Plantations For

Young Chinese.

New Guinea Experiment.

AN interesting experiment which may provide a solution, or partial solu tion, of the Chinese problem in New Guinea has been arranged by the new Administrator of the Territory Brigadier - General Grif fith. The Government has set aside an area of 3,000 acres in the Bainings District, at the back of the Kerawat Experimental Plantation, Which is being split up into fifty-acre blocks, and it is proposed to settle a selected number of Chinese planters on this land.

Each Chinese settler will be given direct assistance by the Administra tion. He will be provided with a house, seeds, and various other material and will be encouraged to grow any suitable crop, barring coconuts.

There are now some 1,200 Chinese in New Guinea and their numbers are steadily increasing. In recent years they have become a serious competitor of European traders and shopkeepers, and there has been a certain agitation against them on that account. The attempt to settle young Chinese on the land in the fashion proposed is a very wise one, and if it is successful, there is no doubt that the Chinese planters will give economic strength to the Ter ritory.

The experiment of settling Indian peasant farmers in Fiji, where they have devoted their energies to the growing of sugar cane, has been a marked success, with the result that the Crown Colony of Fiji has weathered the economic storm of recent years in a remarkable fashion.

The outcome of General Griffiths’ ex periment in New Guinea will be watched with keen interest.