Papua

Laws of New Guinea and Papua An Invaluable Consolidation

A MONUMENTAL work for the Aus tralian Pacific Territories has been carried out by a section of the Aus tralian Army Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs, in the consolidation of the laws of Papua and New Guinea. The work was done by Lieut.-Colonel T. P.

Fry and a staff of trained legal men, who had been enlisted in the Army. The director, in civil life, is Dr. Fry, head of the Law School of Queensland Uni versity.

The laws of the two Territories con sisted of hundreds of Ordinances, adopted Acts of Queensland, Orders-in-Council, Regulations, Proclamations, By-laws and Notices. The number of such documents, and the partial destruction of records in Rabaul and Port Moresby, provided legal practitioners and Crown Law people with a kind of nightmare.

The work of consolidation occupied over a year. The task of printing—now in hand—is a huge job: there will be about 5,000 pages. But it has been done so well, with collation, annotation and in dexing, that the nightmare no longer exists. Once UNO has had its say, and the future of the two Territories is clear, and the “Provisional” phase is past, the work of administering the laws will be comparatively simple.

As the printing of the consolidation will not be complete for some time, the com pilation is being photostated, and three photostat copies will be available for the early use of the Administration and the Department.

This expensive consolidation represents at least one benefit which these Terri tories derive from the war. It has been done by the Army, at Army cost. It never would have been done, in so complete a fashion, in any other way.