Heavy Maintenance

Needed on Lae-Wau Road

From a Special Correspondent LAE, August 23.

FOR maintenance purposes, the 90 miles of road between Labu, at the mouth of the Markham River, and Wau, has been divided into four sections, each in charge of a roadmaster, who has 100 natives to work for him. Bulldozers, graders and other mechanical equipment are afto supplied.

The Road (as the life line between coast and Morobe hinterland, it rates a capital letter) is no highway, however.

Travellers state that its condition is get ting worse—so much so that recently one of the roadmasters, who was transferred to a new section, became hopelessly bogged in a portion recently under his care.

A traveller who, just at this writing, has arrived in Lae from “on top,” states that the natives on the Labu section are on strike and that some, higher up, just won’t work!

Roadmaking in this country is full of hazards —natural and human.

Nobody uses the Road for joy-riding.

The blandishments of Lae are not such as to attract miners and others from Wau and Bulolo, unless they have a stern purpose behind their visit.

There is, of course, another method of getting to Wau and beyond—by air. But that costs more than road travel, and money counts, these days. The Admini strator is one of the few officials to have used the road recently. His car was bogged, too, but fortunately there was a lorry at hand to drag it out.