Papua’s Potential Value.

CONSIDERABLE attention was given by the Sydney newspapers in Octo ber to statements by a well-known Papuan official, Patrol-Officer J. G.

Hides, who is at present in Australia on furlough.

Patrol-Officer Hides spoke at a Mil lions Club luncheon on 26th October on the customs and habits of the primitive natives of Papua (says Sydney “Morn ing Herald”). Mr. Hides was one of two white men sent with a party of native police to capture head-hunting Sukis, who had killed 29 members of the Weredai tribe on the Lower Fly River in Septembeer of last year.

Of the 400,000 natives of Papua, very few were cannibals, said Mr. Hides, and even those regarded their actions as part of their religion. By far the most interesting race was an inland pigmy tribe. These people were adept with bows and arrows, and were the smallest living race in the world, measuring, on the average, only 4 feet 8y 2 inches in height, compared with the African pig mies’ height of 4 feet 11 inches.

The potential value of Papua was em phasised by Mr. Hides. It was a coun try, he said, with vast unexplored areas.

Practically everything would grow; maize and tobacco flourished; sugar cane had a higher sugar content than the Queensland variety, and a move ment was on foot to produce the cheap est sugar in the world in Papua. With capital, Papua could be made one of Australia's most valuable assets