MANDATE DIFFICULTIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1049, 13 August 1930, Page 8

MANDATE DIFFICULTIES

GOVERNING NEW GUINEA TALK TO BUSINESS MEN Difficulties confronting administrators of New Guinea were outlined by Mr. W. R. McGregor, of the Auckland University College, in a talk on “Mandated Territories” at a luncheon of the Karangahape Road Business Promotion Society yesterday. Tie considered that the understanding of the territories governed under mandate by Australia and New Zealand had become of growing importance and was now almost an individual question. Australia and New Zealand achievement of the status of self-governing countries had brought its responsibilities. Of these the greatest was the administration of small native States. New Zealand was well aware of the existence of Samoa, but Australia seemed almost to forget that New Guinea was under her control. New Zealanders disliked the use of the word “Australasia,” but this was actually an excellent term, setting out their responsibilities and involving a sense of economic unity. When Germans made their peaceful way into the Pacific, working eastward into New Guinea, Australia eventually persuaded Britain to annex part of the island, but the German settlers then merely moved north to another part. During thq war this part was also annexed and is now administered by Australia. Several smaller islands are also under her mandated control- Japan, too, has a mandate over certain lands here. Australia controls about 182,000 square miles in the tropics here, a total about four times that of New Zealand. Japan’s 750 islands cover only 906 square miles. LITTLE KNOWN

Probably no part of the world is so little known as New Guinea, said Mr. McGregor. Forests, coastline, soil, minerals and zoology leave much yet to be discovered. Climatic conditions are difficult and high mountain ranges present almost insuperable barriers. Malaria fever and other diseases make life precarious. Only the outskirts have yet been civilised and roads are few. Travel is mostly by river.