Nickel Seekers Apply For 5,000 Sq. Miles

[?]Ew Ore Find

[?]Tirs Papua And N. Guinea

REPORTS have been increasingly \ in circulation about interesting discoveries of nickel in Papua id New Guinea.

The districts especially named are lose on the mainland, ge : i’ally luthwards of the Morobe goldfield, i the Waria Valley, and deep into apua country, as far as Kokoda.

The original discoveries are edited to a senior Government sologist, Mr. Jack Thompson.

It was reported that “the big Hows” —from Bululo Gold Dredg g Limited to the Nickel Corpora m—were interested. On August 15 was announced that applicants r authorities to prospect were: Square miles E. J. Frame 1,070 B. C. Goodsell 240 F. M. Hewitt 600 W. H. Johns (2 areas) .. 1,030 Bulolo Gold Dredging (4 areas) 1,970 E. Owen-Turner 630 As on August 15, the applications Messrs. Frame and Goodsell had ;en approved.

All the foregoing areas are on the ipuan side of the border. It was

announced that BGD Ltd. had applied also for areas on the New Guinea side —that is, in the Waria country.

The indications, so far, are that the deposits are mixed up with a great deal of New Guinea mainland.

But they may lead the prospectors to something thicker and more ex citing.

It is said that vast nickel deposits in Canada will come into production about 1960, and these may affect the world price of the metal.

Will “Waria Syndicate”

Come In On This?

It is probable that a certain elderly gentleman of Western Ger many—Heinrich Rudolph Wahlen, of Hamburg—will be deeply in terested in this development. This is the area which Herr Wahlen claims is part of the concession made about 1912 by the German Imperial Gov ernment to the Waria Syndicate.

Australia, hitherto, has brushed off the claim with the argument that all German property in New Guinea was “expropriated” after World War I. But Herr Wahlen recently countered this by pointing out that

the Syndicate is not German—that it is predominantly Swedish, and not affected by the expropriation arrangement.

Incidentally, PIM was told an in teresting thing by a Government official who recently was in Garaina, looking at the tea experimental station, which is on the edge of this Waria country. He said that there is an active Lutheran mission station at Garaina; and that the Mission people claim that, as they are in Waria country, they have “certain fundamental rights.”

It seems to be an opportune time to have this Waria Syndicate claim finally dealt with.