New Industries.
p. 46 · Read in the full issue
Papua’s Hopes of Prosperity.
From Our Own Correspondent.
Pt. Moresby, April 28.
THE market prices of copra and rub ber show a dismal figure and Papua to-day is more concerned with the various new enterprises in gold, sugar, coffee, tobacco and kapok, than with the collapse of copra and rubber, and it is hoped that the new enterprises in time will take the place of the two industries which until a few years ago were the mainstays of the country.
Copra prices, we are told, will rise again, but unless the rise comes soon it is feared that many plantations must close down. As to rubber, had it not been for the action of the Common wealth, Papuan rubber would already be a thing of the past.
So the solution of the present diffi culties will be the establishment of new industries, and it will need only the impetus of a little capital and sympathetic hearing on the part of the Commonwealth, and the Administration of the Territory, to develop them and set the hard pressed settler again on his feet. Any good fortune, however small might completely change the aspect of our financial position and raise us once more to prosperity.
The question of a new goldfield should be solved before long, for miners and prospectors seem determined m their efforts and have left no corner of the Territory unexamined.