YOUNG EXPLORERS CROSS NEW GUINEA SOUTH TO NORTH

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6804, 7 January 1929, Page 3

YOUNG EXPLORERS CROSS NEW GUINEA SOUTH TO NORTH

LONDON. Sir Hubert Murray, Governor of Fapau, has brought to England au interesting story of tho Teeent exploration work in the south-east, of Now Guinea, the world’s biggest island, by some of his young officials. Sir Hubert., who is the brother of Proffessor Gilbert Murray, the famous Oxford professor and advocate of the League of Nations, told a newspaper representative that ho had found it difficult to get out of the modest young explorers, whose names are Ivan Champion and Charles Karius, tho full s>t>ry of their 400-milc journey through much hither-to untouched country from the south, to the north coasts of Papua. Accompanied by a few native carriers and six Papuan armed constables, Mr Champion and Mr Karius, on their second journey discovered a hitherto unknown tribe which had previously never seen a white man. The young explorers finally made their way by raft to the northern coast by means of a dangerous river, in the rapids of which they lost most of their belongings.

Sir Hubert said that the natives of Papua are making wonderful progress, considering that not so very long ago the conditions were so primitive. They have few chiefs, but tho Government is trying to eucourago democracy by getting the natives to choose one of their members as Counsellor. His duties are to interpret to the people the reasons for the taxes and to help them to understand tho actions of the Administration.

Tho natives are being encouraged to start coffee, cocoa, and coconut plantations, for agriculture of some sort must be the backbone of tho country’s development, at any rate until the prospectors who are looking for minerals and for oil find these in sufficient quantities to make them worth developing. “Then,” said the Governor, “wo shall bo faced by a different set of problms, prhaps.”