The Romance Of Bulolo

And Some of the Men Who Have Transformed New Guinea

By R. W. Robson

I HAVE before me the annual report of the directors of Bulolo Gold Dredg ing Ltd., dated October 18, 1938.

It is said that nowadays there is no romance in commerce and little, if any. reward for the bold adventurer. I wish others could see the sequence of events which I visualise behind the cold print and prosaic figures of this balance sheet.

Let us first glance at the statistics.

It is shown that Bulolo Gold Dredging, in the year under review, operating six dredges in New Guinea, won gold worth 4,730,000 American dollars. The profit out of that amount, after putting aside 322,600 dollars for amortization, and large sums for other purposes, was 3,453.- 000 dollars. The total subscribed capital is five million dollars, on which they paid a dividend equal to 60 per cent.!

The Amortization Fund (in other words, an insurance for the return of capital when the gold field is worked out) already is 1,420,000 dollars.

What a Golconda! And how did all this happen?

WE find the beginning of the story sitting under a native-built shelter, at a small inlet called Morobe. on the shores of the Huon Gulf, New

Guinea, in the year 1923. He has been listening to news brought to him by primitive natives, who still are stand ing by attentively: but he now is gaz ing thoughtfully out over the misty, sun-drenched sea.

He is Cecil J.

Levien, District Officer at Morobe.

He spoke to the natives again and

questioned them in The late Cecil j. Levie „. a mixture of Pidgin and native dialect. “You say that those white men up there are getting gold?” was the burden of his question. The reply of the natives was emphatically affirma tive.

Levien turned and stared at the gloomy, blue-black mountains towering behind him, already half hidden in the mid-day mists. “I knew it”, he said to himself. “I seem to have known it al ways. There is a great goldfield up there, and Shark-eye and Nettleton have found it. I cannot miss this chance”.

“Sharkeye” Park found the gold in Koranga Creek in 1921, and he and Net tleton followed it up into Edie Creek.

The news trickled out, and in 1922-3 a stream of hard-boiled Australian pros pectors trickled in.

Never did men undertake a more hazardous journey. They were dumped on the beach at Salamaua (a few miles north of Morobe), and then they had to make their way through filthy, ma larious swamps, over mountains of in credible steepness, and through jungles into which the sun never penetrated, and where head-hunters and cannibals were waiting always to pick off the un protected and the unwary.

From Salamaua to Edie Creek is only 50 miles, as the aeroplane now flies; but, in those days, the Australian gold seekers, with their teams of native car riers. found three weeks too short in which to do the frightful journey.

YET, at the end of 1923, when Levien —then a man over 50 —resigned his Government position and followed the first prospectors into the inhospitable

interior, there already was a tiny town ship at Koranga (close to where Wau is now) and another at Edie Creek. Every thing eaten and used by the Europeans was carried in, step by painful step, on the backs of sweating native carriers.

Mule tracks? You must understand that this country was so rugged and precipi tous that it was not possible even to establish a mule-transport system.

Levien, like the others, found gold— incredible quantities of gold—lying in the crannies and eddies of the creeks, just waiting to be scratched out. The cost was great, and the effort was ghastly, but those men who could stand up to it and fight off fever and madness, pneumonia and natives, made fortunes — and got out of the country as quickly as they could.

But not Levien—a Jew, with the clear, shrewd vision of his race. He climbed on to the hilltops around Koranga Creek, and he saw how the Koranga and Edie and other creeks poured down into the Bulolo River; and how the Bu lolo, after thrusting itself through a ser ies of gorges, spread out into wide flats.

It follows, reasoned Levien, that in the course of the ages, the Bulolo River has carried down enormous quantities of gold and sifted them out over those flats. Dredges!

He talked to some of the prospectors, and they laughed at him. They admit ted that the flats might be worth dredg ing—but how, in the name of common sense, would anyone get dredges into that incredible country. They could be brought by ships to the coast, 45 miles away; but between the coast and the Bulolo flats there were ramparts of mountains which need to be seen to be believed. Roads? It would take years to build a road over such country.

Levien would not give up.

“Aeroplanes”, said he; and they laughed again. Imagine anyone in his senses bringing aeroplanes into such frightful country, under the blistering conditions of the tropics. Besides, how could the bulky, heavy dredging mach inery be carried in aeroplanes?

But this strange, indomitable Levien would not “go quietly”. He believed that the Edie Creek-Bulolo goldfield wa£ enormously rich; but he realised, also, that owing to the great natural difficul ties, it could not be profitably worked except on a big scale, by companies with big resources.

Levien knew no wealthy companies. He was just an inconspicuous individual, with great faith in himself and in an idea.

WHERE to get finance? And so he bethought himself of two wartime friends. He, Levien, C. V. T. Wells and W. P. A. Lapthorne were young of ficers together in the great war. When he went to New Guinea, they entered business modestly in Australia. He wrote to Wells, urging his great plan, and beg ging their co-operation. He did not talk

A snapshot in 1936, when some of the directors of Guinea Airways, Ltd., flew to New Guinea in the company’s new Lockheed aeroplane, at a speed of over 200 miles per hour. Left to right; Mr. W.

P. A. Lapthorne, Mr. T.

O’Dea (pilot), and Mr. C. V.

T. Wells.

in hundreds or thousands, but in millions - -figures big enough to scare off most people. But he did not scare Wells and Lapthorne.

It was a heartbreaking task at first.

All the men whom Wells interviewed dismissed him and Levien as dreamers of dreams. Wells was almost in despair, when he was joined by Lapthorne, who also believed in Levien; and then a kind providence brought them into contact with George Jeffrey, of Adelaide an older man. but one with a young heart and a mind capable of appreciating visions. Jeffrey decided to help them. It is a long story—told at some length in lon Idriess’s book, “Gold Dust and Ashes”.

Suffice it to say, here, that Wells, Lapthorne and Jeffrey got behind Levien

in his amazing plan to dig the gold out of the Bulolo flats, amid the mountains of New Guinea, with dredges carried in aeroplanes. Guinea Gold N.L. was form ed, and it took over the leases in the Bulolo Valley. Then came into the pic ture an expert group—Engineer L V Waterhouse, Charles A. Banks, Frank W. Griffin and W. Addison Freeman.

They added technical knowledge to vis ion, and the enterprise began to take shape.

Placer Development Ltd. was formed by Waterhouse and associates to further explore the possibilities. Placer Develop ment formed Bulolo Gold Dredging Co. as an operating company. Guinea Air ways was formed to undertake trans port.

The capital of the group was largely British and Australian, with some Ame rican: but the technique was almost wholly American; and therein, appar ently, lay the secret of phenomenal suc cess.

The whole proposition was most care fully examined, surveyed and calculated.

Dredges were planned to be built in such a way that the heaviest part would not exceed 3i tons (the largest load taken by the largest aeroplane employ ed). Hydro-electric stations were plan

ned to sit astride the swift-rushing streams and supply the dredges and an the European communities to come, wnn light and power. Aerodromes were plan ned in suitable places; a port was plan ned at Lae with a great aerodrome, and aviation work-shops, at the back of it.

Aeroplanes were planned to fly over those hideous mountains with all kinds of loads, in all kinds of weather.

That planning was something about which one might well become lyrical. It was all laid out, step by step, like a vast military campaign. The Bulolo flats were drilled from end to end, so that the engineers knew exactly what each stratum contained', at varying depths.

Certain dredges were to commence work on a certain day, and each dredge was to recover so much gold per week. At a certain date, years hence, a certain dredge would finish working out a cer tain bit of territory, and would be moved to another part of the valley. Costs would be so-and-so, and profits, each year, exactly so-and-so.

AND it all worked. Everything click ed into place, like the last girders in the Sydney Harbour Bridge. See ing that the whole scheme had to be carved out of primitive jungle, and that all necessities, from matches to saw mills, had to be transported by an un tested aeroplane service, this probably is one of the most remarkable gold en terprises in the history of the world — a magnificent achievement in planning and in performance.

It seems to me that, over it all, lies always the shadow of a tragedy. The faith of C. J. Levien literally moved mountains. His genius was the spirit which set this vast development in pro gress—and thus altered the history of New Guinea and, it may be, the history of the Western Pacific. But Levien, worn out by his mighty efforts in the primitive Morobe jungles, died in 1932, just when the magnificent plan was coming into operation and beginning to bear rich fruit.

They say of Wren that St. Paul’s Cathedral is his eternal monument— that he cannot die while that magnifi cent edifice remains. In a more mod est way, the friends of Levien can claim that, while the gold industry is chang ing primitive and inhospitable Morobe into a white man’s country, and while Guinea Gold, N.L., Bulolo Gold Dredging Ltd., Placer Development Ltd., and Guinea Airways Ltd. continue to cut a wide swathe in commerce and finance, the memory of Levien and the visions he cherished will never fade.

So, behind the cold type of this 1938 balance-sheet, there are the colours of romance and the thrill of ad venture. To me, a writer who likes to praise orderliness and achievement, the story of B. G. D. always gives pleasure.

But I wish that Levien had lived to see Wau, and Bulolo, arid Bulwa, and those seven dredges, and the two great hydro electric stations, and that fleet of aero planes, running to a timetable like rail way trains, carrying freight and passen gers all over New Guinea.

LOOKING over the picture, I feel that it is incomplete, unless I bring one figure into greater prominence—that of C. V. T. Wells, of Adelaide. The good Lord knows, it is not easy, for there never was a man so quick and determ ined in dodging the limelight. But the fact is that much of the smoothness of the preliminary success of B.G.D. in New Guinea, stands to the credit of “C.V.T.”.

He is an extraordinary mixture of a man. One side of him is adventurous and bold to the point of rashness—hay ing decided to take a risk, he backs his opinion with all he’s got. The other side

of him is canny, cautious and calculating —the side that demands clear-cut and long-range planning, backed by decimal points and algebraic measurements.

It was not enough that Wells and his friends should back Levien. Their initial interests, as pioneers and plan ners, could easily have been swallowed up in the great developments necessary, if the Levien vision was to have sub stance and a name. All the successive steps, from Levien to Guinea Gold, and from Guinea Gold to Placer and to Guinea Airways were taken under the vigilant eye of C. V. T.; and thencefor ward the whole plan went forward with out argument or friction. It is easy to say that, if there had been no Levien, there would have been no Bulolo. But it is equally certain that, if there had been no Wells, the Morobe goldfield might easily have been a vastly differ ent and much less profitable enterprise.

Wells, perhaps, was lucky in contacting clear thinkers and quick-handed execu tives like Waterhouse and Co. But the latter were lucky in having to deal with a man like Wells, who can appreciate neatness, efficiency and a definite pur pose.

Wells stays quietly in the back ground, as chairman of Guinea Gold, N.L.. and Guinea Airways Ltd. If I were king. I would dig him out of the obscurity of Adelaide, and appoint him Administrator of the New Guinea end of the Mandated Territory. I would bet that he would make such a good job of it that Japan would suffer a perpetual pain in the neck.

The men who set Guinea Gold and Placer and Bulolo Gold Dredging into operation are still at the helm. They long ago must have earned the where withal to retire; but it is the fascin ation of achievement, rather than its fruits, which holds them on the job.

Waterhouse and Banks are just back from New Guinea, after seeing the new deep-digging dredges coming into opera tion; while Freeman and Griffin, not content with their phenomenal gold success, have gone into oil. They were the men instrumental in forming and launching the new “headache powder”— A.P.C., or Australian Petroleum Co. Pty.

Ltd., which already has started to spend £lOO,OOO or so on the search for oil in Papua and New Guinea. Lapthorne. at this moment, is away in Java, making plans, as one of an Adelaide syndicate, to build a great hotel in Darwin, and take steps to start worth-while develop ment in the Northern Territory.

A future generation, looking over the history of Australia’s tropical territories, will call them “men of vision and een ius”, and may put up statues in their honour. The present generation, seeing nothing except their success and their nrofits, calls them “bloody monopolists”!

It was ever thus.

Hon. S. Smith, Treasurer of Papua, is soendine four months’ vacation leave in Australia.