N.G. Affairs: Administrator's Rush Visit to Canberra

N.G. AFFAIRS Administrator’s Rush Visit To Canberra THERE was a good deal of speculation about the sudden visit to Canberra in January of Brigadier-General W. R.

McNicoll, Administrator of New Guinea.

The latter was in Canberra only in mid-November. The newspapers, naturally, wanted to know what had happened in the meantime to justify a special aeroplane visit only seven weeks later. No official explanation was given.

Some newspapers insisted that a demand by Germany for the return to her of the Bismarck Archipelago was involved; but that can be washed out. It is not yet a major issue.

Some day, when the archives give up their dead, it will be found that the following matters were dealt with during the Administrator’s visit: The mail and shipping services between Australia and the Western Pacific groups, now being carried on by Burns, Philp and Co. Ltd. under a temporary arrangement. (The tenders for a new contract, which closed on December 31, are complicated by some new factors, including the new shipping law in New Guinea, the decision to establish a weekly air-mail service between Sydney and New Guinea, and the appearance of a would-be competitor in a field which B.P hitherto have had practically to themselves.) No finality was reached —discussions are still going on.

The conditions of the proposed new contract for a weekly air-mail service, Sydney-New Guinea.

Territory finances, especially in relation to the planters’ old debts to the Government, and the extent to which those debts can be liquidated now by the sharp rise in copra prices.

Various matters of policy and administration, including the agitation about the “two-miles” trading limit, the Wanliss- Hogan incident, the Rabaul outcry against undisciplined natives, the future control of civil aviation, and criticism of the administration by various interests.

Decisions were reached concerning quite a number of matters; but we can only guess at their character. Nothing was published. The newspaper which has the temerity to criticise the bureaucrats