MODERN NEW GUINEA

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 917, 10 March 1930, Page 8

MODERN NEW GUINEA

TECHNICAL SCHOOLS AND AIRPLANES RICH INDUSTRIES DEVELOPING New Guinea is becoming modernised. Civilisation is spreading Into th« dark interior. Rich industries are springing up in new areas, and big airplanes fly regularly over the hills, jungle and swamp. The children of ex-cannihals and head-hunters attended technical school and are taught plumbing and carpentering. They like it. and are apt pupils. Such are the assertions of Mr. E. \T. P. Chinnery, Australian Government Anthropologist in New Guinea, who is passing through Auckland on his way to spend 12 months' leave studying his science in America and on the Continer t. ••We have the nucleus of a jolly fine service—one of the best in the colonies.” he told a SUN interviewer on the Aorangi this moming, in referring to the work of developing the mandated territories. For 21 years Mr. Chinnery worked in New Guinea as a district officer. During the war he served with the Australian Flying Corps, and after the Armistice lie attended the University of Cambridge and studied as a research student in anthropology under Dr. A. C. 1-laddon and the late Dr. W. H. R. R. Rivers. This led to his present appointment, and to an accompanying position of adviser to the administration in his areas. •‘The present policy of the administraton in New Guinea is the advancement of the moral and material welfare of the natives." he said. "The first thing that is needed for this work is a thorough knowledge of the natives Themselves, and, with this in view, the area as a whole is subdivided into eight large administrative districts each under a district officer who has his staff and native police force. “The district officers are selected under a cadet system with a two-year period of probation. When Australian youths have proved their suitability for the work they are sent back to the University of Sydney for a course In anthropology, simple surveying, and hygiene.” New Guinea, says Mr. Chinnery, in an almost virgin field for anthropologists. It contains a tremendous variae tion of human type and culture, and an equally large variation of languages—not merely of dialects. “Gradually,” he explained, “we as* working into the interior. The officials who penetrate the country hitherto unexplored by white men never know what sort of a reception they are going to get, but the work of opening up the areas goes steadily on. In the towns an educational system has been set on foot, and both primary and technical training are given. The young natives are trained also in agriculture.” Many of the areas being opened up are proving rich in mineral wealth, said the anthropologist. Gold and silver lead were found recently at the head of the Waria River, a district explored by him. “At present the future of the mandated territory is in copra. k Now that this has slumped for the time being, planters are going in for cocoa and coffee on a large scale. Rubber, of course, will grow like wild-file, and the mineral wealth of the territory is assured. The New Guinea Goldfields Company operating at Edie Creek are capitalised at £5.000,000. and another company is dredging and sluicing in the Bialolo Valley. “Aerial transport is solving the mining difficulties of the territory. Four big Junker all-metal planes are operating in the territory, and these have one service which covers in three-quarters of an hour a distance of from 40 to 5(1 miles that takes eight days on foot. r-