Destruction

What Invasion Did to Enterprises in New Guinea

By R. W. Robson

AS time goes on, one begins to get into clearer focus the ‘magnitude of the economic calamity which has over taken the great Australian Pacific Ter ritory of New Guinea.

My mind began to run along this track when I noticed a paragraph in the last issue (January 16) of the “Rabaul Times”. By the way, does anyone know anything definite of the whereabouts of the “Times” editor, Gordon Thomas?

We have had many inquiries. One report says he is a prisoner in Rabaul; another that he is now a prisoner in Indo china. Neither of these reports is trust worthy. If anyone has definite news, we should be glad to have word.

The paragraph said that “Charlie Blake has arrived once more in Wau from Madang, with about 200 head of cattle and some hardy ponies. His trip over the headwaters of the Ramu and Markham had occupied about four months.”

That was a new New Guinea indus try just beginning to get into its stride —cattle-raising. These were mostly coastal cattle; but experiments had shown that the vast plateaux of the interior were suitable in every way for a pastoral industry. Blake was a suc cessful gold-miner—an able lad who could turn his hand to anything. This was about the third time he had over landed cattle, from the north to the Bulolo market.

Another new industry which our gentle visitors from Japan have knocked end ways was timber-getting. In response to a Pacific-wide demand, increasing over recent years, the New Guinea industry was bounding ahead, in spite of much see-sawing in prices. The sawmilling people simply had to walk out, leaving plant, small craft and accumulations of logs just standing as they were aban doned. It was a heart-breaking experi ence for many people who, at long last, had seen fortune peeping around the corner.

And what of all those little mining shows around Edie Creek, along the Bulolo Gorge, along the Watut, around the Black Cat, away over in the Wewak district—all those miners were obliged to walk out and leave everything.

And imagine the feeling to-day of the directors of Bulolo Gold Dredging Ltd.!

They had only recently completed their vast plan, and were leaning back to enjoy the fruits ofl one of the most courageous and successful operations in the history of gold-mining. They used aeroplanes to transport into that isolated Bulolo Valley the machinery for eight dredges and three big hydro-electric stations; and only a few months after the last dredge and power-station came into operation all personnel were driven out by the Japs. No one knows exactly what has happened to their huge equip ment.

I cannot help thinking of the heart breaking experience of people who were just starting in new enterprises—Mrs. Flo Stewart, busy with her new hotel at Lae, after losing her husband in a motor accident and her pilot-officer son in the Battle of Britain; A. E. Cridland, who resigned from the Papuan service in

order to establish a rubber plantation on the north-east coast; Alexander, busily

exploring gold possibilities Misima,

all those planters in Papua and New Guinea who were just beginning to reap a little profit from their new coffee and cocoa enterprises. . , .

Could anything beat the irony of what befell the coconut-planters of New Guinea! For years, copra prices were down at bread-and-butter level, but they hung on —they were sure that something would happen to give them a break.

Perhaps they thought that Edgar Wal lace’s Four Just Men would come to life and slay Mr. Unilever. Then, just as the break was coming, the Japanese arrived and forced them away. Copra now is £25 per ton—or any price you like to ask for it—and the planters are kick ing their heels in Australia and the nuts are rotting under the trees.

Here in Australia, they are rationing desiccated coconut. The desiccated coco nut mills at Pondo, Lindenhaven, Gili gili, etc., kept going courageously through all the bad times, now are shut off from the market and are out of action.

Big and little oil interests, after spend ing enormous sums on the search in Papua, were probably on the point of finding a payable well when the walk out order came. This valuable plant still is on the Allied side of the battle front —but it is idle, and time is being lost.

And that is not half the story.

Mrs. L. Twynam, a missionary who was evacuated from the Fly River district of Papua, arrived in Auckland, NZ (her home town) in May.