PAPUAN PROGRESS

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXII, Issue LXXII, 25 May 1917, Page 3

PAPUAN PROGRESS

When Judge Murray, the Administrator of Papua., was in Sydney recently, he made the following statement: "The year 1916-7 promises, in spite of the war, to be the best we have had, and will certainly conclude with a, surplus.. As exports, there will unfortunately be a falling-off in gold, but this .should be more than counterbalanced by increases in the export of plantation produce, especially rubber. Papuan agriculture, which hardly existed the Commonwealth assumed control in 1906, has passed through the experimental stage, and must now be accepted as an established fact. We have had many difficulties to contend with—a scanty labor supply, a backward population., consisting largely of cannibals and head-hunters, a rugged and most difficult country, and a climate alleged to W. deadly beyond that of other tropical lands; and there was also the fact thai ours was .the first attempt made by Australians in tropical administration, and we had therefore to overcome .the .distrust attaching to what was regarded as a very doubtful and perhaps undesirable- experiment. We can 6aj now that the experiment has succeeded, and that, in spite of j all these obstacles, Papua has definitely proved itself, and that, whatever temporary embarrassment may be caused by the progress of the war, the future of the territory is secure. ! "We receive a subsidy of £30,000 a year, and I am submitting a scheme which, if approved, will provide for the gradual extinction of the subsidy without any loss of efficiency in adaninistration."