17. Four unusual items of expenditure covered by that £5½ million

Paul Quinlivan’s Snapshots

The Commonwealth Grant paid for all Administration expenses including salaries, housing, hospitals, roads, bridges, schools, ships, prisons, etc., but there are (amongst many others) four special items of expenditure in the early 50s figures and, since they did not occur in the 60s or 70s, I feel I should mention them here.

The first is Price Control (which we will mention in a later Snapshot), the second was Bomb Disposal, the third is the anti-yaws campaign and the fourth – the one in regard to which the South Pacific Post for 29 March 1953 reports that £1½ million had been paid already, and a further half a million was in process of being paid – is the payment of cash to Papua New Guineans whose canoes, gardens, homes, spears, cooking pots, or other possessions were destroyed as a result of the Japanese invasion.