Do You Remember ?

From PIM of 20 Years ago.

THE Highlands of New Guinea — which someone has called the “Glamour” District of the

Territory—had only just been dis

covered 20 years ago. Few people were allowed as much as a glimpse of this “second Kenya” until very recent years. Firstly, the area was closed for many years to all but District Services men and the Leahy brothers (this following the murder of some Europeans by the natives); and after the war, the Edwardian tendency was to keep it as a human zoo for all but the most select and approved visitors.

In our issue of November, 1933, we published the first description of the Highlands. Other extracts from that issue follow: The Australian Commonwealth Govern ment thought again over the matter of lopping £6,000 off Papua’s annual grant of £40,000; as a result, there was a reprieve from the threatened 10 per cent, reduction in the wages of Papuan Public Servants. * * * Eight Samoan chiefs, a secretary of the Mau movement, and Mr. O. F. Nelson, who was not long back in Apia after some years of banishment to New Zealand, had been arrested and were in process of be ing tried for “taking part in unlawful activities.” NZ, we said editorially, had finally decided to break up the 7-years old Mau, or Nationalist Movement.

“Some New Guinea planters, faced with the ruinous price of copra, have been able to keep the wolf at bay with cocoa.

At the end of 1932, 2,000 acres have been planted and about 750 acres are in bear ing. The yield last year was 92 tons and as the price has held up well until recently, and there is a Commonwealth bounty of £ll per ton on cocoa, some NG planters have been able to gather in a considerable supplementary Income.” ♦ * * Burns Phllp (S.S.), Ltd’s, new building in Apia, Western Samoa, was opened by General Hart, the Administrator. * * * Sir Hubert Murray completed 25 years service as Lieutenant-Governor of Papua. (How coy the Australian government has always been in the matter of titles for its Territory chiefs. Lieut.-Governorships and Administratorships are the devices de signed to dodge around the straight-out title of Governor—evidently on the theory that that title might detract from the prestige of the politician who was

currently responsible for the Territories Department). In the same month, the London Missionary Society was celebrat ing the 30th anniversary of its arrival in Papua. ♦ ♦ • “One of the most interesting geo graphical discoveries in recent years has been recorded recently In New Guinea, but has been announced with such modesty by the New Guinea Administra tion that neither the newspapers nor the general public have awakened to its im portance.” Thus we introduced the story of the Leahy-Taylor expedition that dis covered the fertile, well-populated Wahgi- Bena Bena-Mt. Hagen, highlands area of NG. ADO J. L. Taylor and Messrs. M, J. and D. J. Leahy had come straight from their expedition to Sydney where they were induced to lecture before tho Anthropological Society of NSW. Sydney newspapers representatives were present, yet dismissed the explorers’ story in a few words. Australia was not New Guinea minded In 1933 and PIM had the honour of publishing the first photographs that had been taken in the area. * ♦ * It was rumoured that investigations at Bulolo, NG, had shown that a new stratum of gold-bearing material under neath that already being worked had been discovered on the BGD leases. There was speculation as to whether large dredges, suitable for working the deerp ground, could be transported by air, as had heen the original dredges, or whether it would mean constructing a road in from the coast at the "enormous capital cost of £250,000.” (They flew the dredges in; and Army engineers constructed the road in the later stages of the Pacific war.) * ♦ ♦ Burns Philp’s motor-vessel “Malaita” had arrived in Sydney from her makers on the Clyde and went onto the Solomons- NG-Sydney service, replacing the ancient “Mataram.” * * ♦ After being missing for many weeks, news was received that the trading schooner “Pro Patria” had been wrecked on a small uninhabited island near Mangareva. It had been on a voyage to Pitcairn and one of its passengers was James Norman Hall, seeking background material for the last of a triology which included “Mutiny” and “Men Against the Sea” and which he had written in collaboration with Charles B. Nordhoff.

The book was eventually written and called “Pitcairn’s Island.” * * * The price of trochus in Sydney was £B6 per ton for first-grade. Cocoa was £A2S - A 32 per ton, fob, Sydney, Copra was £Stg.B/12/6 per ton, cif, London: rubber was 4%d per lb, cif, London.