Introduced
pp. 31-32 · Read in the full issue
New Guinea's New Rubber How Ficus Was Introduced
Letter to the Editor YOUR article, “Ficus Rubber”, in the November “PIM”, was read with interest.
While we here appreciate to the full the good work that Mr. Murray, our Director of Agriculture, has done in New Guinea, the person to whom credit must be given for the introduction of Ficus rubber to the Australian market (and, in fact, the re-start of rubber production in New Guinea), is Mr. Victor Maxwell.
When the full story of New Guinea’s present entry into the rubber market of Australia is known, it will be found most interesting. It will cover, first, Mr.
Maxwell’s fight with the Administration to obtain permission to take a party of New Guinea natives to Papua to teach them the process of rubber-tapping, etc.; and, after he had gained permission, the opposition he met from the Papuan rub ber planters, when he arrived there; and all that he accomplished in the short period he held his party in Papua.
The story would tell how, on his return, he took over a Para and Ficus rubber plantation in the Madang dis trict; his uphill fight, and the hard work he put in carrying out experiments with Ficus until he was able to get the rub ber manufacturers of Australia to accept it.
This story should be placed on record in the pioneering history of the various industries of New Guinea.
Mr. Maxwell was a Digger in the last war and he is again doing his bit as a S/Sgt. instructor in the Australian forces.
Mr. Maxwell’s system of treating Ficus rubber is the one being carried out in New Guinea to-day.
I am, etc.,
Bagiai.
New Guinea, 9/1/1941.
Advice has been received in Sydney of the birth of a daughter to the Bishop of Melanesia and Mrs. Baddeley, at Siota, Solomon Islands. The Bishop and his wife now have a son and daughter. Mrs.
Baddeley is a daughter of the Bishop of Adelaide.
Mr. Ernest McGeady, son of Mr. and Mrs. McGeady, of Suva, Fiji, has enlisted with the NZ Forces for overseas service.
He left the Colony at the age of 14 and, after education in the Dominion, entered into business there.