Big New Timber Mill

In N. Guinea

P. Moresby, May 16.

Machinery for the Trans- Busu timber mill (Huon Gulf area east of Lae) will arrive at Lae on the Sinkiang in mid-June.

According to Messrs. Murdoch and Murphy, principals of the operating company, South Pacific Lumber Company, it will take an other six months to get the new mill into full production, and then there should be no more need to import timber into the Territory.

Murdoch and Murphy have a small pilot mill working at the moment which is doing a good job, turning out some timber for Terri tory consumption, and other timber to build the factory.

The mill expects to produce a big proportion of floorboards and weatherboards. The price in the Territory will be no cheaper, be cause timber is standard prices, but it will probably make it easier for Territory builders; for floorboards are in short supply in Australia, too.

The bridge across the Busu, which was an integral part of the letting of the contract last year by the Administration, has been completed for some weeks.

The trans-Busu Timber Permit, for which tenders were invited in last year, covers an area of approximately 21,000 acres of mixed rain forest, eastwards of Lae—the

biggest timber permit yet granted under tender. It confers ex clusive right to cut 70,000,000 super feet within 10 years. The timbers available are Anisoptera, Taun, New Guinea Walnut, Pacific Maple, Erima and Terminalia.

Messrs. Murdoch & Murphy are a well-known Victorian firm of sawmillers and timber merchants, with headquarters at Healesville.

if Mr. “Cherry” Lane, of Goroka.

Eastern NG Highlands, left Sydney on May 8 to return home after several months holiday in Australia.

II Mr. H. E. Maude, OBE, one of the Research Councillors of the South Pacific Commission, has gone to Europe on long leave. He and Mrs. Maude sailed from Sydney for London in April and will return to Sydney, late in 1954.