Morobe Road
p. 25 · Read in the full issue
NG Government Demands Toll, Although It Has Taken Nearly One Million Pounds in Road Tax.
rERE have been contradictory reports about the value of the military-built road between the Bulolo Valley and the mouth of the Markham River. Some have called it a ”30 miles an hour road”; others have declared the cost of main tenance to be fantastic, owing to land slides in the mountain valleys—especially the Snake Valley.
It also was reported that difficulties had arisen with the Administration, which wanted to impose a heavy toll on the users of the road—irrespective of the fact that gold-producers paid, in a special road tax, between 1930 and 1941 (when there was no road whatever), a sum equivalent to nearly £1,000,000.
The whole position was explained by the chairman (Mr. J. Kruttschnitt) at the annual meeting of New Guinea Gold fields, Ltd., in Sydney, on January 18: “Mention was made in my last report of the military road connecting Wau and Bulolo with the coast at Labu—a point iust across the Markham River from Lae.
Portions of the road, particularly in the steep-sided valley of the Snake River, have given trouble due to landslides and floods, and our engineer reports that re locations are being made by the Armv engineers for the general betterment and stability of the road before it is turned over to civilian administration.
“In connection with the maintenance of this road the Minister for External Territories recently called a meeting of representatives of Bulolo Gold Dredging, ourselves and other mining companies, to discuss the imnosition of a toll for the use of the road as a means of providing funds for its upkeep. The Minister sug gested that the users of the road, who will be chiefly the mining companies, should pay a toll sufficient to meet the entire cost of maintenance. The toll rate proposed was approximately £4/13/4 per ton of freight.
“The mining companies contended that as the royalty payable on the gross value of all gold won was in 1929 raised from 1 per cent, to 5 per cent., for the object of building a road to the coast (although it has not been used for that purpose) and as a special gold excise tax of half of any excess over £9 per oz. has also been paid since 1941 by New Guinea miners to a New Guinea Trust Fund for application within the Territory, a portion of those funds should be used for the mainten ance of the road.
“Moreover, we anticipate the quantity of freight which will be carried over the road during the next two years, for the rehabilitation of the mining industry and general businesses, will be much in excess of the average pre-war tonnage, and a toll of even £2/6/8 per ton will provide substantially more than half the cost of road maintenance. Thereafter, as the road consolidates, the maintenance expense will diminish.
“A final decision on this matter has not yet been announced.”
The Rev. Dr. R. M. Stevenson, who was in charge of St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Suva for some years, has re cently been filling temporary posts in Queensland, while waiting for an oppor tunity to return to Fiji. During Jan uary he preached in St. Paul’s Presby terian Church, Mackay.