PAPUAN OILFIELD.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16258, 8 July 1918, Page 5

PAPUAN OILFIELD.

A STORY OF MTTDDLE.

(FEOH OUB OWN oobbespondent.)

SYDNEY, June 28.

The evil results of tlio Australian policy of attempting to develop the cotmtty's natural resources by State Departments, and deliberately shutting out private enterprise, !s nowhere more apparent than on the Papuan oilfield. So much money has l>ei»n spent here, and so little achieved that even the Government's friends aro beginning to ask embarrassing questions.

Criticism of Government; methods is provided by Mr J. J?. Hoes, a Papunn business man now in Sydney. "Papua has an oil belt of about 100 sauare miles," he said, 'and there is plenty of native labour, an.! yet after four years of work, the Federal Government has nothing to .<■ Low in the way of lesults. A continuation of the prosent system will only prove a waste of capital."

Mr Ross advocr.tcd a system of allotting a substantial amount each year by the Federal Government, to be expended in letting contracts for boring in various parts of Che field. That would mean the abolition of the present system of boring laboriously in oni> place, and the work could be carried out un-! der the supervision of a practical oil driller. The fields might be cut into blocks, and the Government reserve every other block, the balance to bo leased to private individuals or .companies, under nccpsarv safeguards. Then, if a private person struck oil, th«* Government would have tha block on either side of him. If the 700 square miles of country w-jre thrown cpen tomorrow, private individuals would spend their money "n d-velopmg it At present this great field lay undeveloped, and the Australian markec was being supplied from forei.cn sources. To sum up," feaid Mr Ross, "the Government's efforts have -o for resulted in a few bores being drilled, and in a minute production of oil l'rom a commercial viewpoint, the work' hasbeen a failure. If private persons are willing to undertake the risk, surely the Commonwealth, with its resources, j ought to be able to do likewise."