"Surplus" Goods in Lae

Are of Little Value

From Our Own Correspondent LAE, May 25.

RESIDENTS who have returned to Lae are finding conditions somewhat dis couraging. Things officially are all in a whirl, and it is difficult to get any ruling or indication of what to expect.

All the civilians hereabouts seem to be busy salvaging odds and ends of war material, such as beds, buckets, canned goods and so forth. But there is not much left.

Motor transport parks are all around, and they cover acres. Naturally, the first people in, and especially agents of big companies, have picked the eyes out of all the available motor transport, and the smaller men who now have arrived can only turn over the junk that remains.

There are many trucks, lying around here, without engines. The engines have been taken out and shipped south by dealers— and it is said that they paid only 38/each for them. The chassis are lying about here—including hundreds of wheels and tyres—as a Jfiot on the landscape.

Piles of bombs lie scattered around, some of them on private property and now hidden by long grass. Repeated re quests to the Army and Air Force to re move the bombs, or render them safe to handle, are ignored. Some of these offi cials are past masters in the art of “pass ing the buck.” Someone, one of these days, will be blown up by the bombs; and then, perhaps, some official notice will be taken.

At this moment, there is not a cigarette or a drink to be had in this place for love or money. People planning a visit should be warned.

Commander H. Hill, who has been in charge of the New Zealand Navy Office in Fiji for some years, will leave the Colony shortly and the office will then be closed.