A LAND OF PROMISE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1053, 16 February 1911, Page 6

A LAND OF PROMISE.

• ' PROGRESS IN PAPUA. • Encouraging accounts of tlie rubber industry in British New Guinea aro given by Mr..A. G. Watson, a passenger who arrived in Wellington by the Manuka yesterday 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. Ho Fold a reporter . yesterday 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. Now 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 labour question, the natural indolence of tho Papuan natives and their disinclination to enter any district which has been infected with malaria'makes it difficult to obtain enough labour to meet the considerable demand that .rapidly increasing settlement creates. Tho Government prohibits tho importation of natives from other islands as labourers. The Papuans havo to bo constantly supervised, in order to keep them up to their work, but in the main they aro 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, tho E. and A. and thoßurns-Philp lines, now making regular calls. The climate is less oppressive than'many people imagine. Last year tho highest temperature registered in ' the shado was 81 degrees, and the dangor from malaria, Mr. Watson states, has been much exaggerated.