Another New Guinea Land Claim

r EW BRITAIN natives will challenge ownership of part of mung Plantation, Jacquinot Bay, 'ore the Commissioner for Land les in Rabaul in early March.

Phis is one of a number of claims it have been made by New lineans in the New Britain area in ent years. Others are being de oped.

Lhe Jacquinot Bay people are iming that a large strip of the ntation foreshores, 50 metres deep, still native-owned, never having ;n sold with the rest of the pro *ty. This foreshore piece is the ;sent site of all the plantation ildings including the homestead.

Wunung, also known as Unung (as

the “w” is silent), is owned by the P-NG Administration, but it has been leased since 1952 by Mr. Harry Bode.

Mr. Bode is a former Commissioner for Works in the British Solomons.

Mr. and Mrs. Bode have been on leave in Australia in recent months, during which they have assisted the Administration’s defence by obtaining information on the prewar lease from retired New Guinea Government hands, including a former Director of Lands in NG, Mr. Pat Holmes; Assistant Director of P-NG Lands, Mr, Tony Anthony; the man who surveyed the land in 1932, Mr. Brook Webb (now all living in Sydney); and Mr. Ted Taylor, former District Officer, now of Ballina, NSW.