Maintenance of Wau
pp. 19-20 · Read in the full issue
Road
LAE, Oct. 30 IN the opinion of many serious-minded folk hereabout, the Wau-Labu road has a very limited life and sooner or later it will be abandoned.
Maintenance is a tremendous problem end neither suitable men nor materials, to keep it in repair, have been forth coming. Residents of Wau and Bulolo, including the big mining companies, have been getting everything possible in during the dry months when the road is passable.
It would be a great blow to the district if the road fell into total disuse. Freight along it Is not cheap, but it is lower than air-freight. While road transport and
air companies are running in competition the goldfields community is assured of a fair deal.
The roads around Lae township, built by the Army, are now neglected and are quickly falling into pot-holes which no one attempts to repair. When a ship is in, a special patrol of police-boys watch the road to retrieve any case etc., that falls off between the wharf and the Customs sheds.
The Nickel Co., shut down part of its N. Caledonian works on July 18, owing to the non-arrival of coal, and it was thought that the smelters would be para lysed completely. M. Rapadzi, the company’s Noumea manager paid a special visit to Sydney to interview the Commonwealth authorities. Since then a ship, which had been held up at New castle, has been able to load enough coal to carry the industry on for some little time.