Sugar In Papua.

New Co. to Begin Planting.

From Our Own Correspondent .

PT. MORESBY, December 28.

Representatives of sound New Zealand interests have registered a company in Papua to undertake sugar cane cultivation. Land has been taken up near Collingwood Bay in the North Eastern Division, and prelimin ary work has commenced.

Prospects of the sugar industry are perhaps more promising than those of any other in the Territory. Sugar cane is indigenous to New Guinea, the best cane in Queensland having come from Papua. The gardens of the Papuans with their luxuriant growth of cane impress on one the possibilities of scientific cultivation. Soil, climate, rainfall and labour are all suitable, and Papuan planters with the encourage ment of the Papuan Government should be able to compete successfully with other sugar growing countries —even if Papua cannot get for its sugar the special preference given by Britain to sugar from “Crown Colonies.”