Our Road"
p. 10 · Read in the full issue
"Determined To Have Our Road"
Morobe Goldfields Interests are Emphatic
From a Special Correspondent.
WAU, Oct. 8.
THE public meeting held in Wau on September 26 to deal with the road and capital site matters (see report on page 76) was possibly the largest and most enthusiastic public meeting ever held in New Guinea, and shows that public feeling is at last becoming aroused in this district. We are determined to have our road, whatever happens.
At the moment it would appear that, in spite of all that has been printed, the
road that will be built will be the one by the most direct route —that is, up the Bitoi Valley (not Bergin’s or Sheldon’s route), but a new one following the Bitoi Valley, where the grades will not exceed one in 14. The total length will be 48 miles, and the construction cost will be the smallest of any of the routes pro posed.
You may be interested to 'Know that the Public Works Department in Rabaul, in its estimates for the maintenance cost of the road to be built, considers that the maximum maintenance cost on any road will not exceed £6,700 annually, and that the freight cost of goods per ton, includ ing the payment of a toll for redemption and interest on the loan, will vary be tween £4/10/- and £5/10/- per ton, ac cording to the route selected.
We are now definitely opposed to any long roundabout route.
Editorial Note: In our view, it is more important, for the future of New Guinea, that the Salamaua-Morobe road should be the first stage of a highway giving ac cess to Central New Guinea, than that it should be built only to give cheap freights to the Wau-Edie Creek goldfield, which has a limited life.
But it is a fact that the Morobe in terests are being made to pay specially for the new road, and therefore have a clear right to say that, in its construction, their interests shall be primarily considered.
It is also a fact —of a very exasperating character—that the New Guinea Adminis tration has collected at least £500,000 in gold royalty from these Morobe interests in recent years, and has spent it all for general purposes, and has mighty little to show for it. An Administration worthy of the name would have used the gold fields revenues long ago to build for the goldfields towns a road that would give cheap access to the coast, and then would have used the economic impetus of the impermanent gold industry to establish permanent agricultural industries on the Central New Guinea plateaus. Now, it is too late. A road from Salamaua to Wau, via the Bitoi, may be capable of use as the first link in a road through the Bulolo and Watut valleys to the Markham and Ramu country—but we doubt it.
The only “mile-peg” in New Guinea. It reads; “Salamaua-Wau road—52 miles to Salamaua”. It is placed near the bottom of the Black Cat track, in the Bulolo Valley, about 3 miles from Wau. This is where the new road will emerge from the mountains, if the Middle Bitoi route is followed. —Photo, by H. W. Audsley.