NEW GUINEA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5185, 3 November 1877, Page 2 (Supplement)

NEW GUINEA.

A correspondent of the Home News of the 31st August, referring to New GuiDea, writes : —" I trust that some definite determination with regard to this territory may be arrived at soon, as other countries are wide awake to its enormous extent, rich soil, and splendid situation. New Guinea commands the routes between India and Eastern Australia, and between China and Japan and Australia, the former through Torres Strait, and the latter through China Strait, discovered by Captain Moresby in 1874. These are settled trade routes, and should be wholly under our own protection, henceforth to be entirely independent of any foreign interference. Papua, or New Guinea, is the third largest island in the world, and has a climate and flora ranging from the Torrid to the Arctic zones. Its vast capabilities are conjectured, and deserve to be tested by ample exploration without delay. We have not done our duty in this respect, and there is room for the Royal Geographical Society to make up for past deficiencies and lost opportunities in the case of this island. There is a Russian expedition said to be now in the interior of the country, and an Italian one has just quitted it. New Guinea is the only land almost on the Equator possessed of mountains sufficiently high to be above the line of perpetual snow, with the exception of Ecuador, so far as is known. The country is admitted to be rich in minerals, and would therefore be a prize to Italy or Russia worth fighting for. Its exploration should be a problem for the British Government, as the Dutch now appear to have abandoned any claim to it."