No Decision In New Guinea

Capital Site Still Unknown—Wall Interests Fight for Retention of Road Plan

rdo not like to adopt the methods of the sensational press, and hint at duplicity, graft, and Queer Goings On; but there certainly is something mysterious about Canberra and recent events in New Guinea.

Consider the facts in their sequence: May 29, 1937—Eruption at Rabaul.

November, 1937—Expert vulcanolo«dsts recommend earliest possible removal of administrative establishment, April, 1938—Griffiths Committee recom mends Lap as site for administrative establishment, and submits detailed plans. . June, 1938—Mr. Hughes, for some Un known reason, rejects Griffiths report, Dashes to New Guinea and back, and an nounces that Salamaua will be new caoi tal, at cost of about £350.000, and that a road will be built at a cost of £150,000, to connect Wau with Salamaua.

July, 1938—Administrator goes to Sala maua with engineers, and finds that it will cost £250,000 above the Minister’s esti mate, to fill in a swamp and to make Salamaua suitable for purpose stated.

Survey parties begin to survey four alter native routes for Wau-Salamaua road.

August, 1938—There is such a chorus of criticism of Salamaua as the capital site that it is announced, practically officially, that the Minister’s selection had been abandoned.

September, 1938—Administrator and officials arrive at Lae presumably to make plans for transfer of capital, according to Griffiths renort: but return to Rabaul, after a couple of days.

September, 22, 1938—Administrator de parts on four months’ leave.

And, since then, nothing.

Almost every day. during September and up to date, Mr. Lyons and Mr. Hughes have been asked about the “New Guinea capital site” in Parliament bv members, and outside by pressmen, and they con sistently have returned evasive answers.

On October, before going to Tasmania on three weeks’ holiday, the Prime Minister said that “the search for a new capital site was still proceeding diligently”—a silly and flippant statement, on the face of it. No search is going on.

It is believed, at the date of this writ ing (October 11) that the choice lies be tween Lae and Wau, with a possibility that financial considerations yet may keep the administrative establishment some where in the Rabaul district. But this is all guesswork.

Attack On Road Plan

THERE is the same vague and unsatis factory atmosphere about the road plan.

We hinted, last month, that strong in fluences were operating to kill the road plan; and so it nroved. Mr, c. C. Judd, of the Wau Mining Association, has been hard at work in Canberra and Sydney all this month, fighting off an attack upon the road proposal, which is based on the argument that it would be cheaper to subsidise the aeronlane services, so as to give low freights, than to spend the money on a road that may cost something far in excess of the estimate.

However, on September 22, the Legis lative Council of New Guinea met and passed the Road Loan Bill. The Bill was criticised by Messrs. J. C. Mullaly and W.

E. Grose, who asked how they could be expected to deal intelligently with the

plan, when they had no details about the character of the road, the route to be followed, and the absence of data showing how the deficiency was to be provided for, if the toll did not produce enough rev enue.

The Director of Works, Mr. C. R. Field, said that the intended road would be 20 feet wide, allowing for a 12 foot carriage way and four feet water tables on each side. Metalling, in his opinion, was not of such great importance as drainage; bridges would be designed similar to the Victorian class B bridge. In speaking of the uncertainty of the toll, Mr. Field said: “Perhaps we owe something to the gold fields. A considerable amount of the rev enue of this country comes from the gold fields. Perhaps it is reasonable to let them have some consideration on account of the amount of revenue they produce, The estimate this year of gold royalty is £117,000. In my opinion it is even more im portant, if there is a tendency for the price of gold to come down, to give the goldfields a chance of cheaper transport and keep them going longer than they would with aeroplane transport.”

Mr. Hughes, being persistently nagged at in Parliament between September 20 and October 6. finally said that there were five routes being surveyed, and that a decision as to the best route could not be reached until all the data was com plete.

Indications are that the strong repre sentations made by Morobe interests to the Minister, and oh the spot by Mr. Judd, have kept the road plan intact and in be ing; but the Australian Federal Govern ment machinery is notoriouslv inefficient and slow-moving, and Wau will be lucky if it sees its road complete inside four years.

Wau As Capital?

CITIZENS of Wau have been making strong representations to Canberra in favour of placing the capital at Wau and their plan was received so kindly by Mr. Hughes that one newspaper announced that Wau had been selected.

Rabaul sniffs with disdain at the idea of conducting the administration from Wau, isolated in the Morobe ranges at one end of the Territory; but many of the objections to Wau would disappear if there was a good trafficable road between Wau and the coast. Then, Wau would have much to recommend it, especially the climate.

But, if the administration is to remain at Rabaul until a road is built in to Wau, it might as well remain there altogether.

Wau people can see that for themselves, and it is little wonder that they get very weary of the dodging of the politicians and the time-wasting circumlocution ot bureaucrats.

Lae And The Minister

THE evident determination of the Mini ster to say no word or take no action in favour of Lae —the selection of an expert committee that, obviously, was be yond bias and influence—is a little hard to understand.

Lae, of course, is the headquarters of Guinea Airways, Ltd.:and one gets the impression that the Minister feels that his shining coat may be tarnished if he even associated himself with this rich organisation. Yet the fact is that, with out Guinea Airways, there would have been no Morobe goldfield: and without Morobe, the Administration of New Guinea would have been a very poor, feeble thing, financially busted. The

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Commonwealth Government and Mr.

Hughes should be proud to be associated with a company which, as an actual fact, pioneered gold-dredging aerial transport and, in New Guinea, made aviation history.

The selection of Lae probably would add value to Gumea Airways’ establishment there, but that is a happy accident for which G.A. are not responsible. When C. J. Levien fossicked around there in 1927. and located a possible aerodrome on flat ground at the mouth of the Markham River, he never dreamed that some day it would be regarded as a suitable place for the capital of the Territory.

The idea of rejecting Lae, in the face of the Griffiths Committee’s report, be cause it may be held to “favour a rich company”, is a little fantastic.

New Building In Rabaul

WHAT is happening In Rabaul? The “Rabaul Times” says that Burns, Philp & Co., Ltd,, and W. R. Car penter & Co., Ltd., “have decided to go ahead with huge building programmes in Rabaul. A bigger, better, brighter store and offices in the heart of beleaguered, bewildered, besieged and be-damned Rabaul, has been decided on as the im mediate programme of the former, whilst extensions to their wharves, sheds and storage nremises at Toboi (on the very slopes of Vulcan), together with a new slip-way in the harbour itself, is the con templated programme of the latter firm.” which seems to indicate confidence in the future of Rabaul.

Meanwhile, most surprisingly, the Ad ministrator (Sir Walter McNicoll) left Rabaul on September 22 on four months’ leave. That is not the action of a man who expected that, at any moment, his staff would become involved in the heavy task of moving the capital.

Is there any reason in the suggestion of a Rabaul resident, that Minister and Ad ministrator have decided to pursue, for a while, a policy of masterly inactivity, in the hope that everyone concerned will become so sick of the uncertainty and delay that they* gladly will agree to a suggestion to leave the capital where it is?

Recruiting

NEW GUINEA affairs occupied large slices of the Commonwealth Parlia ment reports in September and Octo ber. Some extracts follow.

Question by Mr. R. James, on Septem ber 21: — “Is it a fact that in the Mandated Ter ritory of New Guinea recruiting officers go into the native villages, recruit natives and sell them to farms, plantations and mines for the sum of £lO head? Is it also a fact that these natives are contracted to work for 10/- a month and their keep, which consists of sweet potatoes? Will the labour that is proposed to be used for the construction of a new road be ex ploited in a similar manner by the con tractors?

It should be explained, perhaps, that Mr. James has suggested that unemployed European labour from the Australian coalfields might be used on road-building in New Guinea.

The Minister (Mr. Hughes), said he knew “nothing at all about sweet potatoes, or any of those other matters”; but he would make inquiries.

“From China To Peru”?

MR. ANTHONY wanted to know where the new capital of New Guinea was to be.

Mr. Hughes said: “We are still search ing diligently for the right site.”

Sir Charles Marr: Can the Minister state if the report that the Administrator has left on a trip to China has anything to do with this diligent search for a new capital for New Guinea?

Mr. Hughes: I have not heard that it has. It is a fact, however, that the Ad ministrator has applied for and been granted four months’ leave of absence.

On September 22, Mr. Curtin asked what was to be the route of the road, was it to be built by day labour or contract, would it provide for 5-ton vehicles, and when would construction work commence.

Mr. Hughes said as the surveys were not completed, no decisions could be made.

Hughes And Salamaua—And Marr

ON September 23, Sir Charles Marr caustically criticised Mr. Hughes’ selection of Salamaua, which he described as a god-forsaken nlace, sub ject to tidal waves and malaria. Further, he did not know of any coastal place which would cost more to fill in, to make it suitable as a capital site.

Mr. Hughes retaliated that Salamaua was a reasonably healthy place, and said that the last annual hospital returns showed there were 89 cases of malaria in Rabaul, 74 in Wau and 26 in Salamaua and Lae combined.

Sir Charles retorted that there were

9,000 people in the Rabaul district, and only a few in Salamaua.

The exchanges between the Minister and the ex-Minister were sharp and heated.

Sir Charles argued that it was not nec essary that the capital be on the sea board. He recommended Amelie, 20 miles inland from Madang, on a cool and healthy tableland, 1,200 feet above sea level.

Mr. Anthony (C.P., N.S.W.): I have the

official report here, and it bears out what Sir Charles has said about Salamaua.

Mr. Hughes: I also have an official re

port, and my report overrides yours.

Sir Charles Marr then rose on a point of personal explanation. “I spoke of Salamaua as a fever-infested area, and everyone in New Guinea knows that that is so”, he said. The fact is that the greatest part of the population of Salamaua is in the cemetery.”

Mr. Hughes: I do not know whether Sir Charles can make a statement of that kind.

Called to order by the Speaker Sir Charles said that Mr. Hughes, in stating that he (Sir Charles) had misrepresented the facts, had himself been guilty of mis representation.