Natives
p. 19 · Read in the full issue
Loyal Papuan
Why Was Civil Administration Jettisoned ?
SOME interesting remarks about war time conditions in Papua, and the value of the services given by the Papuan natives were made recently by Mr. J. W. Baldie (a former magistrate in Papua), when addressing members of the Constitutional Club in Melbourne.
He said that the natives had been completely loyal to the British, and had performed superhuman tasks in assisting the Allied cause against the invaders.
Mr. Baldie said he had found it most difficult to understand why the authori ties jettisoned the civil Administration in Papua at a time when every man should have been at his post. Many of the men who had been sent away had had long years of experience, and they had a knowledge of the country and of the natives possessed by very few.
Recent improvements to the approaches of the Wainimarama bridge, over the Rewa River, Fiji, remove what has for years been a death-trap. Formerly, the approach to the bridge was on a curve; but the river has been diverted through a xtunnel in the solid soapstone, and the old river-bed has been filled with spoil taken from the corners of the approaches.