Another Word From Papua.

From Our Own Correspondent.

PT. MORESBY, August 1.

A paragraph which appeared in the “P.I.M.” for June, drawing attention to the work done by patrol officers in Papua, seems to have been the cause of some resentment in certain quarters.

The object of that paragraph was not to belittle in any way the patrols of district officers in New Guinea. No doubt they have done excellent work, and there is no reason to complain that the laudatory notices in the Aus tralian press credit them with too great a measure of merit.

The point stressed was that, however fine the performance of the New Guinea magisterial service may be, work just as difficult has been carried out in Papua for many years with con spicuous success and with practically no bloodshed; yet, while the New Guinea service is smothered in praise, no notice whatever is taken of the equally meritorious patrols carried out under the most difficult and dis heartening conditions by the patrol officers of Papua.

Nobody wishes to rob the New Guinea service of the credit that it has undoubtedly earned. But it seems only fair to keep on record the fact that the methods adopted by that service are modelled on Papuan policy; that some of the senior officers in the New Guinea service learned their job in Papua; and that Papuan officers have been performing for many years, un honoured and unsung, deeds quite as heroic and certainly not less bloodless than those which, accomplished in the Mandated Territory, call forth such jubilant paeans of praise.

Residents in Papua do not ask that less approval should be given to the Public Servants of the junior Territory, but only that some portion of the credit earned by the Papuan service should be accorded to it.