a unified chain of command from
the Administrator to the effective contact level, will be achieved
through the transfer of District Commissioners from the Depart­
ment of the Administrator to the Department of District Admini­
stration.
District Commissioners remain my personal representatives. . .
They are responsible to the Director of District Administration
for the administration of their respective Districts. . . ,10
10 Circular Memorandum A.D. 128, issued by the Department of the
Administrator on 18 November 1964.
206 New Guinea on the Threshold
District Officers are renamed Deputy District Commissioners, be­
come in practice ‘the District Commissioner’s Executive Officers’,
and are directly responsible to him. Officers in charge of Sub-
Districts are now called Assistant District Commissioners and are
responsible directly to the District Commissioner for administration
and the co-ordination of all departments operating therein.
The problem of interdepartmental relations in the District is not
definitively resolved, as District Commissioners are still given no
authority over officers of other departments except ‘in times of
emergency’. Each departmental head remains responsible for im­
plementing approved programmes for his Department throughout
the Territory. However, a system of District Development Com­
mittees, comprising senior officers of major departments in each
District, under the Chairmanship of the D.C., has been established.
‘The District Commissioner in this role must clearly be recognised
by the Departmental representatives as the chief executive and
co-ordinator in his District.’ But conflict between departmental
plans and programmes in a District cannot be resolved by him. If
agreement cannot be reached on the District Development Com­
mittee, he must simply refer the matter to the Director of District
Administration, ‘who will take necessary action to have the problem
determined at the appropriate level’. Thus no real decentralization
of decision-making has yet been achieved. At least the Director is
now on the Policy and Planning Committee, and the D.C. is
backed by his authority and the resources of the traditional
‘generalist’ Department in the field. And something, in turn, has
been done to restore the prestige and authority of that Department.
But it is still not the department of the Administrator, and it remains
to be seen whether its new Planning and Advisory Division at head­
quarters will develop as an aid to the Policy and Planning Com­
mittee in considering the problems of the Territory as a whole.
T he public service
In 1964 the Territorial Public Service was organized in fifteen
functional departments, together with the Department of the Public
Service Commissioner. At 31 August the staff employed in these
departments numbered 6,535 under the Public Service Ordinance
of the Territory and 9,703 under the Administration Servants
Ordinance. In addition there were a separate Police Commission and
an Electricity Commission. Police and warders numbered about
3,400; over 6,500 indigenous people were employed under the
Native Labour Ordinance (mostly as unskilled labourers), and there
were about 800 students, apprentices, and other small groups in
Territory employment. The Public Service Commissioner’s duties
included the promotion of efficiency, co-ordination of the work of
departments, recruitment and staff training, promotion of staff, and
supervision to ensure economy in the use of staff and other re-
The Growth of Territory Administration 207
sources. The Minister retained power in many matters, including
creation and abolition of departments, the functions of departments,
the classification of offices in the public service, qualifications for
appointment or promotion, appointments of permanent heads and
overseas officers (expatriates), rates of salary, and the making of
Regulations under the Ordinance.
Until 1958 the public service proper was staffed exclusively by
non-indigenous people, almost entirely Australians. Inducements to
serve in the Territory included post-war improvements in salaries,
special ‘expatriate allowances’ and generous leave conditions, and
for some the interest and challenge of the job and prospects of
rapid promotion. Nevertheless the post-war efforts to increase the
public service rapidly for its new tasks of development were
chronically hampered by scarcity of staff. Although the size of the
service was doubled in the five years to 1958, the numbers on
strength always fell a long way below approved establishments, and
high rates of staff turnover set constant limits to efficiency. In this
context and in that of political development an obvious need was to
provide for a rapid transition from an expatriate to a largely
indigenous public service. This step was inevitably delayed by the
tremendous lag in native education. Intensive measures were
necessary to qualify and train local people for clerical, professional,
and administrative work. By the time these began to bear fruit, the
prospects of increasingly rapid political change reinforced a
growing sense of insecurity among expatriate staff, and it seemed
likely that the wastage rate would exceed the rate of recruitment
and training of qualified indigenous staff to replace them. Most
problems of the public service are related to this basic situation.
Localization. The post-war public service was divided into three
Divisions. The First Division consisted essentially of departmental
heads. The Second Division contained most of the administrative,
professional, and clerical staff, and required the Australian Leaving
Certificate or Senior Examinations as a qualification for entry. The
Third Division contained technical and routine clerical staff, and
the entry qualification was the Australian Intermediate Certificate
or Junior Examination or evidence of a trained technical skill.
Planning began in 1953-4 for the creation of a new Auxiliary
Division, to enable increased participation of indigenous people in
partly skilled, technical and clerical work in the Administration, to
provide in-service training to standards qualifying for entry to the
established Divisions, and ultimately to give them scope for higher
advancement in those Divisions. In 1955 the Public Service Ordin­
ance was amended to establish the new Division, to open the service
to competitive entry by indigenous people, and to grant them
salary, status, and conditions equal to comparable expatriate officers
(except for the Territorial allowance and expatriate leave con­
ditions).
208 New Guinea on the Threshold
At this time only three indigenous persons were known to be
qualified to enter the Third Division of the public service, and it
was necessary to set lower standards for entry to the Auxiliary
Division. Between 1955 and the end of 1957, 360 positions were
established in the Division, and divided for entry purposes into
three categories. For the ‘clerical and professional’ category (Clerical
Assistants, Teacher Assistants, and Health Assistants) two years of
post-primary education were required; for the ‘higher technical’
category (Technical Assistants and Field Assistants), a completed
primary schooling; and for the ‘lower technical’ category (semi­
skilled), three years of primary school. In 1958 the first appoint­
ments were made to the Division—188 were admitted. In the
following year a single public examination was substituted for the
initial three standards, with an internal examination barrier before
advancement beyond £509 (later raised to £530). By August 1964
there were 1,197 Auxiliary Division officers, almost all of them
former Administration Servants.
A further amendment to the Public Service Ordinance in 1959
made the first provision for appointing indigenes to permanent
positions in the regular Second and Third Divisions—to the latter
either directly or by promotion from the Auxiliary Division.
Positions were classified in three categories similar to those adopted
for the Auxiliary Division, and for entry to both Divisions there
was a reversion to differential entry qualifications for these categor­
ies, ranging from Junior Certificate down to Standard 4. The Junior
Certificate was required for certain ‘In-Training’ positions, leading
after successful completion of formal training courses, of from
two to five years, to such positions as Assistant Patrol Officer,
Assistant Welfare Officer, and Assistant Surveyor. A new Retire­
ment Benefit Ordinance in 1960 provided a form of superannuation
for permanent public servants bom in the Territory. In June 1961
the first group of permanent indigenous appointments was made—
26 to the Third Division and 2 to the Second Division. By August
1964 there were 19 permanent and temporary indigenous members
of the Second Division, and 168 in the Third Division. These all
received the same salaries as expatriate officers in corresponding
positions (but not, of course, expatriate allowances and leave con­
ditions).
The combined result of these measures was that by the end of
1964 about 21 per cent of Territory public servants were indigenous
officers, very few of whom had had time to advance beyond the
lowest ranks of their respective occupational groups. Localization
was keeping pace with the five-year development programme
announced by the Minister for Territories in October 1961, which
provided for additional recruitment of 2,000 expatriate officers and
not less than 2,500 indigenous public servants by 1967, giving the
service in that year a total strength of 10,000, of whom one-third
The Growth of Territory Administration 209
would be indigenous. But this was not at all pleasing to the United
Nations Visiting Mission of 1962.
To aim at permanently increasing the Australian staff of the
Government Service to about 6,000—this increase to be progres­
sively undertaken over five years—seems to the Mission to be a
policy which would be open to grave doubt, if the expatriate
recruitment were all undertaken on a permanent basis.
The Mission felt that the public service was to some extent over­
centralized and over-complicated, and feared that the government
was creating a bureaucratic superstructure too cumbersome for the
country to afford. They also considered that the target of one-third
indigenous officers by 1967 would ‘fall far short of a reasonable
objective’ (U.N. Trusteeship Council 1962: para. 227). It would have
been helpful if the Mission had indicated how a higher indigenous
proportion might be attained, other than by allowing the expatriate
service to wither. Indeed, its warning about permanent expatriate
recruitment seemed to encourage government moves in that direc­
tion. Speaking to the Annual Congress of the Territory Public
Service Association in September 1962, the Minister for Territories
announced a change in recruitment policy:
For some time past the policy has been not to appoint an expatri­
ate officer to any permanent position for which indigenous
candidates will shortly be available. Our judgment is that in a
great number of positions expatriate officers will be required for
many years to come. For such positions permanent appointments
will continue to be made. For other positions we will give only
temporary, exempt or contract appointments to expatriates . . .
(Hasluck 1962a).
It was perhaps not so much this frank and specific statement, as the
general assumptions behind it, and the beginning of short-term
appointments in practice, which increased the sense of insecurity
among expatriate officers. The change seemed likely also to increase
the difficulty of recruiting needed Australians for the service and
to complicate the problem of training new entrants.
Training and education. Both the Papuan or New Guinean and
the European, when engaged for any but the most menial work in
the Territory public service, are plunged forthwith into an alien
culture—the one into the Western world of organized authority,
written communication, and advanced technology, the other into
the semi-savage environment of Melanesia, with the primary task
of helping to transform it. Add this to the urgency of all that the
public service must do, and it becomes obvious that experience ‘on
the job’ must be supplemented by intensive formal training if waste
of time, errors, and disillusion are to be avoided. This was obvious
to the creators of the Australian School of Pacific Administration
(ASOPA) back in 1944, but the School’s role never developed as
210 New Guinea on the Threshold
they envisaged, and the growth of formal training provisions within
the Territory, though recently accelerated, was extraordinarily tardy
at first. The reasons for this are too complex to examine here, but
the facts may be noted.
In 1947 when ASOPA began to operate in Sydney, staff training
in the Territory was reported by the Public Service Commissioner
to be Virtually non-existent’. ASOPA’s first (and always major)
contribution was the training of Australians as Patrol Officers for
field service in the Department of Native Affairs. From 1947 the
Cadet Patrol Officers, who were required to have the Leaving
Certificate or its equivalent, took a three months’ Orientation Course
at ASOPA, served for two terms (21 months) in the field in the
Territory, and then returned to Sydney for a full-time two-year
course of a standard which earned credits towards a degree of the
University of Queensland. After finishing this course an officer
could complete a university degree or diploma by correspondence
from the field, or submit a thesis for a Diploma of ASOPA, or both.
In 1954 the need to increase staff in the field and counter wastage
was accepted as a reason for cutting the Orientation Course to
three weeks, supplemented by a three weeks’ induction course in
the Territory, setting correspondence assignments to be completed
during field service, and reducing the subsequent ‘long course’ to
one year, entailing compression of the teaching to the point where
university credits were no longer granted. This short-sighted policy
was soon regretted in the Territory, leading to repeated recom­
mendations for restoration of the two-year course, endorsed in
1963 by the committee of review on the Department of Native
Affairs, and in 1964 by the Currie Commission on Higher Education
and the Interim Council of the Administrative College (see below).
Meanwhile, since 1963, expatriate Cadet Patrol Officers have
been recruited on a six-year contract basis which precludes any
thorough formal training. Since 1962 indigenous Assistant Patrol
Officers-in-Training have been recruited in the Territory and given
a one-year combined practical and rudimentary clerical course at
Finschhafen. Proposals for an integrated training and education for
District Administration field officers, including a two-year diploma
course at the Administrative College, were adopted in 1965.
Quasi-professional training for the public service received sus­
tained attention from the middle 1950s. From 1955, Cadet Educa­
tion Officers recruited in Australia received a two-year training
course at ASOPA with the help, in part, of lecturers seconded from
Balmain Teachers’ College, Sydney. Training colleges for indigenous
teachers have been established in the Territory. A crash programme
for increasing the supply of European primary school teachers
was conducted at a special teachers’ college at Malaguna, Rabaul,
from 1960. The same period has seen the establishment of agri­
cultural colleges, of a forestry school at Bulolo and of the Papuan
The Growth of Territory Administration 211
Medical College at Port Moresby for the training of indigenous
staff to sub-professional levels. Other departments such as Posts
and Telegraphs have training schools for technical officers. In
most of these institutions part of the effort has to be devoted to
raising the general educational level of the students before they
can proceed to more specialized training. The Education Depart­
ment also runs courses for this purpose.
Formal training conferences for middle-grade and senior public
servants have also been a development of the past ten years. The
first Study Group for Senior Officers from different Territory
departments was held at ASOPA in 1956, and these have continued
annually, producing reports which are valuable source material for
the study of Territory administration and its problems. In 1961 a
series of ‘Policy Workshops’ was inaugurated. These are conferences
of two to three weeks in different Territory centres designed to
enable officers to discuss policy issues and administrative problems
of their districts with officers from other parts of the Territory
Service and from the Department of Territories.
The conduct of central training courses in office methods of all
kinds, and the encouragement of officers to undertake further edu­
cation on their own account, have been functions of the Public
Service Commissioner’s Department since it was established in
1954. It has helped to administer the schemes in operation since
1956 for selected officers to attend courses conducted by the Aus­
tralian Administrative Staff College, the Commonwealth Public
Service Board, and Commonwealth specialist departments, and also
the Territory scheme of Free Places for full-time or external
university studies which was begun in 1958. In 1962 it awarded the
first Public Service Secondary Education Scholarships for full-time
secondary studies to enable indigenous officers in the Auxiliary
Division to qualify for entry to the Third Division.
A good deal of this work was managed by the Public Service
Institute, a branch of the Public Service Commissioner’s Depart­
ment established in 1954, initially to help develop training pro­
grammes for the new Auxiliary Division. In the following year it
began to widen its scope, and by 1963 its activities included tutorial
assistance to public servants engaged in part-time university studies,
orientation and induction courses, typing, stenographic, and basic
clerical training, courses in supervision and management, and re­
fresher courses for specific occupational groups in the clerical-
administrative ranks of the service.
In 1961 an interdepartmental committee in Canberra had pre­
pared for the Minister the first comprehensive report on develop­
ment of higher education in the Territory, including a recommen­
dation for establishment of an Administrative College which was
immediately adopted. In November 1963 this College was formally
inaugurated at Port Moresby, absorbing the Public Service Institute
212 New Guinea on the Threshold
and commencing a new training scheme for indigenous court
officials. The College is intended to give special emphasis to the
development of higher management and administrative education
for the public service, and has embarked on the first stage of a
scheme of combined formal education and planned experience
intended to qualify a number of indigenous officers for senior
executive posts within a period of ten years. Work has commenced
on permanent buildings for the Administrative College, which will
provide full residential, classroom, library, and recreational facilities
for 300 students and the teaching staff. The Commission on Higher
Education has recommended that any university established in the
Territory should consider the future incorporation of the higher
management and administrative education activities of the College
in the University as an Institute of Administration.
‘Reconstruction, 1961-4. In May 1961 the Minister initiated plan­
ning to change the structure of the public service ‘to provide for
the present and prospective increases in the number of indigenous
public servants and for the day when the service will be predomin­
antly an indigenous one’. The most important problems this raised
were those of standards of entry, rates of pay and allowances, and
terms of appointment, and of these rates of pay was to prove the
most crucial issue. It was posed by the Minister—and his answer
given, in his address to the Public Service Association in September
1962:
The question to be faced . . . is whether an indigenous public
service can be maintained at the Australian rate of salary and
whether its members should receive the expatriate allowances
and conditions given to the Australians. This is not a question of
equal pay for equal work but a question of the capacity of the
country to pay and a question, too, of social equality in the
indigenous community. It will be bad for government and bad
for the community if the self-governing country makes the
bureaucrat a more highly privileged person than any other
citizen. . . . In the territorial service [the Public Service Com­
missioner] will fix a lowest rate and a highest rate based on a
broad judgment of the long-term capacity of the Territory
economy, and within that range he will classify positions accord­
ing to work value and qualifications required (Hasluck 1962a:9,
11).
The Minister went on to specify alternative ways of reconstructing
the service to this end: first (which he preferred), an integrated
service in which ‘the indigenous and expatriate officers would be
fellow members of the same service, the expatriate receiving his
additional emoluments mainly in the form of expatriate allowances’;
and second, ‘a main service organised for local conditions and local
rates of pay and . . . an auxiliary division which would be staffed
wholly by expatriate officers’. He had been told by the Association
The Growth of Territory Administration 213
Executive that after discussion of these schemes with their indi­
genous and expatriate members, they preferred the second, and the
government would adopt it. ‘At an appropriate stage in the course
of the work consultation will be arranged.’ And the government
would ponder the idea that the new expatriate service, and the
payment of its emoluments, might be provided for under Common­
wealth Acts rather than a Territory Ordinance, though he did not
accept the Association’s view that this was a necessary safeguard.
There appeared to be mutual agreement on these principles, but
their subsequent history was a chapter of confusions and conflicts.
When the Bill for a new Public Service Ordinance was introduced
into the Legislative Council in September 1963, the Association
Executive had seen it only briefly in final draft and under seal of
confidence so that there could be no consultation with the rank and
file. Indeed, it was not even discussed with Territory department
heads until after its First Reading in Council. The Bill embodied
the principle of separate Territorial and Expatriate Divisions, each
to have its own salary scale, with a cumbersome system for re­
classifying a position into one Division or the other according to
whether a qualified indigene was held to be available for it.
The Public Service Association now declared itself opposed to a
dual service. The separate Expatriate Division seemed to threaten
an early Australian withdrawal (the very objection to this scheme
raised by the Minister a year before), and its establishment under
Territory legislation, and not a Commonwealth Act, would make
the expatriates’ position precarious when a native majority domin­
ated a Territory House of Assembly. The Association also com­
plained about the clumsy provisions for reclassifying offices between
the two services; about the lack of a preference clause in favour of
local officers; and above all about the failure to incorporate in this
Bill, as a quid pro quo for the increased insecurity of expatriate
jobs, a plan of compensation for premature loss of career through
localization.
The government was prepared to revert to the principle of a
unified service with its main corollaries, but refused to delay the
Public Service Bill until a compensation scheme could be worked
out. (Indeed, its anxiety to pass the Bill in the last hours of the old
Legislative Council drew accusations that it was unwilling to run
the gauntlet of the proposed new House of Assembly.) Relations
between the Association and the Minister broke down; the Associ­
ation had most of its proposed amendments introduced by private
members of the Council; and when the Second Reading of the Bill
was taken in November the government accepted without demur
those calling for a single service. As passed, the Ordinance (No. 20
of 1964) retained the First, Second, and Third Divisions of the
Service, omitted the Auxiliary Division, paved the way for officers
of that Division and for Administration Servants to be transferred
214 New Guinea on the Threshold
to the Second and Third Divisions, and authorized different salaries
for offices in any of the three Divisions according to whether they
were occupied by local or ‘overseas’ (i.e. expatriate) officers. Pro­
vision was also made for preference to local people in appointments,
promotions, or transfers to prescribed positions or classes of position.
In effect this removed the right of expatriate officers to appeal
against promotions of local officers to positions so gazetted. Apart
from the Association objections to the postponement of a compen­
sation scheme, there was general assent to the Ordinance both
inside and outside the Legislative Council.
It took a further year to work out the regulations and actual
salary determinations necessary to bring the Ordinance into effect.
Once again strict secrecy was preserved until the completed scheme
was announced on 9 September 1964. It immediately drew down a
chorus of criticism and protest from inside and outside the public
service, including both indigenous and expatriate elected members
of the House of Assembly. Native teacher trainees and medical
students staged marches on Administration Headquarters; leaders of
employee associations and other groups issued public denunciations;
public meetings passed resolutions of censure; the Public Service
Commissioner was besieged by deputations; and newspapers in the
Territory and Australia expressed measured disapproval. When the
House of Assembly met in February 1965 the elected majority
unanimously passed, over official opposition, an Ordinance intro­
duced by an Australian elected member, to share control of the
Territory service between the Minister for Territories and the
Administrator’s Council and a local public service board. This pro­
voked a rift in the anti-Administration ranks: the President of the
Public Service Association said that overseas officers wanted to
remain under Australian control and feared a measure which could
subject the service to manipulation by Territory politicians. The
amending Ordinance was in due course vetoed by the withholding
of Vice-Regal assent. The Minister appointed a committee of
three elected M.H.As. and two government officers to report on what
changes should be made in control of the public service and how
localization could be accelerated. The question of local salary rates
was submitted by the Association to the Public Service Arbitrator.
Since there is nothing in the decisions announced in September
1964 which is inconsistent with the principles accepted by all
parties a year earlier, it is necessary to ask why they aroused such
resistance. The main reasons would seem to be as follows:
(a) Foremost and fundamental was the cold shock of the actual
salary differentials, unheralded by any prior consultation with the
interested parties—a case of tactical ineptitude. The rates for local
officers average about 40 per cent of those for overseas officers for
the same jobs at all levels—before the latter’s territorial allowances
and leave conditions are taken into account.
The Growth of Territory Administration 215
(b) The change meant an actual reduction in the nominal salaries
of indigenous officers already in the Second and Third Divisions on
equal pay. Of course, it had always been quite clear that this would
happen and that, on ‘the principle of no reduction’, they would
receive allowances to make up the difference from their former
salary until, by promotion, their new nominal salaries reached the
former level. But somehow the announcement of the new rates
brought home to them the indignity of future inequality—an inequal­
ity which, ironically, would only become apparent in their wage-
packet as increased qualifications and meritorious service brought
them formal promotion. Mr Lloyd Hurrell, an elected member of
Legislative Council, had prophesied their dismay a year earlier
when debating the Ordinance:
The Administration committed an almost irreparable blunder
when it placed several local employees in the Second Division,
with salaries based on the Australian rate. This was done despite
the fact that in September, 1958, provision was made in this
Council for separate salary scales to be established. . . . These
promotions have prejudiced any real hope of salaries being placed
on a local economic basis without local employees being badly
upset (T.P.N.G. 1963f).
(c) Some people felt that the uniform ratio of local to overseas
salaries at all levels was particularly crude. They argued that, even
though the principle of lower local rates overall were accepted, the
margins might have been varied according to the responsibility of
the job and the qualifications required and possessed by the in­
cumbent. The margin might be relatively small in highly skilled
and exacting jobs when the local officer had the advanced qualifi­
cations that would have been expected of an expatriate; margins
might then be graded to a maximum where no skill or training was
present.
(d) Another related argument was that local officers in clerical-
administrative positions had become accustomed to European
styles of living which they and their like would no longer be able
to afford. Was it wrong for those who had acquired European skills
and habits of work to aspire to something like European living
conditions and so set an example of ambition to their fellow-citizens?
(e) Such critics were not necessarily questioning the need for
some differential, but they joined with those who asked how so
severe a differential was actually chosen. Administration spokesmen
had talked of ‘what the Territory will be able to pay when the
people determine their own political future’, and said the new local
rates ‘even at the levels proposed are in excess of what the Territory
could afford without the direct financial assistance being given by
the Australian Government’ (T.P.N.G. 1964a). But none of them had
offered a single argument or figure to support the alleged calcu­
lation that the new rates represented ‘what the local economy could
216 New Guinea on the Threshold
afford’. The calculation was, in fact, based on the prevailing mini­
mum urban cash wage in the three main centres, but, apparently for
tactical reasons, the explanation was withheld until the arbitration
hearing had begun!
(f) In any case, these references to the Australian financial sub­
vention were disturbing in themselves. Seeming to rely on a hint
that Australian assistance could be curtailed or withdrawn at any
time, they conflicted with other government assurances to the con­
trary. They provoked, moreover, the thought that if Australia did
decide to economize on New Guinea after independence, some
other countries would be only too willing to step into the breach.
In the meantime, such a severe curtailment of indigenous salaries,
announced just before the largely elected House of Assembly
rose, really looked more like Australian financial prudence than
tenderness for the future solvency or social equality of Papua and
New Guinea. It might have been left to their own independent
legislature to decide whether ‘it would be bad for the government
and the community if public servants were to become more highly
privileged persons than other citizens’.
(g) Another government argument was that as the Administration
was the largest single employer of the Territory work force, regard
should be had to the influence its local salary levels must have on
‘commerce and industry employment’. The critics were soon able to
point out that the levels actually fixed were below those of much
private white-collar indigenous employment: except for the banks,
the large private employers publicly declined the Administration’s
request to bring their rates into conformity with its own. As for
the lower wage-rates for manual employment in private industry, it
was argued that a substantial rise in their levels could take place
with little other effect than to enforce much-needed improvements
in managerial and technical efficiency.
Most of these reactions and criticisms are of course debatable,
and many of them do not nullify the basic argument for some salary
differential in the public service. There were others suggesting that
the form of the differentiation could have been more tactfully
designed without altering the substance, but few Papuans and New
Guineans would have been deceived by this. It is true, again, that
many of the objections were made belatedly and not argued very
cogently. But the manner of bringing in the change had smothered
adequate prior discussion, giving a spurious impression of acquies­
cence, and it was the substance of the change, when finally unveiled,
that crystallized the latent, ill-formulated, and sometimes unreason­
ing opposition. Unreasoning or no, it is a warning that in this kind
of nation-building, economic prudence is not necessarily synony­
mous with political wisdom—and in the long run may be less
important.
The Growth of Territory Administration 217
C onclusion
This chapter has attempted to convey some idea of the development
and shaping of Territorial administration since 1945, to give
examples of some of its more important problems of organization
and staffing, and to appraise in a preliminary way some of the
methods adopted to meet them. Such an approach cannot by itself
assess the substantive achievements of the Australian Administration
in that time. It is probably still too early for this; in any case the
range and magnitude of the achievement have been described at
great length in a large number of readily accessible Ministerial
statements, official reports on the Territory to Parliament and the
Trusteeship Council, and publications of the Department of Terri­
tories. The yearly reports of the U.N. Visiting Missions on New
Guinea contain many judgments on Australia’s record—on some
matters favourable, on others critical, but all somewhat cursory.
The chapter, also, has not addressed itself to the quality of the
administrative effort: the ability and dedication of many Territorial
officers, their patience in trying to understand the people’s points
of view and to ease, while accelerating, the transition to a new form
of society; and the occasional obtuseness, prejudice, or lack of
interest of a misfit minority. In terms of money, equipment, numbers
and qualifications of staff, and formal organization, the administra­
tion has been greatly strengthened since the war and has been
invested with a sense of urgency previously unknown. These
changes have been due largely to dynamic and imaginative leader­
ship at the Ministerial level—and one Minister held the portfolio
for twelve of the most crucial years. Analysis of some of the strains
of this regime cannot detract from its achievement. It can, or
should, contribute to a more sophisticated facing of the future.
Some of the strains selected for analysis here were associated
with deliberate political decisions on public service salaries and
classifications. Others resulted, it seemed, from a declared Mini­
sterial approach to administration—the approach of ‘specialization
and centralization’. Of these two elements, specialization is not
wrong in itself, but only when pursued at the expense of co-ordin­
ated planning and execution. In the Territory, it has possibly been
reflected in a prematurely segmented organization—too many
separate departments for a comparatively small total structure. This
is a defect in so far as it is one of the many factors pushing the
need for co-ordination to higher levels in the hierarchy where
control of detailed administration is never easy. In terms of
organization, therefore, specialization has been one aspect of the
more general policy of centralization—and centralization is always
administratively suspect.
The Territory experience confirms such suspicions. Concerted
planning and co-ordinated action are inadequately provided for at
the level of the District and of Territory headquarters. This must
218 New Guinea on the Threshold
result—and, it seems, intentionally so—in concentrating planning and
co-ordination (in short all important decisions) in Canberra. But
what does this mean in practice? An excessive quantity of memor­
anda and recommendations moves between the Territory and
Canberra. Only in this way—at second or third hand—can the
decision-makers be informed on matters which could often be better
decided nearer to the point of action. This process can mean that
submissions from senior Territory officers are reviewed, and final
recommendations made thereon, by people in Canberra who may
be junior in status or experience and have never seen at first hand
the places or problems they pronounce upon. (Exchange or second­
ment of officers between the Territory and Canberra is virtually non­
existent.) This is, certainly, only one case of the universal tension
between central and field staffs, but here it occurs at one further
remove, and there are correspondingly more serious bottlenecks and
delays in getting decisions—with no general presumption that they
will be that much wiser.
Of course the Minister remains generally responsible to Parliament
for Territories policy and administration, and he needs a secretariat
in Canberra, for liaison with other Commonwealth departments,
co-ordination of policy for different Territories, research, budget­
ing, and clerical services. But with New Guinea so accessible and
modem communications so easy, it would seem possible, as well as
desirable, to operate with a minimal interposition of policy-advising
and executive officers between the Minister and his staff in the field,
ft is within the Territory that delegations of authority and sub­
ordinate decision-making centres, at district and Port Moresby
levels, need to be strengthened. Apart from its direct administrative
advantages, this could bring incalculable gains in restoring morale
and self-respect, and eliciting initiative and enthusiasm in the
Territorial Administration. Political insecurity and uncertainty about
careers are not responsible for all of the ‘wastage’ of senior and
experienced officers in recent years.
This analysis, incidentally, may be compared with the comments
on administration by the World Bank Mission which recently
reported on economic development in the Territory. For example:
Administration is excessively centralized . . . Communications
are frequently poor. The staff in several districts are quite isolated.
These factors, coupled with the concentration of decision making
in the headquarters staff at Port Moresby, frequently hamper
effective administration in the districts. It is important that district
staff be given authority to make decisions and implement pro­
grams and projects which have the general approval of the
Administration. . . The staff in the district offices, as well as the
staff in the departments in Port Moresby, should be made a part
of the planning process. To date there has been a tendency to
minimize the contribution district officials can make to planning.
This is a mistake (I.B.R.D. 1965:46, 410).
The Growth of Territory Administration 219
To anyone moving in the field, these summary abstractions are
brought alive by the obvious and widespread feeling among district
officials that people at Port Moresby and Canberra hardly think it
worth while to keep them carefully informed on current and future
policy, still less to heed or even acknowledge their own views,
even when painstakingly formulated in the reports of Senior
Officers’ Courses and Policy Workshops. Again, on Port Moresby’s
own role, the World Bank report deplored the lack of an economic
development planning staff to give continuity and substance to the
work of the Policy and Planning Committee, and criticized the
restricted membership of the Committee and its failure to invite
other heads of departments for direct discussions on matters affect­
ing their departments. It suggested that the Committee ‘be expanded
to include the heads of the major departments primarily concerned
with action programmes’, and that these programmes should include
plans for the districts’ prepared by the District Commissioners
(I.B.R.D. 1965:408-11).
The positive alternatives to centralization are reorganization and
delegation of authority based on a different psychological approach.
This would recognize the need for division of labour between
broad policy-making and detailed administration. It would under­
stand that the only workable relationship between the two is to
invest confidence and trust in the loyalty and good sense of those to
whom most of the work must, in the nature of things, be delegated,
and to safeguard this investment first, by selection of staff for their
independence and initiative, and second, by imparting the broad
aims of policy wherever possible through face-to-face discussion and
explanation. Constant tapping of field experience and opinion
should go without saying.
A few years ago Sir Ivor Jennings (1956:125-6) wrote:
The notion that a country is governed by politicians is fallacious.
The task of the politician is not to govern but to supervise govern­
ment, to take decisions on questions of principle which are sub­
mitted to him, and to maintain a close relation between public
opinion and the process of administration. The actual business of
government is the function of professional administrators and
technical experts. . . . The Minister is concerned with policy. He is
responsible for the efficiency of his Ministry, but he does not
administer.
To overlook this conventional maxim of modem parliamentary
government would be a natural temptation for a Minister who
valued his own ‘experience on the public service side of handling
public business’. Yet if this maxim is applicable to the Ministerial
direction of a single department, how much more so to the control
of all functions of government in at least two huge Territories. When
the Minister tried to administer the whole machine in detail, as well
220 New Guinea on the Threshold
as making policy and maintaining public relations, the result was
inevitable. He would engage in approving appointments of expatri­
ate typists, awards of secondary school scholarships, and nomina­
tions of individual officers to attend training courses, while allowing
the key department of his administration to remain disorganized
and discouraged for a decade. He would meticulously check the
details of an organization chart but fail to see the need for a more
rational thinking and planning machine at Territory headquarters.
He would create an elective House of Assembly and legislate for
the appointment of some ‘Under-Secretaries’, but leave no sign of
any coherent preparation whatever for the orderly evolution of a
responsible indigenous Executive (see Lynch 1964). All this being
said, however, a substantial administrative apparatus has been
created; it has considerable momentum and potential; it has been
given resources which by now are probably as great as it can
effectively manage and as the Territory can absorb at its present
stage of development. These are firm foundations.
The Growth of Territory Administration 221

A p p e n d ix

Government Employment in Papua and New

Guinea at 30 June 1965
Public Service of the Territory—
Expatriate 5,290
Indigenous 4,046
------- 9,336
Administration Servants 5,596
(Indigenous routine, technical, and
semi-skilled workers)
Students and apprentices 1,362
Other employees (incl. police and warders) 13,059

Total, Territorial Administration 29,353

Commonwealth Departments and Instrumentalities—
Department of Civil Aviation 342
Department of Works 817
Other agencies 150
1,309

Approximate Total, Government Employment 30,662

Note: Comparison of this table with the 1964 figures in the text shows that
large-scale transfers of former Administration Servants to the public service
under relaxed entrance conditions have radically altered the percentages
criticized by the Foot Mission without altering anything else of substance.
 11

The Expatriate Community

D. G. B E T T I S O N

A part from the effects of any serious worsening of Indonesian-

Australian relations, the future of the expatriate community in
Papua-New Guinea over the next ten years rests to an important
extent on its handling of relations with native people. The emphasis
of this chapter is on the expatriate community in terms of the
situation it is contending with inside Papua-New Guinea. It
examines the nature of expatriate organization with particular
reference to the position adopted by large-scale private enterprise.
The chapter concludes with an examination of the conditions needed
for the continued prosperity of expatriate interests in Papua-New
Guinea.
The term expatriate denotes those residents of the Territory who
feel an allegiance not only to the country itself but to Australia or
some other overseas country as well. It includes the overwhelming
majority of the 11,685 male and 8,277 female Europeans enumerated
in the 1961 census. A small number of these say they are quite
happy to spend the rest of their lives in Papua-New Guinea, and
some even argue that, whatever conditions emerge, it will remain
their home. The expatriate community includes some of the 2,319
full-blood Chinese and some of the 375 people from other Pacific
islands as well as some of the 2,717 mixed-race people recorded in
the 1961 census, though what proportion of these ethnic groups
could rightly be so considered is unknown; certainly some Chinese
deliberately attempt to adopt Australian status symbols such as
sending their children for education to Australian Church schools.
Similarly, some mixed-race persons have sought press publicity in
their attempts to gain Australian citizenship.
The term ‘expatriate’ is less easily defined than ‘non-indigenous’,
which has long been favoured by census officials and statisticians as
a classificatory convenience to distinguish indigenous from non-
indigenous people. At 30 June 1961 the non-indigenous people
numbered 25,330 (Australia 1962 :T.4). By 31 March 1964 the
222
The Expatriate Community 223
number had risen to almost 28,000, about 1-4 per cent of the esti­
mated total population of Papua-New Guinea. At a guess, the
expatriate part of the non-indigenous population might have been
24,000 in 1964.
The European came to Papua-New Guinea in the early years in
search of treasure or adventure, or with a sense of mission, or
perhaps even with a lust for power. Many Chinese were originally
introduced by the Germans in New Guinea as a source of labour.
The imperial powers’ acceptance of political responsibility for
Papua and New Guinea introduced the expatriate civil servant and
simultaneously determined the distribution of status both within
the expatriate community and between it and native people. Up to
1964 the senior government officer remained the principal dignitary
in any locality where the expatriate community was found. During
the early decades of settlement the readily observable differences in
dress, language, technical skill, and customs between the expatriate
and native people were sufficient to keep the communities distinct.
Over the past fifteen years, however, the rapid development of
education, governmental institutions, co-operatives, etc., has re­
moved many of these clear-cut differences and blurred the distinc­
tion between individuals. There is a small but growing number of
natives with qualifications better than or at least as good as those
of many expatriates. The grounds of distinction are decreasing,
particularly in towns.
Despite this, one recent American observer used the word
‘caste’ in describing the social distance between the expatriate and
native people (Watson 1964). For various reasons most expatriates
tend to hold themselves aloof from all but the most advanced
natives. This fact, however, should not necessarily be seen to mean
that they are unpopular or unwanted in the country, although
certain political implications may follow from its persistence. It
would be assuming a good deal to think that the expatriate’s future
in the country is doomed on the basis of this alone.
Native people sense the separation but are concerned about it in
differing degrees. The country fellow, whose interest and aspira­
tions are contained largely within his traditional culture, recognizes
a difference between himself and the expatriates he meets, but it is
of little concern to him. It is the younger, up-and-coming, more
educated person with aspirations towards expatriate positions,
income, and status who feels the difference most. Mr Lawrence
Waide, a medical student at the Papua Medical College and
recently returned from a conference in Perth, is reported as saying
that ‘for the first time he had been able to see Australians as they
really were. The Australian community in Papua-New Guinea was
so close knit that it was possible for Papuans to live among them
and not really get to know them’ (A.B.C. 1964).
In Papua-New Guinea the individual expatriate is conscious that
224 New Guinea on the Threshold
at least his way of living (and for most people the work they do
and the very purpose of their endeavours) is different from what it
would be in a society such as Australia’s. Though some expatriates
are concerned only with what they can get from the country and
its people, almost all are aware of an element of personal
responsibility towards fellow expatriates vis-ä-vis indigenous people.
Speaking of Australians collectively, the Prime Minister remarked:
We regard ourselves as trustees for Papua-New Guinea. . . . We
are not oppressors. On the contrary, our dominant aim is to raise
the material, intellectual, social and political standards and self-
reliance of the indigenous peoples, to a point at which they may
freely and competently choose their own future (A.B.C. 1963).
Government policy over the past five years at least has been aimed
at removing any formal discrimination between the racial groups.
The enacting of the Discriminatory Practices Ordinance, 1963, the
opening of public bars to all races, and proposals to minimize
differences in school curricula for expatriate and local children are
examples of this trend.
But the legal suppression of discriminatory practices does not
necessarily encourage expatriates to mix with indigenous people. It
does little towards removing from the mind of expatriates the notion
that group loyalties demand they defend another expatriate’s wrong­
doing against outsiders. Though this may be a general feature of
the relations of one closed society to another, it does little to further
the development of Australian ideals of equality both before the
law and in the application of principle to human behaviour
irrespective of race or creed. This is one aspect of the expatriate’s
dilemma.
Subtle means of discrimination in public facilities have been
attempted since the passing of the 1963 Act. They have not always
gone unchallenged. The challenge has come both from native and
expatriate sources. Some expatriates are deeply and personally con­
cerned over discriminatory acts. Such people are found mostly in
the educational services of the country, both inside and outside the
civil service. Their concern is motivated largely by personal
conviction and a belief that greater mixing is necessary to loosen
the close-knit bonds of the expatriate community. Their attitude is
that the future of expatriates generally is dependent upon the
creation of friendships across colour differences as much as upon
the opening of opportunities for advancement to native people.
It is important to distinguish increased mixing and expanded
opportunities for native people from reduction in the political and
administrative authority of expatriates, and the expatriates’ superior
economic status and standards of living. An interconnection among
them is admitted, but expatriates show much confusion of thought
over the connection and its relative importance in determining the
future.
The Expatriate Community 225
This distinction has more than academic significance. Papuans
and New Guineans show little inclination to enhance the sense of
cultural and political difference by suggesting, for example, that
Australians 'go home’, or indicating in any specific way that they are
unwelcome in the country. This does not mean that such remarks
have never been passed. They have been, but by individuals, and
the same remark has been made of Sepiks by Tolais and reinforced
by practical demonstrations on more than one occasion. The appli­
cation of the attitude to expatriates is possibly outweighed by the
number of genuine expressions of goodwill in public and private.
This is certainly connected with the clearly expressed intention of
Australia to grant political independence when indigenous leaders
feel they can stand on their own feet. But the matter goes further.
It reflects, at least at the present time, a suspicion on the part of the
native people that the differences among themselves are as great
as those between themselves and expatriates. It also reflects a hard-
headed recognition by indigenous leaders of economic dependence
and the advantages of defence relations with Australia.
The native’s attitude to the expatriate reflects to some extent at
least the nature of relations he had with other native groups—
and still has today in many areas of the country. The small scale
and closed nature of traditional societies, language differences, and
the absence of superior political authority made for difficulty, un­
certainty, and a lack of institutional persistence in inter-group
relations. These were personal and individual. Papuan and New
Guinean societies showed an ability to deal with each other without
any pronounced assimilation of one group by another. The expatri­
ate’s enforcement of peace, his provision of expanded opportunities,
and the introduction of new tools and techniques have gone some
way in providing recognizable benefits, but he remains a member
of a distinct and separate group. The handsome annual grant from
the Commonwealth of Australia, though almost half of it goes into
expatriate salaries, assists in providing proof that the expatriates’
presence is beneficial. The speed of development is becoming
demonstrable as ever-greater quantities of expatriate effort and
money are devoted to extension and development work. If the
speeches of indigenous members during the first meeting of the
House of Assembly, when their requests for roads, hospitals, and
schools poured out ad nauseam, are anything to go by, they lack
nothing in awareness of what benefits might yet accrue! These
speeches also reflected the shortfall between present efforts at
development and the felt needs and aspirations of the people.
Though I know of no study on the point, I suspect that the
indigenous Papua-New Guinea person tends more than most people
to judge a man in terms of what he can do and what can be done
through him. His judgment in the past was made largely within the
confines of his own limited group. Modem influences are extending
226 New Guinea on the Threshold
his opportunities, and his basic approach to man is extended
accordingly. Though pronounced stereotypes and suspicions about
other tribal groups remain, the indigene’s basic attitude towards
mankind persists. Preconceived notions about other individuals, in
terms of what they belong to or who their ancestors were, give
way quickly to an overriding estimate of others in terms of their
practical bearing on current human relations. In short the indigenes
are pragmatists; and this attitude is applied to the expatriate just as
to others. They are not unlike Australians in this.
At the practical level, the freedom of association with strangers
provided by Western forms of organization, such as shareholding
co-operatives, private companies, church membership, and sports
clubs, offers excellent opportunities for the practising of this basic
pragmatism. Not only by enlarging the scale upon which activity
can be carried out, but also as a means of making effective their
view of others and of mankind in general, the Western form of
association is likely to prove a powerful instrument. The committee,
as a technique of decision-making and of reconciling different
points of view, is likely to prove important as soon as the advan­
tages of co-ordination are perceived.
The expatriates do not attempt to justify their superior status by
asserting a mystical prowess or claiming supernatural qualities
possessed by them alone. In this respect they differ markedly from
the Europeans of South Africa. The Australian artisan or clerk will
complain about natives working under him—and often in not the
most savoury of language—and may occasionally say ‘it will be
years before they do a job properly’; but there is little evidence of
any fallacious theorizing over the innate qualities, or lack of them,
of local people. Differences of performance are acknowledged to
exist, but the answer to the problems to which they give rise is
seen to be in more and better training and education. The individual
expatriate has an easy and fairly adjustable approach to race
relations, and the almost complete lack of expatriate organizations
clustering around particular points of view on ‘the native question’
or the place of the expatriate in the country’s future emphasizes the
personal nature of decisions on race relations. Such a situation
certainly gives the government a much freer hand to advance its
egalitarian policies. As will be seen later in this chapter, it is certain
kinds of large-scale expatriate associations that most clearly require
to modify their terms for the participation of indigenous people.
The individual expatriate has placidly accepted the government’s
intention to remove discrimination by legal means. He is aware that
political independence is coming shortly. No expatriate organi­
zations have been formed deliberately to oppose these policies.
Reassured by his belief that he could leave if conditions became too
unpleasant, the expatriate is assessing the situation largely in
individual terms. His interpretation is influenced by the ease with
The Expatriate Community 227
which he could leave. Those with heavy capital commitments, and
particularly those with personal investments in land and property,
are most concerned. The artisan and clerical expatriates are more
concerned with their standard of living than with their authority.
No public incident has occurred in protest against the promotion
of an indigenous person to a position of authority over expatriates,
though this is recognized generally in the community as a difficult
and touchy question. It will need to be faced much more frequently
than hitherto. The present attitude towards it is possibly best
summed up in the Australian expression that all sides should be
given a fair go.
Social mixing
Perspective on the question of social mixing of the races necessitates
a description of the spatial distribution and occupations of the
expatriate community. The five largest towns in Papua-New Guinea
in terms of the non-indigenous population were, in 1961, Port
Moresby (6,396 non-indigenous persons), Rabaul (3,462), Lae
(2,396), Madang (691), and Wewak (560). These accounted for
53 per cent of the total non-indigenous population of the Territory.
Since the Chinese and Mixed-Race sections of the non-indigenous
population do not mix socially with the European section, it will
be seen that nowhere is there a large concentration of expatriates.
Papua-New Guinea has no large industrialized city. Expatriates can
be found living lonely lives in groups of two or three families at a
remote patrol post, school, or trade store. Settlements containing
perhaps a dozen houses occupied by government officers, plantation
managers and staff, missionaries, or trade stores abound throughout
the country. They represent little more than a locale of expatriate
authority and services amidst the villages of native people.
Social mixing among expatriates in these settlements consists
mostly of occasional visiting and is brought about more by a feeling
of remoteness than by any affinity of personality. Expatriate interests
are directed largely beyond local native people to residents of
other expatriate communities in the Territory and then to Australia.
Work, almost exclusively, directs expatriate interest to native
people. Administration officers and missionaries interact with native
people most frequently and in a wide variety of situations. Planters
and traders tend to be more limited in their range of contact, though
some among them are particularly close to local natives and are at
times in a position to lead expatriates and natives in local develop­
ment. Many expatriate wives in these rural settlements have little
to do with native people. There is little they feel they can do,
though some render voluntary medical and educational services.
Language is in many instances an effective barrier to communica­
tion with native women. The fears of many expatriate women in
remote and very alien situations limit the activities they feel they
228 New Guinea on the Threshold
can engage in. Their added responsibility towards their children,
particularly over problems of education in such cultural isolation,
and the problems of coping with household supplies with very
limited public services and transport connections, leave those with
families little time to take an interest in local non-expatriate affairs.
The small towns, with up to two or three hundred non-indigenous
people, offer a wider variety of expatriate people with whom to mix.
There are also improved but still very limited public facilities in
the form of schools, medical aid posts, sports clubs and other public
and private amusement. The struggles of these small towns with
the government over what they consider their fair share of public
services often bring people together. The services they seek, how­
ever, tend to be those required exclusively by the expatriate. The
small town and its environment is in the difficult position of having
two cultures living side by side but widely separated in their
standards and aspirations, without a middle class of indigenous
people in between. Interaction is therefore difficult. The authori­
tarian and paternalistic air of the patrol officer coping with law and
order in a population of 25,000, or of the plantation manager coping
with a labour line of 120, is carried over into the small town.
Social mixing between the races in the larger towns varies in
extent and intensity from one town to another. It is nowhere very
pronounced, and its lack is often a source of concern to visitors
with experience of Polynesia, the Caribbean, or former French
African colonies. Dutchmen with experience of West New Guinea
before the Indonesian takeover express similar views. Rabaul
appears to have the most marked degree of racial separation. There
are, for example, seven social clubs with their own buildings in the
town and these cater largely for one or other racial or cultural
group (Polansky, personal communication). The Tolai, who own
the land around the town, have no social club of their own in the
town itself. Port Moresby has the greatest number of indigenous
people with qualifications comparable with those of many expatri­
ates. A very few live in the predominantly European suburb of
Boroko, where neighbourhood visiting, lifts in cars to and from
work, and similar gestures are common. Language poses no diffi­
culties to either sex in these instances. Though inter-racial mixing
at a friendly neighbourhood level is not uncommon among people
of somewhat similar income, there are few expressions of spon­
taneous convivial mixing at dances and places of entertainment.
The absence of good locality street cafes, of beer gardens, open air
dance halls of the Latin style, or social clubs that facilitate
spontaneous mixing reflects the rather staid and restrained nature
of the people.
The fashion of drinking which has developed in Papua-New
Guinea since the lifting of restrictions on native consumption has
tended to emphasize the use of different facilities by native and
The Expatriate Community 229
expatriate. In some hotels there are bars customarily used by one or
other group, although no formal restriction exists on the use of any
facility by a person of any group. Elsewhere the bar tends to be
used by natives, while expatriates seek the relative privacy of public
lounges or drink in the seclusion of their homes or at licensed clubs
where access by non-members is restricted. A bar in Papua-New
Guinea has not the community atmosphere of the English pub nor
the social entertainment value of the Austrian beer garden.
Expatriates frequently comment on the unwillingness of native
people to invite them back to their homes. Invitations are not
generally reciprocated across cultural barriers, and expatriates
tend to adopt the view, probably erroneously, that they should not
go on asking Papuans to their homes for parties if no reciprocation
follows. There is much ignorance by each party, even among some
expatriates with lengthy service in the Territory, of the manners
and folkways of the other.
The use of wealth to express differences between individuals and
classes, to express power and prestige, and to gratify individual
ambition is a well developed institution in indigenous as well as
European societies. Material wealth is very important in both
societies. The large discrepancy between the incomes of expatriates
and natives encourages comparisons. Estimates prepared by R. C.
White (1964), calculated from official sources and his own inquiries,
show the average annual incomes of the following types of employee
in the private sector of the economy in 1961:
European males £1,537
European females £1,010
Asian and Mixed-Race males £794
Asian and Mixed-Race females £560
In contrast the cost of cash wages, rations, issues, etc. paid to
indigenous employees in private industry varied from about £156
per annum per person in the building and transport industries to
£90 per annum per person in the primary producing industries.
Wage-rates have risen since then but the ratios have not been
greatly affected.
These averages, however, should be seen against the much wider
range of income received by native people than by expatriates.
Before the changes effected by the Public Service Ordinance in
September 1964, the income of Second Division indigenous officers
in the civil service varied between £850 and £1,850 per annum.
This was from five to eight times as great as the £156 per annum
mentioned by White for the building and transport industries. The
range of expatriate incomes, apart from a few individuals in private
enterprise and the professions, was narrower. The higher figure of
a little over £4,000 per annum was scarcely three times as great as
the lower. Returns by resident taxpayers of income derived in
230 New Guinea on the Threshold
1961/2 showed that 4,589 (38 per cent) of 12,177 returns were in
the interval £1,500-£1,999. Some 492 individuals, or just over 4 per
cent of the total, had incomes in the interval £3,000-£3,999, while
only 322 individuals, or just over 2-6 per cent of the total, had
incomes in excess of £4,000 (T.P.N.G. 1964d:8). The Public Service
Ordinance No. 20, 1964, reduced considerably the salaries of new
appointees as ‘Local Officer in the Public Service. Those already
in the service retained their existing income by being granted a
special allowance to compensate for the reduction in their pay.
This change further exaggerates the differential between native and
expatriate salaries in the service. Inter-racial social mixing is most
pronounced between expatriates and the better-paid native mem­
bers of the civil service. One effect of the change is likely to be a
decline in the already limited inter-racial mixing.
Though living standards among expatriates tend towards uniform­
ity, differentiation based on the status and the nature of employ­
ment exists within the community. A distinction is observable
between employees of private business and one or other arm of
government. Within government the division between the staff of
the Territory Administration and that of Commonwealth Depart­
ments working in the Territory is clear cut. It is unusual to find
staff from both these arms of government mixing or even present at
an informal gathering. While the majority of clubs cater for and
accept a wide range of occupations, private entertainment tends to
be limited to personal friends of uniform occupational status. Age
and length of service in the Territory are important factors in the
making of active friendships.
An unknown but not inconsiderable part of the expatriate com­
munity is made up of people on short-term contracts of two or three
years. Both private enterprise and government make frequent use
of them. In an address at the opening of the Annual Congress of
the Public Service Association of Papua and New Guinea on 1
September 1962, the then Minister for Territories, the Honourable
Paul Hasluck, M.P., said:
For some time past the policy has been not to appoint an
expatriate officer to any permanent position for which indigenous
candidates will shortly be available. Our judgment is that in a
great number of positions expatriate officers will be required for
many years to come. For such positions permanent appointments
will continue to be made. For other positions we will give only
temporary, exempt or contract appointments to expatriates . . .
(Hasluck 1962a: 11-12).
The fares of short-term appointees are paid by their employer, and
they frequently come in search of novelty and adventure or to seek
the opportunity to save money at a faster rate than they feel they
could in Australia. During interviews between the writer and lead­
ing businessmen in Port Moresby, as part of this inquiry, some
The Expatriate Community 231
employers remarked that over 50 per cent do not renew their
contracts. The secretary of Bums Philp (New Guinea) Ltd said it
was his experience that if a man returned for a second contract he
was likely to stay indefinitely. An important reason for the non­
renewal of contracts is said to be isolation and dissatisfaction with
the lack of public amenities and entertainment.
The short-term resident, new to the country, probably arrives
with an open but receptive mind regarding the type of relation he
will establish with indigenous people. He quickly learns that the
ways of life and standards of the expatriate and most of the
indigenous communities are widely different. His accommodation is
likely to be in an expatriate residential area. It is convenient and
not very expensive to employ an indigenous servant. Piece by
piece his behaviour comes to conform to expatriate standards. His
increasing involvement with expatriates encourages his acceptance
of their reasons for their behaviour and standards vis-a-vis
others. Though his personal attitude to indigenous people may
remain very friendly, congenial, and even egalitarian in principle,
the day-to-day behaviour he adopts marks him off as an expatriate
in the eyes both of his fellows and of the indigenous people. On
occasion, however, some short-term residents (who are usually
single) may associate with indigenous women in conventional and
illicit relationships—a factor often leading to inter-racial difficulties.
Considered as a discrete group, the expatriate community believes
in its own superiority over all other groups. The dominant position
of its members in all major institutions of Papua-New Guinea
society, its higher income and privileges, and the educational and
technical superiority of its members confirm this belief. Yet the
belief gives rise to twinges of conscience. Aspects of religious
teaching, values generated by other sources of knowledge, the
Australian notion of egalitarianism, and the particular role of the
expatriate in Papua-New Guinea impinge on the conscience of
many expatriates. Yet the pricks of conscience need to be repressed
in the face of day-to-day relations with expatriate friends. The
personal cost of resisting the accepted patterns of behaviour needs
to be weighed. Support for those encouraging change is not always
readily forthcoming, whether the direction of suggested change is
towards or away from closer relations with native people. Inter­
racial behaviour is constantly in the forefront of expatriate thought.
Inter-racial social mixing takes place in Papua-New Guinea under
something of a strain. It is easiest and most natural when members
of both racial groups acknowledge the importance of an egalitarian
philosophy in its own right. They gain confidence from the fact that
non-discrimination is government policy and that they are bringing
into being the state of affairs that ideally should follow from such a
policy. There is, too, the feeling on both sides that at a mixed
gathering some insight into the workings of the other’s mind may
232 New Guinea on the Threshold
be obtained. Something may be learned; some clearer understanding
of the other’s motives and attitudes may be achieved. Yet inter­
racial mixing is hardly spontaneous, if only because the differences
in living standards, the different network of friendships, and the
varying degrees of personal involvement in public problems and
national ideals inhibit a free, emotional expression of unity and
common purpose.
The topics of conversation at racially mixed gatherings are
themselves illuminating. They are most frequently on serious issues.
There is little chit-chat about trivial matters. The people most often
discussed are not friends held in common but rather people holding
important offices or participating in important events. This is
explicable in terms of the things the parties have in common. Their
daily round of living in separate communities limits the range of
mutual contacts. Yet this limitation emphasizes the importance of
even the most trivial form of contact and communication. Inform­
ation obtained and the opinions of native leaders expressed at
racially mixed social gatherings, large and small, can markedly
influence the decisions taken by expatriates in the formal meetings
of established institutions.
E xpatriate organization
In New Guinea the indigenous culture’s organizational techniques
did not include that form of long-term, specifically purposeful
association typified by the Western company or voluntary welfare
association. The co-operation of members, themselves voluntarily
participating through formally agreed upon articles of association;
the election of office-bearers by vote; the recognition of legal
personality and liability of members, these are among the features
of Western organization that offer advantages for modem develop­
ment over the organizational forms of indigenous societies. Such
associations can be highly influential in the process of social change.
The government recognized their importance as instruments of
capital accumulation and public control when it fostered Native
Local Government Councils, Native Co-operative Societies, the
Tolai Cocoa Project, and similar associations for indigenous people.
Largely by a policy of non-interference, the government did not
discourage the growth of companies among expatriates. Its most
serious attempt at interfering in expatriate associations was the
introduction of income tax—a matter immediately challenged in the
courts. In prescribing racially mixed Town and District Advisory
Councils and most recently by facilitating the indigenous majority
in the House of Assembly the government introduced the principle
of extending racially mixed associations. It has amended its former
policy of exclusively native local government councils and co­
operatives by opening membership to expatriates also.
Most sporting clubs spontaneously open membership to all races.
The Expatriate Community 233
Social and recreational clubs are more restrictive—thereby embar­
rassing ex-servicemen’s clubs at least—and tend to use the right of
exclusion on grounds of race, culture, and class. With some ex­
ceptions the small-scale, non-power-oriented club or association
does not have formal provisions to obstruct multi-racial member­
ship. Cost of membership and lack of interest are cogent reasons for
membership to be confined to a single race.
It is as employees that most expatriates are linked to large-scale
organizations. Whether as an officer in the Administration, an
employee of one or other of the large trading or plantation com­
panies, or a missionary occupying the managerial position in church
affairs, expatriates are part of organizations very much larger than
any so far attempted, perhaps even contemplated, by local people.
With the exception of the individual settler, the European or
Chinese small retail store-owner, builder, or business-owner, the
expatriate serves the interest of well organized commerce, plant­
ations, airlines, religious missions, or government. Many of the
smaller organizations openly admit their dependence, in one way
or another, on large-scale private enterprise, and all except the
missions acknowledge their basic dependence on government and
its policies.
Official statistics give little indication of the distribution of the
expatriate community among government, private enterprise, and
missionary organizations. An examination of relevant reports
suggests that the Territory Administration in 1965 employed
about 5,300 expatriates. Expatriates in Commonwealth departments
and instrumentalities in the Territory numbered in round figures
1,250. Thus the government generally has approximately 6,550
expatriates in its employ.
Non-indigenous persons engaged in mission activities at 30 June
1963 numbered 2,556, of whom 1,365 were men and 1,200 women
(.N.G.A.R. No. 76 (1964) :App. xxv, p. 300, and P.A.R. No. 77 (1964):
App. xxv, p. 263). It is difficult to estimate the number of expatri­
ates engaged in private enterprises; but if by 1964 the number of
non-indigenous persons outside the work force numbered 12,00g1
and the total non-indigenous population in June 1964 was 28,000,
then some 6,500 or 42 per cent of the work force was engaged in
private economic enterprise of some sort.
Private enterprise takes many forms, from individual landholders
on properties of a few acres to large-scale companies operating very
mixed businesses including plantations, shipping, merchandising,
garages, hotels, as well as wholesale distributing. The three largest
distributive companies are Bums Philp (New Guinea) Ltd, W. R.
1 This figure assumes that the proportion of persons outside the work force
enumerated in the 1961 census could be applied to the 1964 estimate of the
non-indigenous population. The figure probably slightly overstates the number
outside die work force in 1964.
234 New Guinea on the Threshold
Carpenter Ltd, and Steamships Trading Co. Ltd. All have sub­
sidiaries. Steamships Trading Co. is registered and managed entirely
in the Territory, though it is heavily dependent on capital from
overseas. Its management is entirely European.
The Territory Administration has adopted a policy of increasing
indigenous participation in the civil service and has provided
varied educational and technical services to raise indigenous stan­
dards and abilities. Its long-term aim is the granting of political self-
determination. Similarly, a number of missions in Papua-New
Guinea have handed over senior positions to indigenous people, and
in the case of the former London Missionary Society, a transfer to
indigenous control and the formation of the Papua Ekalesia Church
has been accomplished. Many other missions are increasing their
training facilities for indigenous people.'
It is in private economic enterprise that expatriates practise ex­
clusion of indigenous people most strictly and widely. The need to
make a profit is undoubtedly a serious factor in their thinking about
increasing indigenous participation. Directors of large businesses
claim their profits are not excessive by Australian standards. They
fear that any reduction in efficiency through employing indigenous
people at supposedly uneconomic rates of pay, or investment of
capital in questionable indigenous enterprises, could speedily place
them in difficulties. In a letter explaining his company’s policy
regarding staff, the managing director of Bums Philp (New Guinea)
Ltd said,
Our executives in Papua-New Guinea are in precisely the same
position i.e. they are employees who have climbed within the
structure, and this process is open to any local inhabitant with
the necessary education, experience and ability behind him. We
will even train any prospect for these positions, provided we see
a chance of the prospect being able to advance.
A similar view is expressed by the management of other large
companies. However, its implementation is a difficult matter.
Some of the practical considerations that influence the low status
of natives in private companies are the difficulties of promotion,
due to the native people’s status in the community at large and the
senior positions held by expatriates in the firm; the conduct and
behaviour of the native people themselves; the paucity of in-service
training facilities and the absence of governmental incentives to
encourage private enterprise to train and educate; the wide range
of skills required by large-scale expatriate enterprise as it is presently
organized.
The highest wage paid to a native in one large Port Moresby
company in 1964, a man with very long service, was approximately
£800 per annum. The presence of expatriate employees, themselves
with long service, makes difficult the promoting of non-expatriates
The Expatriate Community 235
to positions equal to or better than expatriates’, unless particularly
good grounds are evident to all. Private companies are very
conscious of their dependence on expatriates in sub-managerial
capacities. Despite the cost of their salaries, services, and recruit­
ment, management prefers them to indigenous employees; any move
likely to cause resentment among expatriates is avoided.
The manager of the Port Moresby Freezing Co. expressed the
view that the native people expect to become managers before they
have learnt the lower levels of work. He said that they have not yet
learnt to work hard, and that the paternalistic approach of govern­
ment to indigenous people has contributed to this. As an example,
he quoted the decision of the Administration to label the heads of
small co-operative societies ‘directors’, their clerk ‘secretary’ or
‘manager’, etc., which had given a false impression, he argued, of
their abilities and powers. In his view, such a situation gives the
native people false hopes and misguided aspirations.
Attempts have been made to place native people in more
responsible positions than they held four years ago. Steamships
Trading Co. and Bums Philp (New Guinea) Ltd are considering
offering long-service indigenous employees the right to join super­
annuation schemes. The difficulties lie not so much in company policy
as in the absence of life tables on which to assess insurance risks. The
British New Guinea Development Co. has attempted to use
Papuans in responsible positions on its rubber estates. As explained
by Mr B. Fairfax-Ross, C.B.E., indigenous employees have difficulty
in exerting authority over their own people at the level of organi­
zation demanded in large-scale enterprise. On small coastal vessels
or small estates employing perhaps up to ten labourers, indigenous
supervision is effective. When in port, small, locally-crewed ships
come under expatriate inspection and control. In large-scale enter­
prises, authority can be wielded by a local foreman if an expatriate
is in the vicinity, but it breaks down quickly in his absence. Local
people educated enough to keep the required statistics are, it is
thought by management, too young to be respected. Younger men
appear to be particularly frightened of controlling ‘bush’ or primitive
people in the labour line, while expatriates tend to prefer them.
The present use of the Highland Labour Scheme to obtain labour
from the more backward areas of the country probably encourages
the continued use of expatriates. Indigenous supervisors are also
said to care little for the health and conditions of the men they
control and in general to show irresponsibility. The managing
director of Burns Philp (New Guinea) Ltd remarked that it was not
the wages paid to indigenous drivers that counted but the cost of
the damage done to the company vehicles they drove. Businessmen
argued that the natives’ lack of diligence and apparent confusion
between the demands of regular attendance at work and those of
the traditional society’s obligations to relatives make them generally
236 New Guinea on the Threshold
poor employees. These circumstances pointedly raise the question
of their economic value under the present system of large-scale
organization.
The attempts of management, limited as they have been, to
provide in-service training have been unsuccessful. The larger
companies have tried courses for particular non-expatriate employ­
ees, but they were poorly attended. Apparently no inquiry was
made into the reasons and few active steps at training are presently
being taken. Yet this is clearly what must be done both to improve
skills and to increase native participation in private companies. The
high cost of expatriate labour should, one would think, encourage
management to be active in this regard. The managing directors of
large Port Moresby companies were unanimous in their view that
it was the duty of government to train and educate. Private enter­
prise could not afford to carry overheads of this nature, particularly
following the introduction of income tax. In the interviews held
with managers, there was apparent an almost bitter feeling towards
the government’s ability to hold the native trainees it produces
from its own courses. Managers complained that few natives were
willing to work for private enterprise and that promising students
from high schools were earmarked for definite postings with the
Administration. Higher wages and career opportunities in private
enterprise were not seen by the managers to be a reasonable way
of competing for scarce resources.
A further difficulty for private enterprise is said to be the variety
of skills for which training would be required. The range of interests
of companies like Bums Philp (New Guinea) Ltd and Steamships
Trading Co. is very wide. It includes plantations, garages, hotels,
shipping, wholesaling, retailing of most everyday commodities,
timber, sheet metal working, etc. The training for skills in this
variety of interests is viewed by management as an overwhelming
task. Apparently no study has yet been made of which skills are
most readily acquired by native people or where their advancement
would be resented least by expatriate employees.
The present inertia in training and promotion of native people is
a serious matter. The country’s development needs private enter­
prise. It would be detrimental to all concerned if native people came
to resent expatriate activity for private profit. The limited possibili­
ties offered native people for promotion in the larger companies
and the natives’ unwillingness or inability to participate through
shareholding are likely to encourage any tendency on the natives’
part to view the expatriates as alien and exploitive. As the govern­
ment has seen fit to limit the free entry to the country of expatriates
on political grounds, it might serve a purpose also to limit entry to
certain grades of skill. Tax rebates for the cost of training indigenous
staff in the grades of skill to be restricted would help to offset the
additional cost to the company concerned. Government action of
The Expatriate Community 237
this nature might well give business managers the opportunity to
implement their professed policy without being themselves the
subject of resentment from expatriate staff.
Promotion inside the firm is only one way of increasing the
participation of natives in this form of expatriate organization. It is
also possible to provide opportunities to indigenous entrepreneurs
by extending credit to them and offering advice on the management
of their young businesses. Such a move would mean a change in the
role of the large companies. It would involve limiting the range of
their present interests and emphasizing the wholesaling, manu­
facturing, and similar activities where their greater organizing
skill and capital would be an advantage. When asked about this
possibility one manager replied, *We will not put money into a
project we cannot control; that is company policy.’ Examples were
quoted where small entrepreneurs had failed and money had been
lost. If the only function of private enterprise is to make money,
this policy is justified; but under the conditions evolving in Papua-
New Guinea it is shortsighted. The role of expatriate private enter­
prise in Papua-New Guinea is clearly more than this.
The management of private enterprise feels personally proud of
its contribution to the development of the Territory. Directors of
two companies mentioned that in the case of one, in the eighteen
months to December 1963, no less than £853,000, and in the case
of the other, in the two years to mid-1964, £670,000, had been
invested in the Territory from profits or as new money. This, they
felt, compared favourably with the smaller investments of recent
new enterprises that had been given considerable publicity. They
emphasized, too, the long-term interest their companies had had in
the Territory, and expressed the hope that their contribution would
continue.
In addition to evolving practical means of increasing native
participation and interest in private enterprise as a method of
organizing, large private companies need in the future to evolve
new relations with the government. The era of mutual disregard
of each other’s activities will increasingly give way to a time when
mutual co-operation and understanding are important. The increas­
ing part played by Papuans and New Guineans in all aspects of
government will make it increasingly necessary for expatriate private
enterprise to heed indigenous points of view, use indigenous
potential at all levels, understand indigenous fears and aspirations,
and incorporate indigenous people into its organization. One man­
aging director, when asked why his company had not found it
expedient to appoint one or two native leaders to its board of
directors, replied, I t would be merely a political act and hypocrisy
to do so.’ Yet political leaders need practical experience of the
problems, and also to see for themselves the advantages to the
country, of expatriate private enterprise. Development, as well as
238 New Guinea on the Threshold
profit, is everywhere dependent on the privileges and laws of the
country at any given time.
Many indigenous members of the House of Assembly are intensely
interested in the workings of big business as well as in its contribu­
tion to development. Their interest stems as much from the
emphasis their own culture places on the acquisition of wealth as
from suspicion of ‘unfair’ means expatriate enterprise may adopt to
acquire it. The more sophisticated members are now more con­
cerned over the latter, but the interest is widespread.
Managers feel strongly that changes introduced by the govern­
ment in the past five years have been too radical and hasty. In
particular the urban wage agreement and the encouragement of
workers’ associations were, it is argued, quite uncalled for: the
people had neither asked for them nor wanted them. Managers
favoured a recommendation of the Report of the Tripartite Mission
on Labour Matters, 1960. (The Mission consisted of representatives
of government, employers, and unions.) This brief report recom­
mended, inter alia:
In short, just as we think it desirable that there should be no
legislation about industrial organisations as such at this stage, so
we think no legislative provision should be made at this stage
determining the form of industrial relations machinery.
The Mission recommended the matter be re-examined in about two
years’ time by another, similar, tripartite mission. Instead the
government went ahead with industrial legislation. Since 1961 the
urban cash wage has been established by negotiation and has been
extended to five towns. Eight workers’ associations have been set
up in the Territory with a membership approximating 10,000.
Though it may be true that indigenous people did not press for
these changes in 1960, it appears that they have made some use of
them since.
Indigenous people are slowly coming to understand that a
powerful means of improving their conditions is organization. The
government has seen fit to provide through legislation machinery
likely to direct labour disputes into reconciliatory processes com­
parable with those in Australia. These processes, if seen to be
effective by native people, might come to be viewed as alternatives
to more drastic means of ensuring their participation in economic
enterprises. The extreme forms of expropriation of foreign assets that
can be quoted from Burma, Indonesia, and Africa are constantly in
the minds of expatriate managers. One director said he considered
ultimate expropriation was inevitable. While it is likely, in the years
ahead, that the conflict between management and worker will
remain largely between expatriate and native, the absence of a
rabid nationalist movement in Papua-New Guinea may affect the
expatriate’s position. If managements could genuinely demonstrate
The Expatriate Community 239
that their decisions were not taken on racial grounds, the chances
of avoiding expropriation after political independence would be
greatly enhanced. The successful examples of readjustment made
by large-scale private enterprise, such as the United Africa Group
in West Africa, should be studied in good time (United Africa
Company 1963).
Most sections of urban expatriates are critical of the big com­
panies. All manner of innuendo, gibe, and semi-humorous comment
passes in everyday chatter. Expatriate employees feel hardest the
prices they have to pay for imported goods. They resent paying
10s. for a cabbage they feel could be grown for less locally.
Imported oranges, at Is. each for large ones, seem exorbitantly
priced when they will grow in Papua-New Guinea. On the other
hand, the management of big retail firms argue that their prices
are competitive and fair. Small independent businessmen quote
examples of the effects of their dependence on established ship­
ping lines which are in turn coupled to retailing and wholesaling
concerns. Freight charges appear to be exorbitant. Small concerns
get little in the way of commercial franchise and view themselves
as unable to compete fairly in any significant line of trade with
the large organizations with interests in almost everything.
These are the complaints one hears spoken of: they are what
people are thinking. Whether or not they are valid would require a
major examination. But expatriate managers ardently seek to avoid
publicity. The public press rarely mentions their affairs and is un­
critical of them. Managers are concerned more about defending
private enterprise as a principle and mentioning in platitudinous
terms the significance of its contribution to the country than about
quoting facts and examples to prove their efforts. Chambers of
Commerce rather than individual firms are thought to be the better
instrument for defending their activities. But it is a defence, rather
than a promotion of their position and potential.
At the present time, both the promotion of private enterprise as a
method of organizing and the integration of native with expatriate
efforts are most evident in small-scale, rural enterprises. Though
it is not everywhere the case, there are examples of very close and
intimate relations between expatriate and native landholders; the
managers of some plantations, country stores and other small enter­
prises are similarly placed. Advice, the lending of equipment,
common processing and marketing facilities, common membership
of farmers’ associations, etc. are examples of a recent growth in
partnership among people with common interests. The co-operation
is often face to face and concerned with everyday problems. It
often rests upon individual regard and affection. Neither natives nor
landholding expatriates show any inclination to frown on private
profit honestly and efficiently obtained. There exist no powerful
political parties or philosophical schools demanding the sociali-
240 New Guinea on the Threshold
zation of the economy on principle. The embryo trade union move­
ment has not yet considered the matter.
During the past ten years, government has implemented a policy
aimed at the settlement of both natives and expatriates on small
farms. In many cases the farms of expatriates have common bound­
aries with those of natives. Many farmers of both racial groups
come from distant parts and conditions appear good for the sharing
of advice and facilities and for mutual co-operation. But expatriates
received considerably larger areas of land, and the racial differentia­
tion in the size of loans in favour of expatriates amounts to as
much as 33:1—a maximum loan to expatriates of £25,000 as
compared with £750 to natives. The differential might temporarily
have passed notice had government policy in general moved in the
direction of encouraging social and political differentiation in the
status of the races. Government policy’s actual trend towards
equality of the races has highlighted the differences in the scale of
its assistance. Discontent among some native farmers is already
evident. It is made worse by the failure of some expatriates to
develop the land allotted them while some natives are seeking more
land to develop. Despite these difficulties there are signs that
farmers are working out a common approach to their mutual
problems.
The possibilities of inter-racial co-operation among these farmers
contrast with the rather sharp division of interest found in other
areas between native villagers and the large company-owned
plantations in their midst. These plantations commonly have ex­
clusive marketing channels and sources of supply. Their capitali­
zation, order, and efficiency contrast with native subsistence agri­
culture and limited attempts at cash cropping near their boundaries.
The contact of native neighbours with these plantations is often
confined to envious eyes looking over land that once was theirs, to
the possibility of employment at rates of pay they often scorn, and
possibly to purchases from trade stores at prices they suspect.
Though it is not everywhere the case, plantation management often
feels it can disregard the local pressures its presence and self-
contained organization give rise to. It feels it need pay little
attention to local native aspirations or the mutual resolution of
common agricultural problems.
Despite these difficulties, throughout Papua-New Guinea in
general there is emerging in both racial groups an increasing aware­
ness of common interests. In both town and country, people of all
races are experiencing common problems and difficulties. There is
a common aspiration—to develop the country and its people. Native
people in all but the remotest areas see something worth having in
expatriate material wealth, standard of living and, in some areas,
methods of organization. Their wish is to participate in what the
expatriate has and what he is doing. Active membership by both
The Expatriate Community 241
races of the smaller organizations appears to be increasing, though
measurement of it is difficult. Recently some small business com­
panies with extensive native shareholdings have been registered.
Leadership in small organizations generally is still largely expatriate,
but native participation in all forms is often encouraged. On the
other side of the coin, when membership of exclusively native
co-operative societies is opened to expatriates, and when they come
to play a significant part in Local Government Councils, the area of
mutual co-operation will be substantially widened.
Recently natives have come to carry increasing responsibilities
in government. The expatriate has yielded many points of power
he formerly controlled. Full control of their country’s affairs by the
native people is the aim of the Australian government. The problem
of the next ten years is to bring about much more extensive
participation by native people in large organizations presently
dominated unyieldingly by expatriates. The size of these organi­
zations involves them in problems of communication and co­
ordination of staff and activity. Their staff must be responsible;
otherwise, large sections of their organizations, and hence the
whole, are threatened with collapse through inefficiency. The
running of the country’s services depends very much on them.
There are thus good reasons, other than threats to profit margins,
why increasing native participation is resisted. Yet the increasing
involvement of natives in power positions of government will pose a
threat to the independent attitude of expatriates in their large
organizations. The immediate task is to remove the conditions
likely to encourage the growth of an attitude among native political
leaders which rejects as unacceptable large expatriate organization
because it persists in maintaining an exclusiveness and independence
in activities critically important to the running of the country as a
whole. Exclusion and independence were acceptable in the tribal
era. They are no longer.
Expatriates feel strongly the presence of large numbers of local
people around them. Differences in language, dress, and custom
exaggerate their fears. They sense the potential for ill will their
privileges, standards, and independence might generate. There is
good reason for them to understand the world around them in
racial terms. The uniqueness of their expatriate position further
encourages processes of thought which lie along racial rather than
functional fines. They tend to group people in racial, tribal, or
cultural contexts rather than functional and associational ones.
Race, expatriateness, and sexual fears are dominant overtones in
their thought processes about the native people. Yet despite these
overtones, most expatriates are disposed to accept native people
for what they are, or offer them equality and a fair go. There are
few fallacious rationalizations about the nature of man. They admit
their authoritarian position is temporary. This is the nature of the
242 New Guinea on the Threshold
ambivalence, the expression of paradox, in the Papuan-New Guinean
situation, that in turn provides its opportunities.
Government policy has recently been aimed deliberately at re­
moving the grounds of racial discrimination. It has taken a timely
lead in this regard. Though removing many forms of discrimination
it has not removed expatriate privileges. These tend to emphasize
the specialness of the expatriates position and cause jealousy. The
civil servant’s overseas service is a ground for a special allowance;
his leaving the service on grounds of redundancy is considered to
warrant a special pension or grant; his training involves special
courses on government policy and the handling of native people.
Local private investors—most frequently the small man rather than
the foreign-based company—make pleas for special assurance to
cover political risks on new investment, and abnormally high profits
are justified on the grounds of excessive risks. The missionary’s
special task is bringing to local people the Christian faith and its
particular denominational attributes. It is a task pursued by altru­
istic men in the service of God.
In expatriate terms there are justifications for all these positions,
but they are exclusive to the expatriate and mark him off from
indigenous people.
The expatriate community over the next ten years is faced by the
need further to remodel its relations with native people. Some
sections, most notably large-scale business, will need to make drastic
changes in their approach, attitude, and method of organizing their
affairs. The decision to mix and co-operate with native people can
be made only in the minds of individual expatriates. It is a personal
decision and a personal challenge. It has been encouraged by the
lead of government. In many spheres of thought and activity an
acute sense of fair play and a willingness to ensure a fair go for all
are shared by natives and expatriates alike. Although there is not
always agreement on what is ‘fair’, there appears to be no substantial
reason why co-operation cannot be extensive, or unity achieved,
and successful means of developing the country worked out through
mutual give and take. But time is running out on the expatriate
community both in local and international terms. The opportunities
are still there, the necessary conditions appear to be present; the
question is whether the expatriate, individually and through his
organizations, can continue to adjust his ways to take advantage of
them.
 12

The Advance to Responsible Government

R. S. P A R K E R

P olitical advancement : the N ew G uinea context

A ustralia ’s legal and moral responsibility in New Guinea is for a
country comparable in size and population to the Dominion of New
Zealand. In practice this responsibility is shouldered on Australia’s
behalf by a single Commonwealth Minister and Department (who
also manage the Northern Territory and some others) working
through a very small Territorial public service (see Chapter 10) and
by a few hundred Australians and other expatriates in missions and
similar avenues of private service.
The problems of political development in New Guinea are urgent
and challenging—largely because they were never squarely faced by
Australian governments until after World War II, and now have to
be faced in a context of impatient international pressures and
accelerating economic and social change, among local communities
which in many areas are rather nearer to the stone age than to the
nuclear age. The majority of the people still live by subsistence
agriculture in small hamlets, with comparatively recent conscious­
ness of a wider world beyond their immediate contacts through
warfare or trade.1 They are separated, as well, by language barriers;
few adults know English, and the rest can communicate, if at all,
only through the limited media of Melanesian Pidgin (mainly in
the Trust Territory but steadily spreading), Police Motu (in Papua),
or one of the ‘mission vernaculars’. Within each social group the idea
of a stable, impersonal political authority is traditionally unknown.
As they are what the anthropologists call ‘segmented societies’, co­
ordinated Territory-wide political activity faces tremendous
obstacles. Indigenous political institutions are inadequate both in
1 For example, an elected member from the Highlands, in his first speech in
the House of Assembly, said: ‘I never knew before that Port Moresby was on
the mainland of New Guinea, and I thought that Port Moresby was beyond on
another island’ (H.A. Deb. I, i, 35).

243
244 New Guinea on the Threshold
scale and function as a basis for a modem polity. The number of
people who have received any systematic Western technical or
agricultural education is extremely small. There are few indigenes
with any executive or administrative experience beyond the exercise
of minor police functions at the village level.
These facts pose formidable dilemmas for the policy-makers of
Australia as the trustee power administering the Tmst Territory of
New Guinea and the colonial power ‘owning’ Papua. They might
not want to impose a single ‘foreign’ system of government upon
New Guinea as a whole. But the alternative might be to leave this
great region fragmented and rudderless. And since by universal
consent it is headed for self-government in some form, and has no
suitable political institutions of its own, what more natural than to
offer it the only form of government that Australians know well?
The pohcy-makers might not want to insist that New Guineans be
imbued with the same ideals, values, and conceptions as Australians.
But could Australia afford to leave her island neighbours to embrace
potentially hostile conceptions—either of their own accord or at the
behest of some other external power? The Australian Administration
might want to encourage spontaneous political aspirations and
organization among the New Guinea people. But it is hard to induce
spontaneous receptivity to an introduced plant; and it is equally
hard though of course desirable to create sufficiently sensitive com­
munications with the local people to notice and exploit the natural
growing points in their own barely nascent political consciousness.
Whether or not there is any theoretical solution to these dilemmas,
in practice Australian policy since the last war has assumed that
Eastern New Guinea must move, or be moved, towards some form
of self-determination, through increasing degrees of representative
government at the local and national levels, culminating in a re­
sponsible Cabinet facing an elected Assembly. In this context the
more ‘advanced’ of the New Guinea people, appearing (at least) to
be grateful for the personal security and social improvements that
accompany Australian rule, and anxious to please in return, do
their best in a bewildered way to play some part in the exotic
institutions proffered by the Australians. At the same time, but
beneath the surface appearances, and so far much more slowly,
they are beginning to develop a distinct political life, consciousness,
and organization of their own. The remainder of this chapter seeks
to analyse New Guinea political advancement under these two
broad headings of Australian measures and autonomous New
Guinea responses.
A ustralian measures for political advancement
A rounded policy of political advancement comprises many elements,
of which the provision of formal government institutions is only
one. Those which are relevant in New Guinea include; general
The Advance to Responsible Government 245
education in the European culture; the conduct of new institutions
in the society as examples for the people; providing local leaders
with opportunities for observing model’ institutions abroad; creating
new institutions in which the people can be represented and practise
responsibility for themselves; formal instruction for their leaders in
the new political and administrative processes; providing the people
with informal channels for consultation, advice, and complaint;
and, finally, facilitating any efforts the people may make to develop
forms of political activity of their own.
General education. In the nineteenth century it was assumed that
a literate public was a necessary condition for responsible democ­
racy. This would have been an impossible condition to set as a
prerequisite for the self-government which has been claimed so
imperiously for so many illiterate people in the present century.
The inevitability of self-government preceding ‘capacity’ for it, in
this as in other respects, has been accepted in the case of New
Guinea, where universal suffrage and a representative legislature
have been granted long before universal education is in sight.
The main reason why education is lagging so far behind political
advancement is that until after World War II the Australian Admini­
strations had done very little directly or indirectly about native
schooling. At the beginning of the 1950s there were about 100,000
indigenous children receiving primary education, and these almost
entirely in mission schools and attaining a rudimentary level of bare
literacy; there was not one indigene receiving secondary or tertiary
education of any kind.
The policy developed by post-war governments has been, in the
first place (to quote Mr Paul Hasluck when Minister for Territories),
to establish a broad primary school base so that the development
of the country rests upon a wide distribution of education. This
will permit a broad stream to enter secondary and tertiary edu­
cation thus obviating the creation of a narrow educated elite.
The expansion of Administration schools has been accompanied by
efforts to raise the standards of mission schools to levels recom­
mended and recognized by Department of Education inspectors.
Figures given in Chapter 6 show that between one-quarter and one-
third of the native children of primary school age ‘attend’ schools
of recognized standard.
The beginnings of native secondary education came in the mid-
1950s. In 1954 the Administration began awarding up to twenty
scholarships a year to enable promising native students to attend
secondary schools in Australia (Chapter 6 outlines the development
of post-primary schooling in the Territory). The progress of second­
ary education has been hindered, however, less by inadequacy of
provision for it than by the return of many primary pupils to their
246 New Guinea on the Threshold
villages before completing their schooling, and by the attraction of
many others from secondary school prematurely into employment-
including until recently employment by the Administration itself.
The progress of all schooling has also been limited by one severely
restricting bottleneck: the difficulty of recruiting and training
teachers.
As for tertiary education, a number of young native people have
been trained, some at Suva and some in the Territory, as assistant
medical practitioners and medical assistants, and a number of others
in a few agricultural and technical vocations. No indigene had
entered a university before 1960; by the end of 1964 there were
about a dozen native undergraduates, all at Australian universities,
where the first New Guinean graduated in 1964 and one other com­
pleted his course at the end of 1965. In April 1962 the Minister
announced plans for setting up a university college in the Territory
‘not later than 1966’. Statistical forecasts suggested that in that year
there might be about 100 students from secondary schools eligible
to matriculate—and perhaps 200 in 1968. In 1965 the government
took steps to establish an independent university at Port Moresby,
on lines recommended in the report of the Commission on Higher
Education in New Guinea which was submitted to the Minister in
March 1964.
The ministerial announcement in 1962 coincided with the report
of the Fifth United Nations Visiting Mission to the Trust Territory,
under Sir Hugh Foot’s chairmanship, which criticized what it called
the imbalance in the education system and the diversion of young
people from school into more or less menial employment.
The main reason why the present education programme is in­
adequate [said the report] is that it pays little or no attention to
the need for higher education . . . [The Minister] noted that in
five years it is estimated that the enrolment in post-primary and
secondary schools will rise to 10,000. But there is no indication
at all of how many students will be completing their secondary
education, let alone how many will be taking and completing
university courses (U.N. Trusteeship Council 1962: para. 198).
It added that if such a state of affairs continued, it would be
impossible to develop the standards of professional, administrative,
and political leadership which are vital to any territory preparing
for self-government.
If Australia’s belated start with an educational programme of any
kind is, as suggested earlier, the main reason for the present short­
fall, there are also critics, including previous U.N. visitors, who
agree with the Foot Mission’s view that the lag in higher education
could have been less if the programme since 1950 had not concen­
trated so long on the T>road primary base’ but had diverted resources
earlier to the development of secondary and tertiary institutions.
The Advance to Responsible Government 247
The former Minister (Mr Hasluck) made two replies to this which
are not entirely consistent. The first has already been quoted: it
seems to imply that he has deliberately held back higher education
to enable all groups to start on an equal footing with primary
education—this to prevent the creation of a narrow elite. There
could indeed be seeds of serious future conflict in such an uneven
rate of advancement of different regional and tribal groups as would
enable some of them to secure an early monopoly of positions of
power and influence. There is a good deal of regional chauvinism
in New Guinea, and an overriding sense of nationhood has scarcely
begun to rival this. However, these are forces which are hardly
likely to be influenced by a schooling programme. Even now,
‘uniform educational development’ would be a misnomer for a
school system which is inevitably denser and more advanced in the
longer controlled parts of the country. Moreover, it is questionable
whether primary schooling, as distinct from, say, agricultural ex­
tension work embracing adults, is worth starting in regions where
the results are quickly dissipated in the bush. It would seem more
realistic for the Administration to recognize that higher education
should be provided as rapidly as possible for those ready to benefit
by it: government cannot circumvent those accidents of location
or history which result in some peoples being ready earlier than
others.
The Minister’s other defence of his policy was that the pre­
requisite for producing a university matriculant is twelve years of
primary and secondary schooling even in Australia; this could
hardly be reduced in New Guinea where students are learning in a
foreign language about an alien culture. Hence, given the begin­
ning of Administration primary schooling in the late 1940s, and of
secondary schooling at the appropriate time about 1954-5, it would
be difficult to expect the production of any matriculants earlier than
about the present time, merely by devoting more resources to post­
primary education. This was the Minister’s more practical argument,
though it seems to contradict his first argument to the extent that
it suggests no deliberate slowing of any part of the programme.
There could be disputing about the ‘more or less’ and the might-
have-beens of the facts and figures of the last dozen years. And it
is arguable that planning for university education should have
begun some years earlier than it did.
None of these arguments alters the fact, however, that the supply
of professional, administrative, and political leaders with higher
technical or university education in the next ten years will certainly
be much below what we would conventionally expect in a country
taking on political and economic independence in that time. The
more radical critics of present policy believe that such conventional
expectations are unrealistic; that to define preconditions for self-
determination means only to postpone it indefinitely; and that
248 New Guinea on the Threshold
policy, instead, should be geared to a specified ‘target date for
independence’. The adoption of targets (which need not be publi­
cized) would indeed be a salutary spur to the setting and testing
of planned priorities for development. The Foot Mission’s view that
an educated elite is Vital to any territory preparing for self-govern­
ment’ underlines the urgency of crash programmes (to tight time­
tables) of higher education and training. In practice, political
change is certain to outrun the spread of formal education.
Displaying examples of new institutions. Unfamiliar social insti­
tutions are subtle phenomena, not to be easily understood by physical
observation of their outward and visible signs. Any new visitor to
New Guinea is reminded of this truth. New Guinea natives, like
other people, have a lively curiosity, and it is a common experience,
particularly in the remoter districts, to see a group of twenty or
thirty native people, mostly men, standing all day outside the office
of the patrol station, doing nothing but gaze intently at the
mysterious comings and goings, shufflings of paper, conferences,
pounding of typewriters, and other magical activities of the little
band of Europeans within. Similar groups can be seen congre­
gated around airfields, schoolhouses, and anywhere that Europeans
pursue their inscrutable concerns. The gap between this kind of
‘observation’ and real comprehension has sometimes been drama­
tized by the rise of forms of cargo cult, in which the people imitated
the outward forms of European behaviour without appreciating
their real significance. Examples are numerous: drilling with wooden
‘rifles’; setting up imitation ‘offices’; planting shade trees and waiting
for cocoa to grow beneath them; clearing airstrips in hope of an
accession of aeroplanes.
For this reason, it seems optimistic to expect much ‘political
education’ to be imparted by such measures as taking leading
indigenes on tours of inspection of Australian Parliaments and
local authorities and departments. Even the running commentaries
and discussions which accompany these visits are likely to be
marginal to real understanding.
Another example of this ‘exhibitionist’ approach was the building
throughout the Territory in recent years of elaborate and expensive
courthouses, of outlandish design, in and through which to show
off the majesty of British justice. This curious experiment gained
nothing in popularity from the facts that each of the new court­
houses cost as much as two or three homes, or as several schools,
was used not more than two or three days in a year, and indeed was
held too sacred and seen to be too inconvenient to be put to other
uses between sittings of the court.
More important, the ‘justice’ dispensed in these and other Euro­
pean courts has been very rapidly approximated in form and spirit
The Advance to Responsible Government 249
to the European model. For example, native people have been
baffled to see accused persons, whom they ‘knew’ perfectly well to
be guilty, in their terms, of an alleged crime, being acquitted on
technicalities of evidence or law, as adduced in conventional plead­
ing by European defending counsel.
‘Demonstrating our institutions’ in these fashions could well prove
a double-edged tool of political education.
Native Local Government Councils. The form of political edu­
cation on which Australian policy has laid most stress has been
the creation of institutions in which the native people can practise
direct participation in responsibility, and the most elaborate effort
in this field was the development of Native Local Government
Councils. As ‘native village councils’, these were foreshadowed in
the Papua and New Guinea Act of 1949; from the establishment of
the first council at Hanuabada in 1950 the system was expanded
until in July 1964 there were ninety-two councils representing about
921,000 people. For practical reasons—mainly the provision of a
sufficient annual budget to support worthwhile projects—these
bodies were never established at the ‘village’ level. For example,
in 1957 the five councils in the Gazelle Peninsula represented
from eighteen to thirty-three villages each, and from about
3,500 to 7,500 people. The 1956 estimates for the five ranged from
£8,456 to £16,676. These figures remain typical today. The revenue
came from direct taxation of indigenous residents of the council
area, from fees, and from charges for services. Council membership
was confined to New Guinea natives; on average there were thirty-five
to forty councillors, elected every two years by native residents of
the area over the age of seventeen who were liable to council tax.2
In September 1956 the Minister for Territories clearly stated that
the councils were intended as instruments of political education:
A principle to guide us in government might be described as the
representative principle . . . that a people should be able to
choose those who will serve them in government and that those
who are chosen should be answerable for their actions to the
people. The representative principle leads eventually to respon­
sible government. . . Though we start with local government
councils, in time there will be a transition to larger representative
bodies, perhaps to federations of local government councils: or
to regional councils and then to federations of regional councils
(Hasluck 1956b:7, 8).
2 The new Local Government Ordinance of 1963 came into force on 1
January 1965. Councils then ceased to be prefixed ‘Native’ and could cover all
members of their community. Corporations could be taxed and could vote; the
voting age was raised to eighteen, and the functions and central supervision of
councils were importantly amended. The text is confined to actual experience
up to 1965.
250 New Guinea on the Threshold
In evaluating this objective, the functions of councils must be
considered. They are corporate bodies, and had power to make rules
(subject to revocation by a District Officer) on a specified list of
matters, including ‘games or pastimes’ in which New Guineans might
be defrauded, control of weapons and of practices likely to cause
breach of peace, water pollution, disposal of waste, vermin and
pests, the regulation of destruction of flora generally and of noxious
or diseased plants in particular, hygiene, registration of births and
deaths, movement of livestock (owned by New Guinea natives only),
use of fire, measures against famine, flood, and pestilence, control
of the cultivation of foodstuffs, and enforcement of native custom.
There was a general provision that each council had ‘such powers
and authority as are conferred on it by native custom’ where the
custom did not conflict with the law or the ‘general principles of
humanity’; there is evidence, however, of hasty drafting in this
clause, and it is doubtful if it was seriously considered to be work­
able; it has now been replaced by a clause allowing councils to
recommend to the Administrator ‘the enforcement, variation or
abolition of any native custom’ existing in the council area. In
addition, with the approval of the District Officer, a council could
engage in business, build works of benefit to the community, and
‘provide, or cooperate with any Department of the Administration
. . . or other body in providing any public and social service’.3
Impressive though this list may be, in practice it has not enabled
the councils to become legislative bodies entrusted with political
decisions of any significance. As the early councils began to experi­
ment with their rule-making powers, it soon became obvious that the
Administration would allow them little scope for the application of
local custom or for its modification by case-law. Owing to doubts
and hesitations in Port Moresby about allowing divergent rules on
the same subjects to develop in different areas, there was at first
great delay in approving council rules; the doubts were resolved
in favour of uniformity; councils and supervising officers were
perplexed by the difficulty of getting their rules passed, and this
restriction on their autonomy tended to lower their prestige in the
eyes of the native people. It seemed to many that the things they
could do on their own initiative were negligible compared with the
duties imposed on councils by the central government, which con­
ceived them as bodies whose main responsibilities were tied to
local works and services. This interpretation was confirmed by a
Native Local Government Memorandum issued by the Department
of Territories as early as 1952, which was much more modest and
practical than that of the Minister already quoted. It said councils
were intended:
3 In practice, economic activities by Local Government Councils have, as a
matter of policy, been consistently discouraged in recent years.
The Advance to Responsible Government 251
To teach responsibility, enlist support for raising native living
standards, to prepare for fitting into the Territory’s political system,
to face the facts that progress is inseparable from good order and
industrious habits, and that services must be paid for.
The time had come, it continued, both to decentralize administration
and to provide opportunities for the more ambitious natives who
were beginning to expect provision of services without any native
effort.
In this sphere councils have certainly done active and useful work
and gained the rudiments of administrative experience for their
members. They own trucks, trailers, and tractors; they build roads
and bridges and schools and medical aid posts; some of them
conduct economic enterprises in plantations, processing, transport
and marketing of primary products, and employ a wide range of
native servants from drivers and carpenters to clerks and coffee
inspectors. In addition they provide a channel of demands from the
local people for the extension of education, works, agricultural, and
public health services.
Basically, however, the system as it has developed reflects the
Australian conception of local government as mainly an admini­
strative instrument of central government, rather than as an arena
for experiencing and resolving important clashes of community
opinion, which is the essence of politics. Although there are con­
siderable variations in council initiative and activity, depending
largely on the advice given them by different supervising officers, it
has been observed that even ‘in a politically conscious group’,
typical agenda items of a council meeting were: training of the
assistant clerk; additions and improvements to the council chambers
(building of a Council House is compulsory—to provide an immedi­
ate task for the first councillors); registration of births, deaths and
marriages; opening of the market; and news of the council boat.
The writer attended a meeting at Rabaul of representatives of all
the councils in the area, at which the issues raised were of the same
order: transport of medical supplies to the aid posts in the area;
whether missions, rather than the parents, should be required to
provide the children’s lunches at their schools; whether the councils
could get a government grant or loan to run a public refreshment-
room at Rabaul market; and so on. This is not a criticism of the
councils themselves, but of their adequacy as instruments of political
education.
Intermediate representative bodies. The next level of political
participation has been developed in a comparatively perfunctory
way. From 1957, after long hesitation, a minority of native members
was nominated to District Advisory Councils, which are mainly
bodies of officials and non-indigenous private citizens meeting
from time to time to be consulted by District Commissioners on
252 New Guinea on the Threshold
matters of local interest. The same practice has been followed with
the Town Advisory Councils that play a similar role in the larger
urban centres. The Administration made it clear that native partici­
pation was to be essentially as observers, and since the ratio of
natives to other members was about one to five, European interests
tended to dominate the agenda of these bodies. Indeed, the power­
lessness of native representatives has sometimes discredited them
with their own people. In recent years, however, the numbers and
effectiveness of native members on these bodies have both been
increased. Meanwhile, autonomous elective urban government re­
mains long overdue in the bigger towns of the Territory.
The Papua and New Guinea Act foreshadowed that native local
government councils were to form part of a more comprehensive
framework of representative institutions, including Advisory Coun­
cils for Native Matters containing ‘at least a majority’ of (nominated)
New Guineans, chosen from those who had given ‘meritorious
service’ in the local government councils. In 1960 the Minister, on
advice, concluded that tiers of area and regional councils, and the
amalgamation of existing councils into larger units, would be
preferable to any merely advisory bodies; but the idea of inter­
mediate representative bodies, with their own funds, was set aside,
at least temporarily, in favour of the enlargement of native repre­
sentation in the Legislative Council by indirect election based on
the local councils. This system was allegedly ‘designed to make use
of the sense of responsibility and education in political procedures
which local government is intended to inculcate’. It is true that the
system of election worked smoothly enough, and many of the native
Legislative Councillors were drawn from leading local government
council members—one of the few available reservoirs, indeed, of
experience in European institutions of any kind.4 However, after
three years, that system was replaced by direct election based on a
common roll, and the change may well be a realistic one. The arena
of Territory-wide politics is in many ways distinct in content and
quality from that of native local ‘government’ as it developed in
practice.
Representation at the centre. The first representative governing
body in the Territory was the Legislative Council of 1951-60, which
replaced the Australian Governor-General in Council as the legis­
lative organ for the Territory, under the Parliament of the Common­
wealth. There was no provision for elected indigenous members of
this Council; three indigenes were nominated as non-official mem­
bers (the minimum number prescribed) and a fourth was nominated
as an official member in 1960, the last year of its life. The elective
element in the Council consisted of three non-indigenous members,
4 Of present members of the House of Assembly from areas having councils,
43 per cent were Council members at their election in 1964.
The Advance to Responsible Government 253
chosen by electorates restricted to non-indigenous voters. Six private
citizens were appointed from the expatriate community as non-
official representatives. The remainder of the Council was made up
of the Administrator of the Territory and sixteen appointed senior
officials, thus ensuring an automatic government majority in the
total Council membership of twenty-nine (Hughes 1959:209-29).
In 1960 the Council was reconstituted, providing for a non-official
majority. The Administrator was retained as presiding officer; the
number of official members was reduced to fourteen; and the
number of non-official appointed members was raised to ten, of
whom at least five must be indigenes (in fact six were appointed).
In addition, the non-indigenous community was represented by six
elected members, and six new places were provided for indigenes
elected by their own people. Upon a system of indirect election,
each of these members was chosen by an ‘electoral college’ for his
electoral district, the members of which had in turn been elected
by members of Native Local Government Councils or of communal
groups in areas without councils.
The table below summarizes the constitution of the two Legis­
lative Councils, and compares it with that of the House of Assembly:
Members Legislative Council House of Assembly
1951-60 1963 1964
Ex officio
Administrator 1 1
Appointed
Official 16 14 10
Non-official—
Non-indigene 6 4
Indigene 3 6
Elected
Non-indigene
Restricted electorates 3 6
Special electorates 10
Indigene
Restricted electorates 6
Race unspecified
Open electorates 44
29 37 64

In 1963, following recommendations of a Select Committee of the

Legislative Council (which diverged in some respects from those of
the United Nations Mission of 1962), the Council was replaced by a
House of Assembly with, for the first time, a majority of elected
members. The Administrator was excluded from membership of the
House, and the official membership was further reduced, to ten.
The elective element was substantially changed. In the restricted
254 New Guinea on the Threshold
electorates for the two Legislative Councils, only members of the
relevant racial group could vote or be elected. In the House of
Assembly all elected members are chosen directly, on the prefer­
ential system, by the same body of voters, as registered for each
electorate on a common electoral roll. This contains virtually all
adults, indigenous and others, throughout most of the Territory
except the few areas not yet completely under the sway of Aus­
tralian law and order. Registration is compulsory, but voting is not.
Each voter may vote twice: once for candidates for one of the ten
special electorates, who must be non-indigenes; once for candidates
for one of the forty-four open electorates, who may be either indigenes
or non-indigenes. It can be seen that while this system guarantees the
election of at least ten non-indigenes, it does not guarantee the
election of any indigenous representatives. The House is elected
for a maximum term of four years, but a general election may be
initiated by the Administrator at any time within this period. Elected
members of the House receive a remuneration of £950 a year plus
daily allowances to attend sittings, travel expenses for touring their
electorates, and postage and telephone allowances. Official members
receive an allowance of £150 a year plus travel expenses.
The first elections for the House of Assembly were held over a
period of four and a half weeks, simultaneously in all electorates,
during February and March 1964. The previous months had seen
the most intensive patrolling in history of all parts of the Territory,
first to compile the electoral rolls and then to tell the voters, so far
as possible, something of the meaning of the elections and of the
technicalities of voting. Voting was by the preferential system, but
it was not necessary for a valid vote that preferences beyond the
first must be indicated. The vast majority of the electors being
illiterate, they were allowed to indicate a single preference by a
‘mark’ or to ask the officiating officer to complete the paper for
them (the ‘whispering ballot’). Only one seat was uncontested, the
North Markham special electorate, the unopposed candidate being
Mr H. L. R. Niall, District Commissioner of Morobe District, who
was subsequently elected the first Speaker of the House of Assembly.
Just under three hundred candidates contested the other fifty-three
seats. Although the ten special electorates had been, according to
the Minister, especially created at native request to ensure there
would be some European elected representation in the House, there
were non-indigenous candidates in about twenty of the open elect­
orates as well. In the event, Australians were returned in six of these,
making a total of twenty-six European (including the official
members) and thirty-eight indigenous members in the first session
of the House. (Bettison, et al. 1965-.passim.)
The value of the central legislature as a vehicle for political
advancement depends in part on its functions and powers, which in
turn affect the degree of acceptance and interest it elicits from the
The Advance to Responsible Government 255
New Guinea people. Ultimate legislative power rests, of course,
with the Commonwealth Parliament in Canberra, but in recent
years it has confined itself to enacting major constitutional reforms,
mostly by way of amendments to the Papua and New Guinea Act,
1949-1963. Under this Act, which serves as the ‘constitution’ of the
Territory, Parliament has delegated to the Legislative Council, and
in turn to the House of Assembly, plenary powers to make Ordin­
ances for the peace, order and good government of the Territory’.
Bills for Ordinances mostly originate in the Territory and are
ultimately approved by the Department and Minister in Canberra;
but their agent, the Territory Administration, cannot legally force
proposed legislation on the New Guinea House of Assembly. On a
number of occasions important Bills were rebuffed by the old
Legislative Council, and had to be withdrawn for reconsideration
and improvements in line with the wishes of the local members. It
would not be impossible for an Appropriation Bill to be rejected,
thus hamstringing the Administration’s programme. As the foregoing
table shows, to avoid defeat on a division in the last Legislative
Council, the Administration needed at least four non-official votes
besides all the official ones. In practice it never had any difficulty
in mustering a majority, being only once defeated in a division, and
then on a comparatively unimportant matter. When certain pro­
posed measures were obviously unpopular, it preferred withdrawal
or amendment to an open trial of strength.
On the other hand, the Australian government in its various
guises has retained a negative power of veto over New Guinea
legislation it considers reckless or incompetent. An ordinance
requires assent by the Administrator or, in certain specified cases,
by the Governor-General, before it has the force of law. And even
when an ordinance has been assented to by the Administrator, it
may still be disallowed by the Governor-General within a period of
six months. Reasons for withholding assent or for disallowance must
be laid before the Commonwealth Parliament. In all these cases
the effective power of veto lies with the Minister for Territories,
who instructs the Administrator and advises the Governor-General.
In addition, the Australian government has at its disposal the power­
ful sanction of providing something like two-thirds of the public
revenue of the Territory7.
It must be obvious, however, that a free use of the formal
sanctions would be impolitic, and, as already seen, under the old
Legislative Council it hardly proved necessary. The Administrator’s
power to withhold assent was used only twice, in each case to ensure
purely technical amendments. From 1951 to the middle of 1962
the Governor-General’s similar power had been exercised eleven
times in all, and his power of disallowance twelve times—in a period
in which the Legislative Council passed a total of about 750 ordin­
ances. In the absence of political parties, or any other means of
256 New Guinea on the Threshold
ensuring a stable government majority in the new House of
Assembly, the situation remains essentially one in which the
Australian government has committed itself to securing the agree­
ment of New Guinea representatives, who from 1964 on are likely
to be mainly elected native people, to its legislative policies for the
Territory.
At the same time, it is necessary to remember that legislation is
not government. Australia’s policy in New Guinea is carried out
through the daily actions of the Administration, which is still
entirely expatriate in its upper ranks. The cumulative effects of
administrative action and of Administration leadership confer upon
it the whole initiative in policy, and therefore in introducing
legislation necessary to carry out policy; and the Administration is
irremovable by any formal act of the legislature. This is still a long
way from responsible government.
The germs of responsibility. The essence of responsible govern­
ment in the British tradition is that the controlling heads of the
administrative departments should be elected members of the
legislature and should owe their positions as executive heads to
the support of a majority of the legislature. In former British
colonies the traditional manner of moving from representative
colonial government to responsible self-government has in essence
comprised two steps. First the leading administrative heads of
departments, who formed (perhaps with other leading citizens) an
Executive Council to advise the colonial Governor and give legal
approval to executive orders and regulations, were given seats in the
representative assembly as official nominees. Second, the holders of
these executive offices were made 'removable on political grounds’;
in other words, the offices were no longer held by appointed public
servants, but by elected politicians. (See Lynch 1964.)
In New Guinea the advance towards responsible government in
this central, crucial sense has been much more tortuous. Until 1960
there was a nominated Executive Council on traditional lines. In
that year, along with the Legislative Council reforms, this was
abolished and replaced by an 'Administrator’s Council’, consisting
of the Administrator (who had not been a member of the Executive
Council), three other official members of the Legislative Council
(the two Assistant Administrators and the Director of Native
Affairs), and three non-official members of that body (of whom two
must be elected members). The functions of the Administrator’s
Council were advisory and regulation-making—and in practice
almost purely formal. Occasionally the Administrator would explain
some current or pending measure, but debate was rare and decisions
were not taken.
In 1961, moreover, the Minister set up in the Territory a non-
statutory, administrative 'Central Policy and Planning Committee’,
consisting of the Administrator, the two Assistant Administrators,
The Advance to Responsible Government 257
and the Treasurer of the Territory (the Director of Native Affairs
being added in 1964). This body was supposed to co-ordinate policy
and administration, but contained no popular representative ele­
ment. In the absence, also, of direct representation of most depart­
mental heads, it may be doubted whether its role is as comprehen­
sive or as influential as its name implies. The official rationalization
is that the Administrator and Assistant Administrators, under the
reorganization of 1961, each ‘supervises’ and is ‘generally responsible
for’ a group of administrative departments, and between them they
cover the lot (see Chapter 10). More significant for our present con­
cern is the duality of the top executive structure, the absence of
non-official participation, native or otherwise, in anything like real
executive responsibility, and the fact that the wholly official Policy
and Planning Committee continues as, if anything, a somewhat more
effective and influential executive body than the partly represen­
tative Administrator’s Council.
Into this situation the changes accompanying the establishment
of the House of Assembly introduced two new complications. In
the first place, without altering the official membership of three
plus the Administrator, the non-official membership of the Admini­
strator’s Council was raised from three to seven, all of whom must
be elected members of the House of Assembly. ‘This reform,’ said
the Minister in Parliament, ‘is part of a deliberate purpose of
preparing for a future Territorial executive’; however, no change
has yet appeared in the operation, as distinct from the membership,
of the Council. In the second place, following a recommendation of
the Select Committee, a 1963 ordinance provided for the appoint­
ment by the Administrator of not more than fifteen ‘Parliamentary
Under-Secretaries’ from among elected members of the House of
Assembly.5
The former Minister, the Administrator, and the Assistant Admini­
strator (Services) made a number of disconnected statements on
different occasions about the intended role of these Under-Secre­
taries: they would represent a stage in the development of respon­
sible executive government; they would be trainees, getting an
understanding of parliamentary procedure, administrative methods,
departmental organization, and the formulation of policy; they
would be attached to each of the ‘main’ departments ‘to understudy
those official members who act in the legislature in a role resembling
Ministers’; they would be associated with departments not repre­
sented in the House, to supplement the official representation
reduced from sixteen to ten by the latest constitutional reform;
they would be consulted in policy-making, conveying public
opinion to the Administration and portraying Administration
thinking to the electorates.
5 The maximum number may be increased by resolution of the House
(Parliamentary Under-Secretaries Ordinance, 1963, s. 5).
258 New Guinea on the Threshold
After the 1964 general election, ten Parliamentary Under-Secre­
taries were chosen, all being indigenous members for open electorates,
literate or more or less fluent in spoken English, and spread fairly
evenly over the main regions of the Territory. In June they took a
special oath of office, undertaking not to divulge official inform­
ation. In July the Assistant Administrator for Services announced
that they would have full access to files and other information, and
would work closely with directors of Administration departments,
to leam departmental administration, how executive decisions were
made, and how policy was formulated. When they had a full
understanding of these things they ‘would be separated from the
executive, and given offices in the House of Assembly building’.
Seven of them were, for these purposes, ‘attached’ to the depart­
ments not directly represented in the House of Assembly (including
the Department of the Administrator), and the other three were
assigned to the Treasurer and to the two Assistant Administrators,
all of whom are members of the Assembly.
It appears that Under-Secretaries retain their right, as members,
to ask Questions, criticize Administration policy and actions, and
even vote against the Administration, which, however, has asked
to be consulted beforehand by an Under-Secretary thinking of
venting open opposition. These understandings have not been put
into writing, and only time can tell what infringements would incur
the only formal sanction—the Administrator’s power of dismissal.
The salary of £1,300 a year, substantially more than that of ordinary
members, is a strong inducement to loyalty; on the other hand,
there is electoral risk in becoming an Administration ‘yes-man’, and
on losing his seat an Under-Secretary forfeits office as well.
Five of the Under-Secretaries were also appointed as members of
the Administrator’s Council (the other two places for elected
members of the House being filled by Europeans). With the per­
mission of the presiding officer, Under-Secretaries who are not
members of the Council may attend and be heard at its meetings.
However, unless the role of the Council is transformed, the value
of this participation would seem to be limited, whatever its future
constitutional significance (though this also remains obscure). No
Under-Secretary has been appointed to the Central Policy and
Planning Committee, but some of them have been allowed to attend
informal policy discussions, for example of the current works pro­
gramme, considered as a salutary object-lesson in the allocation of
finite resources between competing projects and regions.
Formal instruction. A Department of Territories propaganda
pamphlet, compiled rather hastily in 1963, gives the following
information:
Special measures have been put into operation to overcome the
lack of political experience among the native people. At each
sitting of the Legislative Council fifteen leading Papuans and
The Advance to Responsible Government 259
New Guineans are brought as observers to Port Moresby for
political education. At the same time they receive special courses
of instruction in political theory and procedure. In 1962 a party
of twelve native leaders was brought to Australia to observe and
be instructed in the working of government there, at both the
parliamentary and local government levels. This was again done
with a larger group of native leaders in March-April, 1963 and
the procedure will continue. Special courses of instruction in
political procedures are given in all districts and at Port Moresby
(Territories 1963c: 5, 6).
The pre-election programme to familiarize voters with their obliga­
tions at the polls has been mentioned: it was an heroic operation,
yet could scarcely be expected to impart much beyond the mechani­
cal requirements of voting. Before the House of Assembly first met,
a seminar was held at Sogeri, near Port Moresby, to initiate the
newly elected members into some of the mysteries of parliamentary
procedure (Bettison 1965). Opportunities of this kind will certainly
increase. A series of seminars on New Guinea’s political and
economic future, with substantial representation of native leaders
among speakers and audience, has been sponsored by the Australian
Association for Cultural Freedom, and another, on the recent World
Bank Report, by the recendy-formed Council on New Guinea
Affairs, also a private organization. Among official efforts, the
P.N.G. Administrative College, established in November 1963
primarily to train an indigenous public service, has undertaken to
organize seminars on politics and government from time to time for
members of the House of Assembly and other political leaders.
Clearly, formal political education still lies mostly in the future.
I ndigenous political development
It would be strange if the deliberate Australian measures for
political development had not been accompanied by some spon­
taneous indigenous political activity, not necessarily consistent with
Australian conceptions and intentions. There have been such
manifestations, but so far they have been tentative, disjointed,
scattered, and often short lived. In general, it is Administration
policy to encourage indigenous organizations and activities not
directly opposed to Australian measures, but it has not always been
easy to recognize in time the true nature of local developments or
to handle them constructively. On a topic so fugitive, any generali­
zations should be treated with reserve.
Cargo cults. Since European occupation there has been a long
history of outbreaks of quasi-religious movements having in com­
mon, as Gavin Souter (1963) puts it, attempts to answer one very
puzzling question: ‘Why have we so little while the white man has
so much, and how can we improve ourselves?’ The answer is usually
supplied by a leader who claims to be in communication with the
260 New Guinea on the Threshold
spirit world, and to have been told that Europeans have somehow
diverted the cargo (material possessions, prosperity, and knowledge)
intended by supernatural powers for his people. This is a highly
plausible explanation to a stone-age people unable to see for them­
selves the material basis, the techniques, and organization which
make possible the lavish productions of industrial civilization.
In recent years some movements of this general kind have taken
a more rational turn. The Kabu Movement, or ‘New Men, in the
Purari River delta of Western Papua, and the movement led by
Paliau on Manus Island to the north of the New Guinea mainland
became, after an initial quasi-religious impetus, essentially secular
organizations for self-improvement, involving total rejection of the
traditional way of life and the adoption of Utopian programmes of
social and economic change along European lines. Occasionally
these semi-secularized cults have even included ideas of rebellion
and local ‘independence’. All have been inhibited, however, by the
persistent influence of some fanatical cultists, by lack of the material
resources and organizational skills to make anything like a reality
of their dreams, and by the hesitancy of the Administration to help
remedy these deficiencies. Practical advice and positive guidance,
together with long-term technological education and training,
would both capitalize on these spontaneous impulses towards pro­
gressive change and erode the foundations of the cargo cults, which
lie deep in the people’s system of beliefs (see Burridge 1960; Law­
rence 1964; Maher 1961).
Politically, the cargo cults, by spreading beyond their point of
origin, have been a potential influence for wider regional unity.
But they have failed to breed institutions capable of sustaining this
against the disruptive effects of local rivalries, mutual recriminations
about thefts of doctrine, and the exploitation of these rifts by
sometimes unscrupulous leaders seeking notoriety or petty power.
And even when it is used creatively, leadership in New Guinea is
traditionally insecure.
The cults also play a part in inter-racial politics. Often beginning
auspiciously, for example with acceptance of Christianity as a
talisman for the attraction of ‘cargo’, inevitable disillusion may
convert them into a specific medium for the expression of latent
anti-European sentiment. However, it seems premature to see the
cults, as some observers have done, as the forerunners of a future
nationalism. Nationalism elsewhere has usually been stimulated by
resentment at the ruling power’s oppressive policies or unwelcome
presence. The paradox of New Guinea, as Mr Tom Mboya of the
Kenya government observed to his own expressed amazement,
is that in general the Australian Administration and its policies
are welcomed as benevolent, at least in intention, and this seems to
inhibit the very desire for independence which is a condition
of the self-government those policies are intended to promote.
The Advance to Responsible Government 261
Mr Hasluck once sought to resolve this paradox by suggesting that
his policies would promote a more healthy and permanent focus of
unity than would traditional nationalism. It is impossible yet to
forecast what form this might take.
Political reactions through Local Government Councils. An in­
direct effect of the native local government policy has not infre­
quently been to stimulate or bring to light spontaneous expressions
of political aspiration or conflict. Some groups have shown jealousy
at the establishment of councils in other areas before their own.
Some groups have resisted the establishment of councils in their
own areas from an objection to the special taxation which this
formerly implied. The operation of councils has sometimes brought
out latent antagonisms between local native groups, or between
them and non-indigenous groups such as Chinese traders or the
missions. The latter themselves in some cases have resented the rise
of a rival power in their previous area of influence, for example
when councils sought to introduce secular schools.
Another indirect effect of local government councils has been to
provide a forum for the raising and discussion of political issues.
These have extended to questions of land tenure and alienation,
demands for native courts, educational policy, and other matters,
not necessarily in conformity with the policy of the Administration,
and not within the limited administrative competence of councils
themselves.
This forum was extended when the Department of Native Affairs
initiated a conference of representatives of councils in the New
Guinea Trust Territory in June 1959. Discussions at the conference,
said Administration officers who attended it, were marked by
‘political maturity’, and no fewer than thirty-three ‘moderate and
coherent’ resolutions were passed for submission to the govern­
ment. These did not elicit official replies till twelve months later,
when about nine of the resolutions were acted upon by the Admini­
stration. But at the request of council members the Administration
has sponsored three repetitions of this conference in different centres
on a Territory-wide basis, and managed by delegates themselves. A
notable feature of the most recent one, at Wewak in 1964, was the
inclusion in a number of resolutions of calls upon members of the
House of Assembly to help to further their purposes.
There have been critics who feared that the introduction of
Western-style institutions at the grass-roots level of rural villages
might raise particularly difficult problems of adaptation, and might
even involve, at the pace now contemplated and adopted, ‘a degree
of coercion’ to get people to merge individual village destinies
into the larger whole of the council area. They point out, among
other things, that where councils are established it is the practice
to withdraw authority from the luluais or tultuls (native headmen
or constables) who were previously government representatives in
262 New Guinea on the Threshold
the individual villages. Not every village can expect to be repre­
sented by a separate member in the new Council; in addition the
elections for these bodies tend to draw out younger men rather than
the traditional leaders. The latter thus have a motive for resisting
the introduction of councils, and critics add that when introduced
they eliminate one of the traditional contacts between government
and local village opinion. However, there is evidence that in some
areas a good deal of traditional influence persists behind the scenes,
restricting the autonomy of councils and putting a brake on rapid
change.
Other critics have been impatient with the practice of European
officers assessing the ‘capacity’ of a group to manage a council
before introducing it, arguing that ‘until the people have the
institutions they will never know how to run them’.
Yet experience in many areas has belied these fears. One of the
critics, Dr David Bettison, himself wrote (1962) that the local
government councils ‘are becoming the focus of interest of people
who hitherto have had suspicious attitudes, who spoke different
languages and who often engaged in warfare’. He also quotes the
development at Milne Bay (and could now quote the even more
dramatic case of the Gazelle Peninsula) where the people of several
adjacent council areas, formerly at enmity with one another, asked
for amalgamation into a larger council so as to co-ordinate activities
affecting the region as a whole. This kind of consolidation has been
repeated elsewhere, though in at least one instance, that of the
Orokolo and Vailala Councils in 1964, it subsequently broke down.
Whether all of the above tendencies were anticipated by Admini­
stration policy or should be classed as unforeseen native initiative is
immaterial. In either case they represent important political gains,
if it is true, as both the former Minister and some of his critics have
said, that ‘the crux of the problem of political development is simply
. . . to create a sense of nationhood, of common loyalty and common
institutions in the place of a fragmented society of local loyalties’.
Welfare and industrial organizations. Within the past decade
certain unofficial organizations have provided imported opportu­
nities for the development of native leadership, and one possible
base for indigenous political development.
Problems of housing and employment for immigrant workers in
Port Moresby led Mr Maori Kiki and his wife, with 300 members
of their tribal group, to found in November 1958 the Kerema Wel­
fare Society, whose interest soon extended to wages and working
conditions. In one student’s view this signified ‘the beginning of
the transition to the political phase’ (Healey 1962a). Spreading its
organization rapidly to the Gulf and Western Districts of Papua,
in 1961 the society was renamed the Western Welfare Association.
There is now also an Eastern Welfare Association.
The Advance to Responsible Government 263
Meanwhile, encouraged by the Minister for Territories to present
a case to the Native Employment Board which was then investi­
gating wage scales for native workers, the Keremas, Motu, and other
groups in Port Moresby formed in 1960 a Papua and New Guinea
Workers’ Association, under the leadership of Dr Reuben Taureka.
The Administrator asked Mr W. A. Lalor, the Public Solicitor and
President of the Public Service Association, to help the Association
and the Welfare Society to present their case. It resulted in agree­
ment with the employers on an urban cash wage of £3 a week for
unskilled workers employed other than in domestic duties, steve­
doring, and shipping, in Port Moresby, Lae, and Rabaul.
Soon afterwards there appeared a Madang Workers’ Association,
which achieved a membership of 1,125 by the beginning of 1964.
Workers’ Associations were subsequently formed in Rabaul and
Lae, then in Kavieng, Wewak, Goroka, and Wau-Bulolo. In face
of these regional developments, the Papua and New Guinea
Workers’ Association was re-named the Port Moresby Workers’
Association. Under the presidency of Mr Oala Oala-Rarua it
conducted a recruiting drive in the middle of 1964 which raised its
membership from under 500 to over 1,000, including general
labourers, transport workers, carpenters, plumbers, and employees
in retail stores, hotels, and clubs. Membership is open to workers
in all industries in the Port Moresby Sub-District.
In 1961 a cash wage agreement was reached for the majority of
unskilled workers in Madang, and separate wage agreements were
made for stevedoring workers in Madang and Port Moresby. In
1963 the Madang Workers’ Association succeeded in bringing their
cash wage to the Port Moresby, Lae, and Rabaul level of £3 a week.
Accompanying these developments, and scarcely keeping pace with
them, has been the strengthening of the Territory Department of
Labour, with the appointment of an Industrial Organizations Officer
in June 1961 to help growing organizations, and the operation
from March 1963 of ordinances to regulate industrial organizations
and industrial relations.
There is a subtle combination of paternalism and control in the
industrial legislation. The former is seen in the legal immunities
granted to unions in respect of industrial action, including the right
to strike, and in the provisions governing voting, the use of funds,
and assistance to unions by Administration officers. The latter is
represented by the provisions for compulsory registration of organi­
zations, restriction of their objects to ‘industrial matters’, and denial
of the right to affiliate with unregistered associations within the
Territory. There is nothing to prevent registered associations from
using voluntary donations for political activities, or from affiliating
with each other or with trade union movements in Australia or
abroad. Yet one senses a certain anxiety lest trade union organi­
zations may be exploited for ‘other than industrial purposes’, and a
264 Neio Guinea on the Threshold
desire to maintain close Administration scrutiny and control of their
activities.
It would be natural to expect these organizations, which so far
are wholly urban, to provide a focus and a forum for political
discussion and preparation. The absence of representative muni­
cipal government leaves a political vacuum in the towns, which
at the same time contain the more literate, articulate, and detri-
balized native populations and the seeds of social, economic, and
racial discontent. The leaders of the Workers’ Associations were
well represented among the 1964 candidates for the House of
Assembly, both successful and unsuccessful, and they are well
aware of the relation between Australian trade unionism and
political party organization. Industrial organization in each region
of the Territory has begun with that hitherto unattainable ideal of
Australian labour radicalism, the ‘one big union’, and so offers one
of the most effective available means of fostering a sense of common
interest among urbanized native people and of spreading political
ideas. It is true that the Workers’ Associations are beginning to
organize ‘industry branches’, but this does not contemplate fission.
The first Territory-wide conference of Workers’ Associations
was held at Madang in October 1964, resulting in the announce­
ment early in 1965 of a New Guinea Federation of Workers’
Associations.
These are at present only tendencies and possibilities. The welfare
and industrial organizations have not yet engaged in overt political
activity; at present they are more easily seen as a nursery than as a
medium for such activity.
Political behaviour in the legislature. As national legislators,
elected members of the new House of Assembly start with very
little political or administrative experience indeed, and that entirely
within New Guinea. Only seven of the fifty-four had served in any
of the previous Legislative Councils. Four of the ten special elector­
ate representatives and three of the six Europeans from open
electorates had been Native Affairs Department field officers, most
of them having subsequently become planters or businessmen, as
were all the other European elected members but one, a clergyman.
Of the thirty-eight indigenous members, thirteen are former presi­
dents or vice-presidents of native local government councils, and
one was a council clerk; twelve saw service with Europeans in the
war, in the police, or in the Pacific Islands Regiment; five have had
experience as schoolteachers. By occupation, six of the Highlands
indigenous members were government interpreters; there are one or
two planters and traders; the rest are mostly subsistence farmers.
As to formal education: no elected member has completed a full
secondary schooling, but as experience elsewhere shows, this does
not necessarily inhibit the political effectiveness of those brought
up and literate in the culture to which the political institutions
The Advance to Responsible Government 265
belong. It is the fact that parliaments belong to an alien culture and
that the formal documentation of the House of Assembly is mostly
in an alien tongue that makes lack of education a significant handi­
cap for the indigenous representative. Some twenty of the thirty-
eight indigenous members have received no formal education at all;
four more have at most three years; so that nearly two-thirds of
them are either illiterate or semi-literate, and very few would have
even hearsay notions of the working of a modem legislature. With
remarkable lack of imagination, the mechanics of the House, like
those of the Legislative Councils before it, were, as a matter of
Ministerial policy, so shaped as to perpetuate the complex and
often anachronistic forms and procedures of traditional British
parliaments. This hardly eases the task of New Guinea legislators
of either race.
The language situation in the House is paradoxical. English,
Police Motu, and Melanesian Pidgin are the official languages, and
there is a simultaneous translation service. Full versions of Bills,
orders of the day, reports, and other documents are supplied only
in English, with condensed summaries in the other languages.
Hansard, printed only in English, includes the stenographic record
of the simultaneous translators’ version of speeches in other lan­
guages—a cogent but far from verbatim account. On the other
hand, while only one of the official members is really fluent in
Pidgin, this is the only lingua franca available to half the members
from the New Guinea islands, most of those from the New Guinea
coast, and all but two from the Highlands (one of whom knows
English as well, while the other speaks only ‘place-talk’—local
dialects). Nearly all the members from coastal Papua have both
Motu and English, but as most of them and all the European elected
members also have some knowledge of Pidgin, this has quickly
become the medium for many speeches by members of all races—
except the officials. The growing and durable importance of Pidgin,
incidentally, is thus underlined by the practice of the central
legislature.
It is not surprising that in the first two meetings of the House of
Assembly, as previously in the Legislative Council, the indigenous
members have played a much more modest part than their European
colleagues, speaking more rarely in the discussion of Bills before
the House, and then more briefly and with little subtlety on
technical points. One or two, who happen to be outstanding in their
acquirement of European manners, habits, and speech, seem able
to grasp the essential principles of legislation closely affecting their
people, and can debate cogently in English. At the same time, most
of them are persons of some weight and consideration in their own
districts, and are neither shy nor awkward on the occasions when
they feel called upon to rise to their feet. In the House’s second
meeting the writer witnessed most of the elected members in turn
266 New Guinea on the Threshold
delivering with poise and force (and in one or two cases with
amusing irony) a brief speech in support of the remarkable
resolution that:
We, the elected representatives of the people of Papua and New
Guinea, desire to convey to the Parliament of the Commonwealth
of Australia, the Trusteeship Council and the General Assembly
of the United Nations Organisation, the expressed wish of the
people that they, the people, and they alone, be allowed to decide
when the time is ripe for self-government in Papua and New
Guinea, and the form that such government will take, and the
people’s further firm conviction that the road to self-government
can best be travelled with one guide—and that guide the adminis­
tering authority.. . .
It is in debates on the Address in Reply or on the Adjournment of
the House that indigenous members usually speak, either on very
general matters like this resolution, on severer enforcement of the
criminal law, the drift to the towns, and the need for unity and
education among their people, or, at the other extreme, on the
parochial needs of their own electorates for government develop­
ment of industries, roads, and markets.
Among indigenous members of the last Legislative Council, six
of whom were nominated by the Administration, there was a some­
what higher average of experience and literacy. An analysis of the
divisions in the Council between April 1961 and the end of 1962
showed that five of the six appointed indigenous members almost
invariably supported the government; the sixth, and four of the
elected indigenes, sometimes supported and sometimes opposed
the government; while two of the elected indigenes voted against
the government in all divisions, thus ranking themselves, in attitude
though not in any organized way, with the six elected expatriate
members who did likewise (and thus looked something like an
Opposition). These facts, together with a close study of the debates
and of the issues at stake in the divisions, led the observer to
conclude that:
The indigenes, particularly the elected indigenes, are sorting
things out for themselves. . . To date they have been moderate,
cautious and not very talkative, but nevertheless some elected
indigenes have clearly differentiated between matters which seem
to further their short term interests and matters which seem not
to do so. . . They are neither tools of the Government or the
Opposition, but are developing independent and politically sound
views of their own (Sloan 1962:20-1; see also Lynch 1962).
Such a verdict seems somewhat premature, especially with the
hindsight that only two of the members concerned have passed
into the new House of Assembly. Yet this House has already
witnessed manful gropings toward the rudiments of political
The Advance to Responsible Government 267
organization. Elected members seemed determined not to jeopar­
dize the prospect of national unity by overt groupings on regional
lines (which some people had predicted), and there was no other
discernible basis for political parties’ at this stage. The Admini­
stration made no attempt to create a pledged government majority,
and this may, consciously or otherwise, have been decisive in
eliminating any thought of a united Opposition. Instead, at the
second meeting of the House in September 1964, a private gathering
of indigenous members chose a Leader and Deputy Leader of the
Elected Members. (They were Mr John Guise, a Papuan, and
Matthias To Liman, a New Guinean, respectively; Mr Guise forth­
with resigned his post as an Under-Secretary, but asked to remain
a member of the Administrator’s Council.) These decisions were
encouraged and accepted by the European elected members, who
took part in later meetings of the group which chose two Whips and
discussed parliamentary tactics for the floor of the House. The
Administration at first responded by appointing two official mem­
bers as Whips of its own, and to some extent the business of the
House has begun to be arranged Tehind the Speaker’s Chair’.
However, these rudimentary measures have since been allowed to
lapse, at least on the Administration side.
Formation of the Elected Members’ Group offers the possibility
of concerted action in the House by the substantial non-official
majority, and could thus be a formidable restraint on Administration
policy. But several incidents in its first week distinguished it from
a regular Opposition party. It seized the idea of making—as a
single gesture, not a continuous resistance—a show of its collective
strength by amending or delaying an Administration measure;
but it conveyed these intentions to the Administration Whips and
also agreed to admit an Administration spokesman to its meeting to
discuss the ‘wisdom’ of its particular choice of issues—hardly the
behaviour of an exclusive party caucus. That its own members did
not consider it a ‘party’ was shown by at least one attempt by a
European member to form a ‘definite political party’; the meeting
he called was poorly attended and quickly disintegrated as soon as
his object became clear. When an elected member introduced an
amendment to a Bill without consulting the group as a whole,
elected members decided to vote individually in the resulting
division. The House in Committee divided equally and the amend­
ment was lost on the casting vote of the chairman;6 the mover was
criticized in a subsequent meeting of the Elected Members’ Group
but his freedom of action was accepted—in short, there is no hint of
a pledge.
Of course, what happens in the legislature is not the only
6 The amendment occasioning this first Division in the new House would
have added chewing-gum to betel nut as a substance not to be consumed in
hotel and restaurant kitchens!
268 Neu) Guinea on the Threshold
important index of political activity or sophistication. After all, the
Legislative Council usually sat for only a few weeks in each year,
and House sessions will not be much different at first. Between
sessions, members will need to study the background of legislation
and their constituents’ opinions about Administration policy and
actions, and to broaden their acquaintance with people, the country,
and their problems. Indigenous members are undoubtedly active in
these ways. And it seems likely that the mere fact of their member­
ship of the central legislature is a greater stimulus to such activity
than they would receive in any other way. By the same token, it
may well be from the central legislature outward and downward,
rather than from the local communities upward, that organized
political groupings will be developed. The decisions made there
will be important; it will be equally obvious that those decisions
can be consistently influenced only by concerted action in the
House. Common interests and conflicts of interest will become
clearer there; and indigenous members will learn, as they could
not at home, the meaning of representative national politics. They
will also become conscious of the sweets of office, and realize that
organization is a pre-condition of re-election. In all of these direc­
tions there are already some signs that the New Guinea politician is
quick to read the lessons of experience.
C onclusion
Rather than to intone cut-and-dried formulae for the future, it
seems better to conclude by re-emphasizing the dilemmas and
uncertainties that face Australia in its policy of helping New
Guinea to advance to responsible self-government.
A pervading dilemma lies between the impatience of the outside
world to see this nearly last of colonial territories ‘freed’ from alien
yoke and the patience demanded by the realities of the internal
situation. These are realities of economic, social, and political under­
development that are due to Australia’s neglect in the past, but
that cannot be exorcized by resolutions in international bodies or
the wringing of academic hands. Australia’s creation of political
institutions is at present certainly outrunning its economic and
social measures and also its formal preparation of the New Guinea
people for political responsibility. If those people ‘catch up’ and
formulate their own political demands at even half the rate envi­
saged by the outside critics, so much the better.
A second dilemma is between the natural wish Australians may
have to free themselves of the moral, financial, and defence burden
which New Guinea in fact will increasingly impose, and the equally
natural wish to ensure that New Guinea, even when self-governing,
‘retains a close and friendly association with Australia’. It seems that
our obligations are inescapable, whenever and in whatever form
self-determination is claimed.
The Advance to Responsible Government 269
A third dilemma is exemplified by a statement of the former
Minister for Territories, in which he said in one breath that an
Australian aim is ‘to retain what is best in native life and to blend
it with the influences of Western Civilisation’, and in the next that
another aim is ‘to replace paganism by the acceptance of the
Christian faith, and the ritual of primitive life by the practice of
religion’ (Hasluck 1956a: 11). He was much more realistic on a later
occasion in saying that he did not expect the New Guinea people
would accept Australian institutions and values ready made (Has­
luck 1964:5).
A fourth dilemma lies between the policy of ‘uniform develop­
ment’ and the tendencies and pressures towards early emergence,
if not deliberate fostering, of a political elite. If ‘uniform develop­
ment’ means withholding educational opportunities and accelerated
political and administrative training from those who are now most
ready for them, it would mean shirking immediate responsibilities
but could not prevent the rise of an elite ‘qualified’ for leadership in
other—perhaps less palatable—ways.
Finally, there remain the open questions about Australia’s ulti­
mate policy on responsible government. When is it to be? What form
is it to take? Does it mean statehood within the Commonwealth of
Australia, ‘self-government’ within some looser form of association
with Australia, membership in a ‘Melanesian Federation’, ‘inde­
pendence’ subject to Australian economic aid and defence under­
takings, or union with West Irian under Indonesia? It has been
Australian policy that the New Guinea people will decide all these
questions ‘for themselves in their own good time’. Can Australia
afford to leave all these questions to the New Guineans, and is
there time to leave it all to them? On the other hand, can Australia
afford to ignore the fashionable world doctrine of ‘self-determina­
tion’? We must seek clearer ideas in this misty, vital, dangerous
area.

T
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1964a N a tio n a l I n c o m e E s tim a te s fo r P a p u a a n d N e w
G u in e a 1 9 6 0 / 6 1 - 1 9 6 2 /6 3 . Canberra.
1964b R e p o r t o f t h e C o m m is s io n o n H ig h e r E d u c a tio n in
P a p u a a n d N e w G u in e a (Currie Report). Canberra.

T.P.N.G.
1950/1 Patrol Report No. 10, Kikori Sub-District, Gulf
District.
1951/2 Ibid. No. 8.
1956-63 O v e r se a s T r a d e . Bureau of Statistics. Bulletins 1-8.
1959-63 R u ra l I n d u s tr ie s . Production Bulletins Nos. 1-5.
1962 Legislative Council of Papua and New Guinea.
Select Committee on Political Development: I n ­
te r im R e p o r t. Port Moresby.
1963a A n n u a l R e p o r t o f th e D e p a r tm e n t o f A g r ic u ltu r e ,
S to c k a n d F ish eries. Port Moresby.
1963b A n n u a l R e p o r t fo r t h e y ea r e n d e d 3 0 th J u n e , 1 9 6 2 ,
to th e M in is te r o f S ta te fo r T e rrito rie s fr o m th e
P u b lic S e rv ic e C o m m is sio n e r . Port Moresby.
1963c Q u a r te rly B u lle tin o f O v erse a T r a d e S ta tistic s .
Twelve months ended June 1963.
1963d R e p o r t o n t h e O p e ra tio n s o f th e D e p a r tm e n t o f
F o re sts fo r th e y e a r e n d in g 3 0 th J u n e 1 9 6 3 . Port
Moresby.
1963e S u r v e y o f In d ig e n o u s A g r ic u ltu r e a n d A n c illa r y
S u r v e y s 1 9 6 1 -6 2 . Papua.
1963f L e g is la tiv e C o u n c il D e b a te s , VI, 10.
1964a Administration Press statement No. 130: The New
Public Service Ordinance. Port Moresby.
1964b A n n u a l R e p o r t fo r th e y ea r e n d e d 3 0 th J u n e 1 9 6 3 ,
to th e M in is te r o f S ta te fo r T e rrito rie s fr o m th e
P u b lic S e rv ic e C o m m is sio n e r . Port Moresby.
1964c- H o u s e o f A s s e m b ly D e b a te s , vols. 1- . Port
Moresby.
1964d ‘Income Taxation.’ F in a n c e B u lle tin No. 3.
1964e Q u a r te r ly B u lle tin o f O v erse a T r a d e S ta tistic s . Nine
months ended March 1964.
1964f Q u a r te r ly S u m m a r y o f S ta tistic s , No. 20.
TRUPP, S. L. (ed.)
1962 M ille n n ia l D r e a m s in A c tio n : E ssa y s in c o m p a r a ­
t iv e s tu d y . Supplement II. The Hague.

UNITED AFRICA
COMPANY
1963 S ta tis tic a l a n d E c o n o m ic R e v ie w . April. London.
280 References
U N ITED NATIONS
1963 U n ite d N a tio n s C o ffe e C o n fe r e n c e , 1 9 6 2 : S u m m a r y
o f P ro c ee d in g s. E /C O N F . 4 2 /8 . New York.

UNESCO
1953 ‘The Use of V ernacular Languages in E ducation.’
M o n o g ra p h s in F u n d a m e n ta l E d u c a tio n , No. V III.
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U.N. TR U ST EE SH IP
COUNCIL
1962 R e p o r t o f th e U .N . V is itin g M issio n to th e T r u st
T e rr ito ry o f N a u r u a n d N e w G u in e a , 1 9 6 2 . D ocu­
m ent T /1597. New York.
van der M EU LEN , J.
1962 F is h M a r k e tin g in P a p u a a n d N e w G u in e a . Faculty
of Agricultural Economics, The University of New
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van W IJK, C. L.
1962-3 ‘The soils of Bougainville Island—their distribution
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VOGET, T. W .
1959 ‘Towards a Classification of C ult Movements: Some
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W ALLACE, A. F. C.
1956 ‘Revitalization M ovements.’ A m e r ic a n A n th r o p o lo ­
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WATSON, J. B.
1964 ‘Anthropology in the New G uinea H ighlands.’
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W EBER, Max
1947 T h eo ry of S o c ia l and E c o n o m ic O r g a n iz a tio n
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W EST, F. J.
1956 ‘Colonial D evelopm ent in Central New G uinea.’
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1958 ‘Indigenous Labour in Papua-N ew Guinea.’ I n t e r ­
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W H IT E, R. C.
1964 S o c ia l A c c o u n ts o f t h e M o n e ta r y S e cto r o f th e
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1964 ‘International Collaboration in the W orld Coffee
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References 281
W ILKES, John (ed .)
1958 N ew Guinea and Australia. Sydney.
W ILLIAM S, F. E.
1930 Orokaiva Magic. London.
1934 ‘The Vailala Madness in Retrospect’, in E. E.
Evans-Pritchard (ed.), Essays Presented to C. G.
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WORSLEY, P.
1957 The Trum pet Shall Sound. London.
WURM, S. A.
1960 ‘The Changing Linguistic Picture of New Guinea.
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1964 ‘Recent Developments in Linguistic Studies on the
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No. 4, 1-17.
 Index
ANGAU, 190-2 Aid: Australian, 7, 9, 10, 42-3, 215; ex­
ASOPA, 192, 209-10, 211 ternal, 23, 24, 28, 29, 30; financial,
Acts: Colonial Welfare and Develop­ 23, 72; foreign, 30, 31, 33, 34; tech­
ment, 5; Papua (1906), 3, 6; Papua nical, 77, 100-1
and New Guinea (1949-63), 192-3, Army Directorate of Research, 191-2
249, 252, 255; Papua and New Asiatic labour, see Labour
Guinea Provisional Administration Australia: Commonwealth (depart­
(1945), 192, 193 ments), 194, 198, 230, (Public Ser­
Administration, the, 196-7, 255; vice Board) 196, 211; dependence
achievements, 217; centralization, on, 33, 34, 39, 224-5, 260; financial
187, 194, 196-7, 205, 209, 218; co­ support of Territory, 7, 9, 10, 29,
ordination, 187, 188, 197-200, 202-7 42-3; House of Representatives, 127;
passim; decentralization, 188, 206, influence on administrative develop­
218; evolution, 190, 193; political ment, 190-1; Parliament, 255; policy
and economic programmes, 161; re­ (Labor and Liberal governments),
venue, 10; Servants, 193-4, 206, 213, 193; politics of, 269; Territory Legis­
221; specialization, 187, 196-7; see lation (veto), 255; see also Depen­
also ANGAU, Germans, Public Ser­ dence
vice, United Nations Australian Administrative Staff Col­
Administration, military: ANGAU lege, 211
(World War II), 190-1; post-World Australian Association for Cultural
War I, 1, 3, 9 Freedom, 259
Administration, native, 8, 13-14 Australian New Guinea Administrative
Administration, provisional, 191-2,193; Unit, 190-2
Cabinet Sub-Committee, 191 Australian School of Pacific Adminis­
Administrative Arrangements Ordin­ tration, 192, 209-10, 211
ance (1961), 199n. Auxiliary Division (Public Service),
Administrative College, 124, 130, 131, 188, 207-8, 211
210, 211-12, 259
Administrator’s Council, 193, 200, 257 Balance of payments, 31, 33, 34; see
Administrator, the, 190; as employer, also Exports, Imports, Trade, Trade
216; Assistant, 198-9, 200, 256, 257; balance
Department of, 197-9, 200, 201-3, Barnes, C. E., 214
205; powers and functions, 193, 203, Betel nut, 35, 267n.
253-7 passim Bettison, D. G., 262
Advisory Council for Native Matters, Births, 108; average number, 111;
252 crude rate, 111; rate, 112, 113; see
Africa and Africans, 125, 129 also Fertility
Agricultural College, Vudal, 124, 210 Blarney, Sir Thomas, 192
Agriculture, 80-102 passim; advanced, Brides and bride-price, 167, 168-71,
152; extension projects, 161; pre­ 179, 180; see also Ceremonial pay­
dominance of, 23, 27, 28; shifting, ments, Marriage
152; technical information, 100-1; British New Guinea Development
university graduates in, 17; see also Company, 235
Crops, Primary sector, Rural sector Buka, cults in, 160
Agriculture, Department of, 124, 130, Burns, Philp & Co. Ltd, 9
197; Director of, 16, 17 Burns, Philp (New Guinea) Ltd, 231,
Ahioma Training Centre, 176 233, 235, 236; staff policy, 234
284 Index
CSIRO: Division of Land Research Colonial Welfare and Development
and Regional Survey, 45; Surveys, Acts, 5
45, 63, 67, 69, (Buna-Kokoda Sur­ Commerce, 9, 23, 38, 39
vey) 45,47-8, (methods of research) Commercial and industrial sector, 40
47, (Wabag-Tari area) 48 Commission on Higher Education in
Canberra, control from, 195, 196, 197, Papua and New Guinea, see Higher
205, 218-19 Education
Capital: foreign, 5, 24, 39, 43; forma­ Communications, 6, 9, 31, 32, 75-6
tion, 42, 43; local, 24, 39; outflow, Communities: and enterprises, 161; in
43 secular movement, 161; political
Cargo cults, 158-61; see also Cults, organization, 151; regional differ­
Social movements ences, 151-2
Carpenter, W. R. & Co. Ltd, 233-4 Congo, comparison with, 132, 133
Cash crops, see Crops Conlon, Alfred, 192
Cattle, see Livestock Consumption, pattern of, 26
Centralization, see Administration Co-operative societies and Tommy
Central Policy and Planning Commit­ Kabu Movement, 155; in Chimbu,
tee, 199-200, 205, 206, 219, 258; 157
establishment, 256; function, 257 Copper, 5, 73
Census, 104-5, 110-11; division, 61, Cotton, 16
103, 106, 110; patrol, 103, 105 Council on New Guinea Affairs, 259
Ceremonial payments, 153; bride- Credit, 43, 99, 100
price, 167-71, 179, 180; see also Crocodile skins, 35
Marriage Crops: cash, 16, 69-70; truck (market
Chalmers, Rev. James, 3, 4 garden), 16, 35, 70, 92
Chinese, 222, 223 Cults, 153-5, 163-5; and Christianity,
Christianity, 118; and cults, 115, 159, 115, 159, 165; and social movement,
165 158, 163-4, (compared with Ameri­
Civil Service, see Public Service can) 156; Buka, 160; cargo, 18, 118,
Cleland, Sir Donald M., 196 132, 156, 158-62, (political signifi­
Climate, 53-9; airstreams, 55; frost, 53, cance) 260; characteristics, 154;
65; humidity, 53; rainfall, 53-9, 65; Mambu of Bogia, 159; Paliau, 155-6,
temperature, 53 159-61, 260; Rai Coast, 159; Tanna,
Coal, 5 160; Tommy Kabu, 155-6, 161, 260;
Cocoa, 35, 38, 69, 86, 97, 161; demand Yali, 156, 159; see also Social move­
prospects, 84, 85, 86; export income, ments
86; international agreement, 85; Culture, 149, 183-4; see also Women
prices, 84-5; production and pros­ Currie Commission, see Higher Edu­
pects, 86; Territory’s share in world cation
market, 86 Currie, Sir George, 127
Coconut oil, 38, 81; markets, 81; prices,
82; prospects, 82-3 Davidson, J. W., 201
Coconuts, 34, 38, 97; and copra, 5-6, Death: ceremonial exchanges, 153;
10, 16; estates, 83-4; export income, crude rate, 112; infant rate, 111-12;
80-1; market prospects, 81; plant­ main causes, 104, 106-7, 112-13
ings, 16, 83; production and pros­ Dependence: economic, 33, 34, 39; on
pects, 83-4; smallholders, 83-4 Australia, 224-5, 260
Coffee, 10, 35, 38, 69, 87-8, 157, 158; Discriminatory Practices Ordinance
experimental, 16; export income, 87- (1963), 224
8; international agreement, 87-8; District administration, 190, 197; De­
prices, 87; prospects, 87-8; world partment of D.A., 191, 197n., 198,
market, 87 199n., 200-6 passim, 210, 261; cen­
Colonies and colonization: administra­ sus divisions, 61; Social Develop­
tion, 189 (Africa and Asia) 151, ment Section, 166n., 173, 174; see
(New Guinea) 3, 151; indepen­ also Public Service
dence, 150; social changes under, District Advisory Councils, 157, 232,
149; see also Independence 251
Index 285
District Commissioners, 200, 201, 202- External Territories, Department of,
6, 203n., 219, 251; Assistant, 206; 191, 192, 195; see also Territories,
Deputy, 206 Department of
District Development Committees, 206
District Officers, 202, 203, 204, 205, Fairfax-Ross, B. E., 235
206; Assistant, 204
District Services, Department of, see Fairhall, Miss (social welfare work),
District administration 176, 177
District Services and Native Affairs, Fertility, 41, 106-7, 112
Department of, see District adminis­ Fiji, 126
tration Fisheries, 35, 95
Division of Land Research and Forest resources, see Timber
Regional Survey (CSIRO), 45 Forestry School, Bulolo, 210
Frum, John, movement, see Social
Eastern Welfare Association, 262 movements
Economic development, 10, 12, 16, 37,
41, 154 Germans, Germany, 8, 117; Adminis­
Economic growth, 23, 26, 30, 31, 41 tration, 3, 5, 6, 8, 190
Edie Creek, 6, 9-10, 12; see also Gold Girl Guide movement, 180-2
Education, 117-34 passim; 119n., 173, Gold, 5; discovery, 6, 9-10, 12, 71;
175; effects of, 123, 179; expendi­ effect on native labour, 9; exports,
ture (pre-1939), 14-15; government, 10, 35
of Papuans, 14; graduates (indigen­ Government: revenue, 9, 10, 24, 29,
ous), 124; I.B.R.D. Report, 134; 30; role of, 43
mission, 117-19; policy, 14, 15, 16, Government Secretary’s Department,
117-34 passim; primary, 113, 120, 194, 198, 200
121, 125, 245, 247; secondary, 39,
40, 124, 125, 128, 245, 246, 247; Gross territory product, 27, 28
subsidy on, 14-15; syllabuses, 120, Ground-nuts, 16, 35, 91
126; technical, 14, 101, 130, 132; Guise, John, 267
tertiary, 39, 40, 245, 246, 247; Tolai, Gunther, J. T., 127
161; see also Higher education,
Languages, Teacher training Hasluck, P. M. C., 127, 202, 212-13,
Education, Department of, 126, 127, 219-20; and centralization, 195; and
128, 197 industrial negotiation, 263; and local
Elites, 123, 128, 132, 175, 178, 269; in government, 249; Australian policy,
education, 175; in marriage, 181 209; builds Territories Department,
Employment, 12, 28, 126; expatriate, 195-6; education policy, 245, 247;
221, 233; indigenous, 24, 221, 236; expands Administration, 193; on
policy of native, 234-8; see also nationalism, 261; Public Service
Public Service, Labour, Labour force ( local participation) 208-9, (re­
English, see Languages forms ) 187-8,212,217,230; replace­
Exchange economy, 26, 152; see also ment of Administrator, 196
Marriage Health, 14, 15-16, 179-80, 197n.,
Executive Council, 193, 256 199n.; see also Hospitals, Nursing
Expatriates, 6, 222-3, 230; allowances, Higher Education in Papua and New
207; enterprises, 222, 233, 236-7,
239; organization, 232-42; privileges, Guinea, Commission on (Currie
240-2; ‘racist’ attitudes, 225; see also Commission, 1963-4), 117, 121, 123,
Capital, Employment, Public Ser­ 127-34 passim, 210, 212, 246
vice, Race, Skills Highlands: control, 6; development, 9;
Expenditure, government, see Public elected member for, 243n.; law and
authorities order, 13; native policy, 13; school
Exploration, 52, 152 (Chimbu), 15
Exports, 9, 10, 28, 34, 35, 37, 38, 95-6; Highlands Labour Scheme, 235
I.B.R.D., 93-9; indigenous motiva­ Hoarding, 41
tion for, 100-1; see also individual Hospitals, 15; administration of, 179;
commodities see also Nursing
286 Index
House of Assembly, 121, 131, 133, 157, Jennings, Sir Ivor, 219
213-14, 238, 243n., 252n., 253-5, Johnson movement, see Social move­
267; constitution, 253; composition, ments
253; debates, 265-6; ‘elected mem­
bers’ group, 267; elections (1964), Kabu, Tommy, movement, see Cults,
254; expatriate representation, 254, Social movements
264, 267; lack of ‘parties’, 267; legis­ Kaiser Wilhelmsland, 3
lative power, 255; members’ back­ Kerema Welfare Society, 262
grounds, 264-5; official languages, Kiki, Maori, 262
265; resolution on self-government, Kondom (a Chimbu), 156, 158, 163
266; whips, 267 Kuru (disease), 104
House of Representatives, see Australia Kwato mission school, 14
Hurrell, A. L., 215
Labour: Asiatic, 7; Chinese, 223; de­
I.B.R.D. Report, see International Bank mand for, 12; indenture system, 7,
for Reconstruction and Development 193; indigenous, 24; legislation, 12;
Import replacement, 38 movement, 162; policy, 5, 6, 8, 16,
Imports, 9, 33, 35-8, 96; price levels, 18; shortage, 7, 8-9, 13; surplus, 12,
239; see also Trade, Trade balance 41; see also Trade unions, Workers’
Incentive goods, 37 associations
Income, 229-30; primitive affluence, Labour, Department of, 193, 263
23; see also Public Service Labour force, 10. 113-14, 233; mone­
Indenture system, see Labour tary sector, 27; subsistence sector,
Independence, 12, 18, 179; economic, 27; total, 28
24 Lalor, W. A., 263
Indigenous enterprises, 237 Land, 5, 12, 16, 41; freehold, 6, 8; law,
Indonesia, Australian relations with, 11; leasehold, 6, 8; ownership, 11;
222 policy, 5, 6, 8, 11, 16, 189; poten­
Industrial development, 74-6 tial, 65-9; purchase, 8, 18; specula­
Industrial organization, 263-4 tion, 6; tenure, 101, 261
Industrial relations, 238 Land Development Board, 200
Industrial sector, 23, 38, 39, 40 Land Ordinance (1906), 6
Industry: secondary, 28, 30; tertiary, Languages: barriers, 243; bilingualism
28, 29, 30; see also Production and multilingualism, 136, 140-1,
Inhabitants, non-indigenous: number, 147; English, 119, 121, 122, 129,
222-3, 227; scattered community, (and education) 142, 145-6, 147,
227-8 148; imperfectly known, 137; lingua
Internal revenue, see Revenue franca, 135-6, 141, (and education)
International Bank for Reconstruction 141-2, 142-3, 147, 148; local lan­
and Development Report, 29, 31, guages ( and education) 136-9, 141,
39, 43, 80, 218-19, 221; balance of 147, 148, (and mathematics) 140,
payments, 31; beef cattle industry, (groups) 135, 136; number of, 135;
39, 97-8; cocoa plantings, 97; coco­ Pidgin, 143, 157, 243, 265, (and
nut plantings, 97; commodity priori­ education) 119, 120, 143-4, 145,
ties, 96; commodity targets, 80, 97; 147; Police Motu, 143, 144, 243, 265,
credit, 99, 100; education, 134; ex­ (and education) 144, 147
port income, 98-9; investment insur­ Law and order, 13, 14, 18, 187, 191,
ance, 99; land settlement, 100; live­ 197n., 250; see also Magistrates,
stock, 97; role of Europeans, 97, 99; Police
role of indigenes, 97; rubber, 97; Law Council of Australia, 13
tariff policy, 99; tax concessions, 99; League of Nations, 5; Mandate, 3, 190,
technical assistance, 101; timber, 97; 192; see also United Nations
village development, 100 Legislation: industrial, 263; labour, 12
International Labour Office, 126 Legislative Council, 157, 193, 213-15
Investment, 23, 39, 40-3, 99-100; passim, 252-3, 255; administrative
Administration’s share, 187, 189; control of, 255; Select Committee on
monetary, 23, 41, 42-3; non­ Political Development, 253; voting
monetary, 41-2; private, 236 in, 266
Index 287
Limestone: as resource, 74; landform Missions, 32, 42, 43, 261; education
characteristics, 52; soil development and schools, 14, 15, 117-19; employ­
on, 61 ment, 234; home care and handi­
Lithology, 50-3 crafts, 180; medical work, 15; social
Livestock: cattle, 39, 70, 94-5, 97-8; welfare work, 177
pigs, 94; poultry, 94 Mixed races, 222
Local Government Councils, 14, 157, Monetary sector, 23-39 passim
161, 202, 232, 249-51; achievements, Murray, Sir Gilbert, 4
251; and representative government, Murray, Colonel J. K., 192, 196
249-51; conference, 261; elections, Murray, Sir Hubert (J. H. P .), 4-18
253; functions, 250-1; native custom, passim
250; political significance, 261, 262,
264; restraints on, 250; statistics, National income, 27, 30, 35, 38, 41, 42;
249; tax, 249 see also Public authorities
Local Government Ordinance (1963), Nationalism, 261
249n. Native Affairs, Department of, see
London Missionary Society, 3, 234; District administration
education, 117; Girl Guide move­ Native Employment Board, 263
ment, 180-1; social welfare work, Native Co-operative Societies, 232
176 Native Labour, Department of, see
Luluais, 4, 13, 157, 190, 261 Labour, Department of
Lutherans, 117, 118 Native Labour Ordinance (1907), 7
Native Plantation Ordinance (1918),
MacGregor, Sir William, 190 16
Madang Workers’ Association, 263 Neo-Melanesian, 119n.; see also Lan­
Magistrates, resident, 190 guages (Pidgin)
Mandate, 3, 190, 192; see also United New Guinea: and other colonies, 189;
Nations capture (1914), 3; German adminis­
Mandates Commission, 15 tration, 3, 5, 6, 8, 190; Mandate, 3,
Maize, 16 190, 192; Military administration, 3,
Mambu (of Bogia), see Cults 9, 190-1; Trust Territory, 3; see also
Manus Island, 159-60 Colonies and colonization, League
Marching Rule movement, see Social of Nations, Mandates Commission,
movements United Nations
Market garden produce, see Crops Neu Guinea Kompagnie, 6, 8
Marriage, 108-9, 166-71; and exchange Niall, H. L. R., 254
system, 152; bride-price, 167-71, Nickel, 73
179, 180; non-traditional payment, Nursing, 179-80
153, 166-7
Medical College, Papuan, 124, 130, Oala-Rarua, Oala, 263
131 Oil, 5, 73
Melanesia: religious cults, 160; social Ordinances: Administrative Arrange­
movements, 153-4 ments (1961), 199n.; Discriminatory
Menzies, Sir Robert, 224 Practices (1963), 224; Land (1906),
Methodists, 117 6; Local Government (1963), 249n.;
Mboya, T., 260 Native Labour (1907), 7; Native
Migration, 105, 109; inter-village, 110- Plantation (1918), 16; Parliamen­
11 tary Under-Secretaries (1963), 257;
Military administration, see Adminis­ Public Service (1949) 194, (1955)
tration 207, (1959) 208, (1964) 206-7,
Mineral resources, 71-4; copper, 5, 73; 213, 229, 230; Retirement Benefit
gold, 5, 6, 9-10, 12, 35; nickel, 73; (1960), 208
oil, 5, 73 Orokaiva, 166n.; marriage payments,
Minister for Territories, 28, 187, 195, 166-7
207, 218, 243, 255, 269; see also
Barnes, C. E., Hasluck, P. M. C., Pacific Territories Research Council,
Ward, E. J. 192
Minj, 166n.; marriage payments, 167 Paliau movement, see Cults
288 Index
Papua, 4; Australian rule, 10, 12; de­ Power, 93-4; hydro-electric, 73-4;
velopment policy, 4-5; land owner­ natural gas, 93
ship, 11; native protection policy, 3; Primary production, 10, 16, 27, 28
population, 7 Primary sector, 28, 39; see also Crops,
Papua Act (1906), 3, 6 Rural sector
Papua and New Guinea Act (1949- Production Control Board, 191, 196;
63), 192-3, 249, 252, 255 Production Services Branch, 191
Papua and New Guinea Provisional Provisional administration, see Ad­
Administration Act (1945), 192, ministration
193 Public authorities, expenditure of, 23,
Papua and New Guinea Workers’ 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 42, 189
Association, 262 Public Service, 17-18; administrative
Papua Ekalesia Church, 234 training, 192, 209-12; Auxiliary
Papua Medical College, 210-11 Divisions, 188, 207-8, 211; contract
Passionfruit, 91-2 appointments, 74, 209, 210; depart­
Parliamentary Under-Secretaries, 257- mental structure, 193-4, 196, 200,
8; functions, 258; Ordinance (1963), 202-3, 204-7; divisions, 207-8, 213,
257 214, 215; expatriate allowances, 212,
Patrols, 13, 17 214; indigenous participation, 207-9,
Peanuts, 16, 35, 91 212, 214; problems, 195; professional
Pidgin, 143, 157, 243, 265; and edu­ and technical training, 209-12; re­
cation, 119, 120, 143-4, 145, 147; cruitment standards, 207-9; recon­
Neo-Melanesian, 119n. struction (1961-4), 162, 212-16;
Pigs, see Livestock role in Territory, 187, 194-5; salaries,
Planning, see Central Policy and Plan­ 17, 208, 212, 214, 229-30; Senior
ning Committee Officers’ Courses, 219; size, 189n.,
Plantations, 6, 9, 239; cocoa, 86; coco­ 193-4, 196, 197n., 206-7, 207-9
nut, 83-4; coffee, 87-8; rubber, 88 passim, 214, 215, 221; statistics, 221,
Police, 191, 196, 199n., 206, 221 233; superannuation, 7, 208; see also
Police Motu, 143, 144, 243, 265; and Hasluck, P. M. C.
education, 144, 147 Public Service Arbitrator, 214
Political development: Australian Public Service Association, 212, 213-
policy, 244-5; dilemmas of, 243-4, 14; Annual Congress (1962), 209,
268-9; elite v. uniform develop­ 230
ment, 269 Public Service Bills (1963) 213, (1965)
Political education, 258-9; forms of, 214
248-51 Public Service Commissioner, 194,
Political leadership, 261-2 196, 197n., 206, 211, 212, 214
Political structures, 151 Public Service Committee of Inquiry
Politics, indigenous, 266-7; institu­ (1965), 214
tions, 244; lack of ‘parties’, 266-7; Public Service Institute, 211
see also Local Government Coun­ Public Service Ordinances (1949)
cils, Representative government, Re­ 194, (1955) 207, (1959) 208,
sponsible government (1964) 206-7, 213, 229, 230
Population: age structure, 107, 108-9, Pyrethrum, 35, 93
112, 114; census, 103; composition,
106, 110; density, 106; distribution, Rabaul, strike, 162
61-4, 108; economically active, 113; Race, 222-42 passim; attitudes, 225,
growth rate, 104, 112; labour force, 241; co-operation, 239-40; discrimin­
113-14; non-indigenous, 223, 233; ation, 224-5, 240, 242, (rural loan
pressure, 25; total, 7, 103, 189; policy) 240; effect of Western-style
urban, 227 associations, 226, 232; expatriate
Port Moresby Freezing Co., 235 privileges, 240-2; relations (rural
Port Moresby Workers’ Association, enterprise) 239-40; segregation, 229;
263 see also Expatriates
Posts and Telegraphs, Department of, Rai Coast (M adang), cult, 159
124, 194, 196, 197n. Rainfall, 53-9; classification, 57, 65
Poultry, see Livestock Representative government, 249-51
Index 289
Responsible government, 256; self- Subsistence sector, 23, 24, 25, 26, 31,
determination, 269; self-govern­ 40, 41, 243; importance, 25; poten­
ment, 12, 266 tial, 26, 41; stagnation, 25
Retirement Benefit Ordinance (1960), Sugar, 38, 93
208 Supreme Court, 193
Revenue: government, 9, 10, 24, 29, Surveyors, 17
30; internal, 29, 30
Rice, 16, 69 Tanna, cults in, 160
Roman Catholics, 117, 118 Taureka, Reuben, 263
Rossell, Patricia, 176 Taxation, 15-16, 249: tax register, 103;
Rubber, 5, 10, 35, 38, 97; Australian see also Revenue
tariff, 89; competition from syn­ Tea, 35, 69, 92-3
thetics, 89-90; demand prospects, Teacher training, 123, 131, 173, 175
89-90; effect of world prices, 10; Terrain, 49-50; lithology, 50-3; see also
estates, 88; experimental, 10; pros­ Soil
pects (price) 90, (production) 91; Territories, Department of, 166n., 196,
revival (pre-World War II), 6; 198, 200, 211, 250, 255; organiza­
smallholders, 89; stock-pile (U.S.A.), tion, 195-6
90; world market, 89-90 Timber and forestry, 35, 38, 70-1, 94,
Rural Progress Societies, 161 97, 100
Rural sector: export income, 95; im­ Tobacco, 92
port replacement ( commodities), 95; Tolai Cocoa Project, 232
prospects ( aggregate short-term) To Liman, M., 267
95, (economic) 80, 102; see also Towers, ivory, and Oxbridge, 131
Agriculture, Crops, Primary produc­
Town Advisory Councils, 232, 252
tion, Primary sector
Trade: affected by World War I, 4;
Sago, 152 external, 31, 152; see also Exports,
Imports
Savings, indigenous, 39
Trade balance, 96
School of Civil Affairs, see ASOPA
Segregation, see Race Trade unions, 162; see also Workers’
Self-determination, 269 associations
Self-government, 12; resolution by Transfers, transfer payments, 31
House of Assembly, 266 Tripartite Mission on Labour Matters
Seventh Day Adventists, 117 (1960), 238
Skills: indigenous, 24, 38, 39, 40; non- Truck crops, see Crops
indigenous, 5, 34, 39, 40 Trusteeship Agreement, 192-3
Smallholdings, 28; cocoa, 86; coconuts, Tultuls, 13, 15, 190, 261
83-4; coffee, 87-8; rubber, 89
Social accounts, 38 UNESCO, 132, 137
Social mixing, 227-9; see also Race Union, administrative, 190-1, 192
Social movements, 150, 153-8, 161, United Nations: Trust Administration,
162; alternation with cults, 160; and 3; Trusteeship Agreement, 192-3;
cults, 160n., 163-5; characteristics, Trusteeship Council, Visiting Mis­
155; beginnings, 153; general points, sion 1962 (Foot Mission), 209, 217,
162-3; John Frum movement, 161; 246, 253
Johnson movement, 161; Marching University of Papua and New Guinea,
Rule movement, 161; Tommy Kabu 130, 131, 246; see also Higher Edu­
movement, 155-6; wish for wealth cation, Commission on
and power, 156 University of Queensland, 210
Social welfare, 175, 176, 177, 178, 180,
183 Vailala: oil discovery, 5
Sogeri Seminar, 259 Volcanoes, 52-3; volcanic soil, 60, 61
Soil, 60-1 Vudal, 124, 130; Agricultural College,
South Pacific Commission, 157 210
Specialization, see Administration Wages: minimum, 8; urban cash, 234,
Steamships Trading Co. Ltd, 234, 235 235, 238, 263, (wage agreement)
Subsistence life, 152, 165 263
290 Index
Waide, Lawrence, 223 W omen—continued
Ward, E. J., 193 welfare, 176-7, 180; university
Warfare, tribal, 150, 151, 152 students, 180; village women’s com­
Welfare: native, 15-16; officers, 177; mittees, 173
organizations, 262 Workers’ associations, 263; beginnings,
Western Welfare Association, 262 162; membership, 238
Wewak: Girl Guide movement, 181 Workers’ Associations, Federation of,
Women, 166-84 passim; as national 264
leaders, 180; as nurses, 172-3; car­ Workers’ Association, Papua and New
riers of culture, 183-4; clubs, 172-6; Guinea, 262
culturally isolated, 228; education, World Bank, see International Bank
173, 175; future prospects, 179-80;
government welfare programmes, Y.W.C.A., 182-3
175, 176; inferior status, 171; social Yali ( cult leader), 156, 159