They’re Protected—By
pp. 39-45 · Read in the full issue
Another Id a Bottle
I Rudy Meier and John Nydam, of Lae, New Guinea, should be happier men this month. Thanks to new tariff rates introduced in the Territory in July, beer imported into New Guinea now costs another Id I bottle more, or a halfpenny a can.
MEIER, 50, a Hungarian, and Nydam, 34, a Dutchman, are the men behind Lae’s Guinea Brewery—one of two breweries in the Territory, the other being the South Pacific, on the Papuan side.
Although Meier and Nydam have a board of directors of well-known New Guinea people, they are the brewery, for they literally built it themselves from the ground up, and have been responsible for run ning it and expanding it in the little over 12 months it has been operating.
Recently when a PIM writer visited managing director Meier, Meier was hopeful that the P-NG Administration would make the move to give the local industry some protection. “After all,” he said, “with taxation now about to come in, it will be in the Administration’s own interest to keep industries like us in business so we can make more and more money to pay more and more of their taxes.”
Officialdom obviously concurred, for as Customs Chief, T. Grahamslaw,
(Continued on page 43)
[?]nea Brewery's managing director, Rudy Meier, one foot on a stack of metal beer kegs, [?]rs into the future. Below, is his partner, John Nydam, who helped in the erection of the Lae brewery from the ground up.
i the Legislative Council in in ducing the new tariff scales (see ry page 37): “The Territory wing industry has established a nd case for an increase in the B protection because of inroads Imported beer. Thus an increase 6d a gallon in import duty which propose to apply, without alter the excise duty, will help the al industry to achieve a fair itivity”.
Experienced Men
loth Meier and Nydam are wers and brewery engineers of lerience. Meier was in Alex- Iria for many years and came Australia after the war, and dam was in a Djkarta brewery 1 came to Australia in 1952. ier first began in P-NG with the ith Pacific Brewery but left after ting it on its feet, and in 1957, rted the Lae brewery with dam. The men, with their wives staunch supporters on the spot, ared five acres of land and built X quarters for themselves to live (they will later be converted to ces for the factory) then started the brewery building itself. They ; up the brew house, fermenting 1 cold rooms, bottling cellar, and the rest of it, then turned round I installed all the equipment, in ding 10,000 foot of pipes. They ned themselves into carpenters, icrete and metal workers and lied tradesmen of any trade you nted to mention.
Its. Nydam organised the collec i of empty bottles, paying natives a dozen to bring them in, and i herself sorted them. ’he brewery was opened by the Titories Minister, Mr. Hasluck, in te last year. It has a capacity at sent of between 300,000 and ,000 gallons a year, and is pro fog draft in barrels and bottles, i a bottled bitter ale. leier and Nydam at first turned esmen for the beer they brewed, the brewery they had built, but f the brewery, with its growing bs, has its own sales manager, 5 West.
Tie total of purchases made on [alf of members of the New Inea Planters’ Association —which s co-operatively and imports sup ;s for members —is now in the Inity of £250,000 per annum. The iociation has now a large building deluding offices, amenities for tnbers, and a bulk store—in the tre of Rabaul.