Remember’?

Do You Remember’?

War clouds were on the horizon in Europe in May, 1939, and their shadows stretched to the Pacific: newspaper headlines blazoned the fact that President Roosevelt had

said, “Hands Off!” to the Japanese

and ordered the bulk of the Ameri can fleet back from the Atlantic

to the Pacific. “PIM”, hammering

c.way at the Jap. menace, said how the Nippon spy organisation was

operating in Hawaii —proof of which

came when Pearl Harbour was blasted 18 months later.

Here are some other items of interest from that issue of 20 years ago: Despite the abandonment of their four permit areas by Papuan Oil Developments.

Ltd. (a Shell Co. subsidiary), Australian Petroleum Co., Ltd. (partly owned by Vacuum Oil Co.), announced it would con tinue with the search for oil and spend £250,000 in 1030 not only in Papua but also in Sepik River District, New Guinea. (APC, two decades later, is still in the news with its Puri well and £3,000,000 to spend in the next year and a half). * * A 26-years-old Czecho-Slovakian, Rudolf Cikenek, reached Rabaul, NG, after pad dling a 12 ft. double outrigger canoe from the Philippines by easy stages over five months. He and his frail craft were ob jects of much curiosity among the natives —especially the Bukans employed in Rabaul, since for years Buka and Bougain ville tribes, in a kind of cargo cult off shoot. had been waiting “for a white man to come out of the sea”. Cikenek later ploughed his way out of Rabaul Harbour headed for BSI and the New Hebrides. * * * Well-known Australian mining engineer.

Mr. T. R. Victor, was on his way to BSI to report on areas held by Solomon Gold Mines, NL. and other concerns. There had been years of talk of gold on Guadalcanal, but nothing had come of previous investi gations. Mr. Victor was associated with some of the Melbourne principals of the successful Fiji mining companies and his visit started a dozen or more share com panies into life. With memories of the big money made in Fiji gold shares, in vestors went crazy for a time and BSI gold shares rocketed to fantastic prices. (Mr. Victor’s report turned out to be adverse and share prices tumbled fast). ♦ ♦ ♦ An official committee of three (Mr. F - W. Eggleston, Melbourne barrister, Hon.

H Leonard Murray, then Official Secretary in Papua but later Administrator, and Hon. H. O. Townsend. NG Treasurer) sat in Canberra, Sydney and P-NG centres to hear evidence pro and con the proposed amalgamation of the Australian Territory of Panua and the Mandated Territory of New Guinea. (The Pacific war intervened, of course, and it was not until March. 1949 that the combined territory of Papua and New Guinea officially came Into being).