American Timber

Company

At Work In Fiji

From Our Own Correspondent.

ALTHOUGH a timber company in Fiji has gone into liquidation I less than a year after starting f operations, an American company [.plans to work a timber concession . in the Serua Hills in southern Viti Levu.

The United Lumber Co. Ltd., Iregistered at Suva in January with a capital of 150,000 dollars, has a [ 900-acres lease four miles inland - from the Queen’s Road on the south coast.

A Fijian land concession starts seven miles from the coast and . extends about 11 miles inland. The [hill country is rugged, but over the [ranges there are more gradual slopes and river valleys, and part I of the concession lies across the upper reaches of the Navua River.

I Selective cuttins will be employed land the circumference of trees [which may be cut has been laid down by the Forestry Department. [ A 2 per cent, royalty on timber sales will provide for replanting, I and it is intended to have the [forest restored after 30 years.

I The company’s Government con

tract requires the construction of 12 miles of all-weather road within three years. Four miles has already been constructed and is now being metalled. American machinery has been taken to the mill-site.

Logs will be tractor-hauled to the road —a system which, it is believed, will eliminate the diffi culties found in trying to keep mills fed by floating logs down rivers and similar means.

t Two young men employed at Paagoumene, New Caledonia’s chrome mining centre, were drowned when attempting to swim in dark ness frpm a capsized dinghy to a lagoon islet in July. The men were both fathers of young families. Two other men, members of the same fishing-party, reached the islet and were rescued by a search party next day. Despite an air search, the bodies of the drowned men were not recovered.