Port Moresby

New Hotel For

From Our Own Correspondent

Port Moresby, Feb. 10.

REPORTED here that Burns, Philp and Co. Ltd. are giving serious consid eration to a plan to build another hotel.

The Hotel Moresby, the modern hotel erected only last year, is already inade quate to meet the demands of this rap idly-growing place, and if present dis cussions are any indication the new hotel will occupy the site of the old cinema theatre—a cool and elevated situation on the backbone of the ridge leading over to Ela beach. A new and up-to-date theatre will then be built on one of the sites of the abandoned hotels.

It is likely, however, that the plan will await a decision in regard to water supply.

It is only two years since Port Mores by’s best hotel was the queer looking Top Hotel, alongside the picture theatre. Not long before it was taken over by Burns, Philp and Co., our old friend. Tim Ryan, complained bitterly about the demands of some of his Southern visitors, who asked for the bathroom.

The Top Hotel was not originally built as a hotel. A facade of two sides only was erected, about 1909, and photo graphed by an enterprising company which was trying to attract investors in some tropical enterprise. But the com pany collapsed, and the half-built build ing was acquired by Timothy Ryan and converted into what was officially the Hotel Papua—known as the Top Hotel.