JUNGLE GOLD

Hokitika Guardian, 16 May 1933, Page 3

JUNGLE GOLD

ROMANCE OF MEW GUINEA

AEROPLANE’S PART

SYDNEY, May 4. During last February gold valued at £147,000 was exported from New Guinea, a record output. New' fields in hitherto unknown, and unexplored country in the Mandated Territory are being opened up. A few years ago the jVlorobe district in New Guinea was a blank space on the map. No one had ever been there, and it was merely reguarded as. an inaccessible, jungle-in-fested area, inhabited by- savage and primitive tribes. There was no call t„ there, and to do so was to risk privation and possible death at the hand of the savages..

Suddenly a whisper went round that there w r as gold at .Edie Creek. H owever, only a dozen brave spirits who were prepared- to risk anything for reward answered the call. To read, the place where wealth waited they had to climb, crawl and wade over a terrible track that, led from the coast. They had. to cross a mountain range that was thousands of feet high. And yet t,he creek was only 35 miles from the coast. But that 35 miles was almost in passable, and the Administration had to send cut urgent warnings to the many who were anxious to engage in a gold rush.

-. Twenty years ago Edie Creek Iwould have .petered .out for sheer lack of ability to exploit i.t. The. resources of civildtion would have, been exhausted. But. in 1920 aviation made the impossible not only possible, but profitable. To-day the Morobe fields are humming hives of industry. Five years ago, 'Wau, the centre, was a native village in the jungle • tc-day it is a thriving settlement with a populatipn ■of 700 whites, with hospital, • hotels, schools', post office and shops. - Prospecting for gold has done more, to open up .. this territory than anything ■else could have done. According to. a recent,report; neither the- ‘Government nor the Missions, which are working feverishly, is-. able to-keep pace with ' the progress, -j, - ... .