Papua

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 164, 14 August 1942, Page 3

Papua

T is impossible not to feel uneasy about the Japanese progress in Papua. If, as the cables say, they have "advanced to Kokoda and beyond", it is time to ask what this means, and we can no longer accept the comforting assurance that "beyond" means uncrossable mountains and impenetrable jungle. It does mean mountains and jungle, but the mountains, as an Australian expedition established thirty-six years ago, are not insuperable, and Burma and | Malaya are the answer to all. jungle barriers. As far as the Japanese have gone already-unless "beyond" means far more than we have been allowed to suspect-the going is in fact comparatively easy. The Kumusi River, which the soothsayers presented as a barrier five or six weeks ago, was never more than an inconvenience-the Australian expedition got across without difficulty in 1906, finding both a ford and a wire bridgeand even the "Divide", a perpendicular wall 250 feet high, was no obstacle to native carriers when the white population of Port Moresby was forty-one men, sixteen women, and twelve children. These facts are of course well known to General MacArthur and to the governments of all the United Nations, but they are not well enough known to the people of Australia and New Zealand to protect us against shock if the Japanese are reported one morning on the Port Moresby side of the central range. It must also be remembered that Papua is not a foodless country, even to Europeans. The plateau round about Kokoda the Australian expedition found "rich almost beyond belief", and the whole stretch of country back to Buna Bay was reported to be "magnificently watered, level, heavily timbered . . . and rich in cane, vegetables, and fruit". To the Japanese that is a land of milk and honey. 5