WHERE GOLD HAS WINGS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 109, 11 May 1933, Page 10

WHERE GOLD HAS WINGS

Twenty years ago, writes the Australian representative of the "Evening Post," the goldficld at Edie Creek (New Guinea Mandated Territory) "would have petered out for sheer lack of ability to exploit it." The terrain was physically impossible for land transport, except at a greater capital outlay than the then prospects warranted. But it was not physically impossible for aircraft, because aircraft need no track. Thus the thirty-five miles between

Edio Creek and the coast became a transport task for aeroplanes, whose high freight charges were not uneconomic when such a commodity as gold carried the ultimate cost. The special circumstances that have created , economic air-carriage for goods between Edie Creek and the coast may not be met with in many places. Their continuance at Edie Creek seems to depend mainly on whether the world will go on using gold as hithertOj and whether Edie Creek gold is in substantial supplies or patchy. History shows that gold has an abiding value, but that goldfields arc short-lived. The times have put a premium on gold, but this top price is no more to be relied on than the wool and butter top prices of four years ago. The Edie Creek air service is therefore hardly a precedent. It is a curiosity, rather than an index of the niche which aeroplanes will ultimately fill in the world's freight traffic.