Canberra Asked to Back Talk with Hard Cash

Visit of Bank Chief Has Had No Visible Result

CONSIDERABLE interest was aroused in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea in August when Dr. H. C. Coombes, Governor of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and a large party of high bank officials, toured the Territory in a specially equipped plane.

Territorians hoped that the visit had to do with increased Australian investment in the Territory and the establishment of some kind of institution which would finance private enterprise.

Dr. Coombes and party departed without telling anyone what their luxury trip portended—if anything.

And two months have now gone by without any more information forthcoming. We can only hope that the Doctor and his financial under lings have, in the interval, been making plans as to how the Com monwealth can best help P-NG to become that supplier of all things tropical to Australia which perambulating politicians con stantly assure us P-NG is capable of doing.

When Dr. Coombes and party were at Wau, Mr. N. White, local business man, farmer and chair man of the Wau-Bulolo Advisory Council, met them and sub sequently wrote to Dr. Coombes in Canberra, pointing out some of the ways in which P-NG could be assisted to become Australia’s bul wark in the north.

What Mr. White said in his letter is what most clear-sighted people think. Dr. Coombes, how ever, is one of Australia’s top-fiight bureaucrats and it is unlikely that he will see things in the same simple light.

Some of the points Mr. White made were:—

Hydro Electricity Potential;

Wr. White suggested that someone of the competence of the engineer in charge >f Australia’s Snowy River project be nvited to examine the hydro potential in Vew Guinea. He said that top-ranking sngineers should make the investigation md that they should “get around on ;heir own feet and see things.” So far. iaid Mr. White, the practice has been o fly over the country, return to Port Moresby for a dinner or two, and then ■eturn to Sydney. Aerial surveys were yell enough up to a point, but an nvestigation on the spot was what was leeded.

He pointed out to Dr. Coombes that had hundreds of rivers that could be larnessed, and that NG was closer to Australia in the north than Tasmania yas in the south.

AGRICULTURE: Mr. W’hite said that here were large areas of valley floor rhere mechanised farming could be PPlied with immediate results. The foot lill areas could be used for suitable

plantation activity. Soil fertility, abund ance of green manure, assured rainfall and a condition of everlasting Spring were indicative of the capacity of Papua- New Guinea to maintain many millions of people. Crops suitable for the area included rice, sugar, coffee, tea, cocoa, coconuts, peanuts, fibres, millet, soya beans, cotton, spices, vanilla, etc. If Australia was serious in the contention that something must be done to defend her northern approaches then something should be done without delay to invest in Territories development.

TIMBER: There were hundreds of square miles of timber, all protected by rain forests and without fire risk. There were high-class furniture woods, timber

for veneer, three-ply, paper pulp and building timber. Access was not easy— it never was in countries where big timber was abundant—but the same trunk road system, necessary to open up the country for hydro-electricity and agriculture, would serve the forest areas.

GENERAL: Mr. White said that the people were not really concerned whether the Commonwealth Bank opened a branch at Wau. Banks would automatically appear when sufficient volume of business developed to warrant them. What the people did urge was that the Common wealth should invest as much as possible in Territory development. He believed that it would be a better investment than the 31 millions earmarked for the Colombo Plan.

Parliamentary parties visited the Terri tory each year and returned to Canberra victims of ill-considered impressions.

Much of what they subsequently said was

so much hot air; but the newspapers printed it and many people in Australia believed it.

As far as the future of the natives was concerned, Mr. White thought that they would have little future at all if it were not in association with the European residents of the Territory. They must progress and prosper with the Europeans —and they were already doing well in that direction.