NEW GUINEA ADMINISTRATION.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17408, 20 March 1922, Page 8

NEW GUINEA ADMINISTRATION.

OFFICIAL' 3 SERIOUS CHARGE. (from our own cohkespondent.) (SYDNEY, March 9. Disquieting stories regarding the Commonwealth administration of the mandated territory oI New Guinea continue ,to reach Australia. Ever since the change from military to civil rule there have been allegations, all too frequently repeated, that the trend of affairs was chaotic, and now confirmation in very definite terms come from Captain E. M. Wright, lately official secretary to the administration. An error wna made, Captain Wright thinks, in tho haste with which the cocoamit plantations were transferred from their former German owners to the new administration. Apparently these valuable properties, which under German rule were a source of considerable wealth, have been transferred to men without the expert knowledge essential to their profitable management, with the result that their output has been diminished and thdir capital value has deteriorated. Worse than that, the development of the territory appears to be paralysed for sheer lack of the necessary ordinances. Men cannot build houses, because there are no land laws under which they can obtain land. They cannot prospect for the minerals which the territory possesses in such abundance, because thefre are no mining laws. 1 A Ministerial visit to New Guinea has been mooted for months past. It would a]>pear to be an urpent necessity that some responsible Minister should visit tho territory without delay, study its problems on the spot, and restore a semblance of order.