NEW GUINEA

Evening Star, Issue 23025, 2 August 1938, Page 12

NEW GUINEA

A LAND DF PROMISE The Minister of External Affairs, Mr Hughes, who returned to Sydney recently from his visit to New Guinea, said that he regarded it as a land of great promise, reports the 1 Sydney Morning Herald.’ He had been much impressed by its almost unlimited resources, its wide variety of climate, its interesting peoples, and the great possibilities of its future development as an agricultural as well as a mining country.

Mr Hughes said that right through New Guinea and Papua, .which he also visited, he found the natives working happily and working well, without compulsion. Requests for roads and other improvements, and for a subsidy to assist rubber growers, were made to him. and these would be placed before the Federal Cabinet.'

He would also report to the Cabinet regarding the proposed removal of the capital of New Guinea from Rabaul. He inspected eight or nine different localities which had been suggested as alternative sites for the capital, and which had been examined by the committee appointed to consider the question (the capital is being moved to Solainaua), . Mr Hughes said that he was much impressed by the excellent facilities for travel by air, which had enabled him to be in Papua one morning and in Sydney the same night. He had travelled 6,000 miles in 10$ flying days. He had been received “ most royally ” by returned soldiers in Papua and New Guinea, and had received many presentations from them and from the natives, who had given him such a large collection of spears, battle axes, and headdresses that he had to arrange for them to be brought back to Australia by steamer.

“ I had a very pleasant and interesting trip,” said Mr Hughes. “ One of the things that strikes the visitor to New Guinea is the great variety of native races there. Tribes that are separated, apparently, by only a few miles of distance are separated by thousands of years of civilisation. Some appear to be living still in the Stone Age. Different tribes are entirely different in colour and in features; in fact, the difference between some of the tribes is as great as the difference between the native races and ourselves.

“They eame to greet us in friendly fashion, with their head-dresses of heads and feathers, striking their spears on the ground, and'all carrying bows and arrows. The tribes have no common language, except pidgin English. There are three missions—Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Seventh Day Adventist—which all impressed me greatly. At Sek,. a very beautiful Roman Catholic cathedral is being constructed entirely by the natives.”

Mr Hughes said that it was the plateaux that had stirred his feelings most. There were tremendous agricultural possibilities there. The natives were growing yams, and the. soil was suitable, for the growth of any root crop. Kapok, coffee, and rubber were also being grown successfully. Travelling by plane was comfortable and easy. “ DELIGHTFUL CLIMATE.” One left the steamy tropical beat of the sea level, and in 35 minutes was travelling over tremendous mountain ■ranges to beautiful valleys and plateaux 3.500 ft high, with the most delightful climate. These inland regions should in the future form admirable sites for inland cities, which would be comparable with the hill stations of India, where the white population went to obtain relief from ; the heat of the summer.

Referring to his reported remarks at the citizens’ welcome at Rabaul, which evoked criticism at Canberra, Mr Hughes said; “I have not read what the Sydney newspapers say I said, but I had a summarised report that was published telegraphed to me in New Guinea, and apparently words that 1 used in reference to the mainland of Australia were applied to the territory of New Guinea. “ What 1 said in relation to the territory of New Guinea was that the mandate was given to us by the League of Nations to govern the territory in the interests of the natives, whose country it vvas. I said that we had governed it in the best interests of the natives, and that all the powers of hell had not prevailed against this. The League of Nations: as the guardian of a backward people, had cast upon Australia a great responsibility, and we discharged that responsibility in a way that had met with the approval of the League and had won golden opinions throughout the 'world.”