A LAND OF PROMISE.

Northern Advocate, 20 February 1911, Page 6

A LAND OF PROMISE.

PROGRESS IN PAPUA,

Encouraging accounts of the rubber industry in British New Guinea are given by Mr A. G.-Watson, a passenger who arrived in Wellington by the Manuka from Sydney. At one time Mr Watson-was a resident of Wellington, but growing rubber in New Guinea has occupied his attention during the past three years and a half. He told a reporter that Papua (better known, as New Guinea) was making great strides industrially and commercially, and that the British portion of the, country was attracting many, settlers from Australia. New plantations Of considerable area are being made by the British New Guinea Company for the cultivation of rubber, sisal, hemp, and cocoanuts.

Settlers encounter their principal difficulty at present in the labor question, the natural indolence of the Papuan natives and their disinclination to enter any district which has been infected with malaria makes it difficult to obtain enough labor to meet the. considerable demand that rapidly increasing settlement create. The Government prohibits the importation sf natives from other islands as laborers-. The Papuans have to be constantly supervised, in order to keep them up to their work, but in the main they are satisfactory workers.

Two banks have been started at Port Moresby, which is the administrative centre of New Guinea, and in various ways it has made rapid progress of late. Communication with Australia has been improved, vessels of the Dutch Packet line, the E.. and A. and the Burns-Philip lines, now making regular calls. The climate is less oppressive than many people imagine. Last year the highest temperature registered in the shade was 84 degrees, and the danger from malaria, Mr Watson states, has been in i h exaggerated.