Opportunities for

Tea Planters In New Guinea

Letter to the Editor THINGS seem to go on in New Guinea, particularly in the Highland area, of which we know nothing until they are fait accompli.

It has always been a mystery to me why the ordinary citizen of the Territory has been forbidden to enter the Highlands while Mr. Hallstrom, worthy though he is no doubt, who had no former connec tion with New Guinea whatsoever, can establish a sheep station at Nondugl, and go there as often as he likes, with as many guests as he likes. Mr. Hall strom, of course, is doing it for the bene fit of the natives. But if it is right for Mr. Hallstrom to make a hobby of a Highland sheep farm, and Highland natives, surely it is equally right for the residents of Madang and Lae, etc., to be given facilities for making holi day homes there where they can make a hobby of gardening, or maybe rais ing chickens.

But the reason for this letter is an effusion which appeared recently in Ade laide newspapers concerning two South Australians who expect to be produc ing tea from the New Guinea high lands “and selling it in Australia with in a year. ’ One is Mr. R. M. Williams, editor of a magazine caled Horns and Hoofs and the other is a Mr. C. V.

Thompson. They have recently spent a week or so in New Guinea and accord ing to the newspaper report have planted up an area which they have obtained near a place called Altona. I am not a mainland Territorian and I have never heard of Altona —but what I would like to know is whether the Highlands have now been thrown open for anyone to have a go at planting tea —or any other commercial crop? Or is this a privi lege reserved for Australian business men with no previous experience in the Territory?

I have read quite a lot in the PIM in recent months about the difficulty of getting tea seeds and how the late G.

H. Murray managed to start a planta tion in the Aiyura district somewhere, and how those trees are now in bearing.

Presumably Mr. Williams and his part ner did not get their seeds or cuttings in South Australia; therefore it seems to me that the time is opportune for the Papua-New Guinea Department of Agriculture to issue a pamphlet on just how one sets about becoming a tea plan ter in New Guinea and the facilities available to intending planters from the Department.

I am, etc.,

Old Territorian.

Adelaide, July 21. (Editorial Note: No one on PIM staff has heard of Altona, either. Newspaper reports cannot be relied on to any great extent and it is likely that Altona is not in the Central Highlands proper, at all but in some other mountain area where, as Old Territorian puts it, anyone can have a go at planting tea, or any thing else.) Mr, R. a. Derrick, Superintendent of Technical Services in Fiji, has returned to the Colony after a month in Papua- New Guinea. He has been making a survey into facilities for technical and professional training on behalf of the South Pacific Commission. He has also visited Tonga, Western and Eastern Samoa, Gilbert and Ellice Islands and New Caledonia in this connection.