New GUINEA Administration.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 March 1922, Page 4

New GUINEA Administration.

. ■ OEEICIAL’S SERIOUS CHARGE

SYDNEY. March 9

Disquieting stories regarding the Commonwealth administration of the mandated territory of New Guinea continue to reach Australia. Ever since the change from military to civil rule there have been allegations ail too frequently repeated, that the trend of affairs was chaotic, and now confirmation in very definite terms comes from Captain E. M. Wright, lately official secretary to the administration. An egregious error was made, Captain Wright thinks, in the haste with which the coconnut plantations were transferred from their former German owners to the new administration. Apparently these valuable properties, which under German rule wer e a source of considerable wealth, have been trimseferred to men without the expert knowledge essential to their profitable management with the result that their output has been diminished land their capital value deteriorated. Worse than that, the development of the territory appears to be paralysed for sheer lack of the necessary ordinances. Men cannot built houses,because there are no land laws under which they can obtain land. They cannot prospect for the minerals which the territory possesses in such abundance because there are no mining laws. A Ministerial visit to New Guinea has been mooted for months past. It would appear to be an urgent necessity th some responsible Minister should visit the territory without delay, study it* problems on the spot, and restore a semblance of order.