New Road In New Guinea
pp. 25-26 · Read in the full issue
ANEW road, about 50 miles long, is being built by the New Guinea Ad ministration in north-west New Guinea. It is to run from a point near the Sepik River, just below Ambunti, in a northerly direction to Maprik, and it is understood that from Maprik it will be carried on to Wewak.
Roadmaster Gordon Ogg, with a large party of native labourers, is building the road from the Maprik end, and another Government roadmaster, with another party of labourers, is carrying on the work from the Sepik end.
Europeans in that section of New Guinea are very critical of this Gov
ernment enterprise. They declare that they cannot see any reason for the road or for this expenditure. They say it runs through swampy and comparatively useless country, and that the only pur pose it will serve will possibly be the assistance of the oil search companies.
The latter are busy in this area. The largest parties and the greatest activity are reported to be in an area south-west of Wewak, behind the Torricelli moun-. tains.
The road is also criticised on the ground that the Government has re cruited so many Sepik natives for the work that private recruiters find it prac tically impossible to get any labour at all for ordinary purposes.
Rev. L. A. McArthur, 8.A., has been appointed by the Australian Government to fill the vacancy in the Legislative Council of New Guinea caused by the resignation of the Rev. F. G. Lewis. Mr.
McArthur went first to the Territory in 1931, and was engaged there until 1937 in mission and educational work in the Rabaul district He was in Western Australia m 1937-8 as State Secretary for the Overseas Methodist Mission, and he returned to New Guinea in April, 1939,
as chairman of the Methodist Mission there.
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iis books on the Condominium, notably “England and France in the New Heb rides” and “The Future of the Kanaka”.