Unfounded Report Causes

Stir In Papua

THERE was a stir in Port Moresby on March 15, when radio receivers picked up a voice coming apparently from a remote transmitter in the Papuan jungle—which announced that a party on or near the Strickland River, consisting of two white men, with police and car riers, had been massacred.

Then there was silence. Every effort to locate or identify the mysterious voice failed.

The Administration made a very rapid check up on parties in the west. It found that only two parties in the Strick land region were not accounted for-an outlying Ward Williams party, and the party sent out by Investors Ltd., led by Messrs. Jack Hides and Dave Lyall.

Later, it was found that the message actually came from Jack Hides’s camp on the Strickland, and was based merely on a report received through native chan nels. No confirmation whatever of the report could be obtained.

Mr. W. Wise, Director of Public Works in Fiji, returned to Suva from England by the Waipawa recently. He was accom panied by Mrs. Wise.