Down New Guinea way
Media
Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal
- Title
- Down New Guinea way
- Language
- English
- Source
- The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume XVIII (Issue No. 6) June 1938
- Year
- 1938
- Rights
-
- Fulltext
- June, 1938 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 31 Least Attractive Groups The following groups do not possess either the advantage of long term growth factors or that of stable volumes and earn ings. Advantage should be taken of the initial stages of recovery to release any re maining holdings in these groups with a view to the subsequent employment of the funds in more promising industrial stock groups. Apparel Restaurants Property Ownership and Management Coal Fertilizers Ice Refrigeration Leather Radio Shipping Silk Goods Sugar Electric Holding Companies Manufactured Gas Tractions DOWN NEW GUINEA WAY In Iloilo we came upon an Anzac from Australia who had been in New Guinea (Australian mandated terri tory) eleven years and has a planta tion of coconuts there comprising 800 acres. He seems to know a great deal about the placers on Edy creek that have become so famous, and says the placers in the whole Balolo river val ley will yield for fifty years. How ever, this is a concentration at the southeastern part of the territory and the greater portion of New Gui nea is a plantation project where ve terans are given land (if they have means to work it) and pay no taxes during the first ten years. New Britain, another island in the territory, is much larger than Luzon. But New Britain is very rugged and little explored. Raval, capital of the territory, is on this island, while the shipping point to the placers on New Guinea is Salamura. The placers are eight days away from the coast by hiking, less than an hour by plane. The ridge to be crossed rises 12,000 feet and the Balolo valley is at an elevation of some 5,000 to 6,000 feet. The descent, once the ridge is topped, is precipitous; it is the climb that eats up time in getting in. There is no law in the territory,; only a strict set of rules typical of the rules British character usually works out for the just administration of colonial territory. Infraction of the rule against concubinagie with the Polynesian women brings a sen tence of five years’ imprisonment. The district officei’ is judge and jury, there is no appeal. Each district of ficer has a number of lieutenants, over subdivisions of his jurisdiction, with powers similar to his, but his is the appellate authority. An interesting footnote to this is the extreme difficulty with which Australian women get themselves ad mitted to the territory, so that few are there. Men on going there must deposit funds enough to take them back to their Australian homes—a precaution against failure. These are some of the circumstances under which the Edy creek strikes have ex erted their attraction, and the plan tations of coconuts are being found ed. The administration also regulates the preparation of copra, the smok ing process is used for drying and uniform high quality brings the co pra a premium in London’s market. Labor gets a fixed reward and there is no deviation from it. Cash pay is six shillings a month. Rice is furnished, however, also two sticks of trade tobacco a week, a new clay pipe a month (or newspaper for ciga rettes, a sheet a week), a loin cloth a month, and a tin of fish a week. Men are called boys, ■ and our informant says they work well as soon as they try new bosses out. If a new boss’s grit is good, they knuckle down to him; if it fails, he will never get on with them and had just as well pack up for Australia. Death is the penalty for murder and some other crimes, of Polyne sians. Hanging is the method of ex ecution, and the district officers have this done publicly in the criminal’s own village. Often the method is to stand the victim on an oil can, string him up by the neck.to the limb of a tree overhead, and kick the can out from under him. The gendarmes are natives, their officers these Brit ish district officers and their lieuten ants. There is a code of quick rough jus tice for whites, another for browns— both summarily enforced. SOLINGEN “•Tree” Brand CUTLERY “Twin” Brand E. Viegelmann 460 Dasmarinas, Manila, P. I. Tel.: 2-26-64 WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS For many years Attorney Alva J. Hill and associates clung vainly to hopes of a profitable copper strike in claims they held in the jurisdiction of San Remigio, Antique, Panay island, finally giving up and selling the property to a company headed by M. Galatas, Botica Boie’s Iloilo manager. The new owners had the luck to strike a pocket from which they have sold 25,000 tons of highgrade copper ore at a net profit of P9 a ton. Their risk was P22,000 including the Pl0,000 payment to Hill et al., and their gain has been more than P100,000 in dividends distributed aside from a surplus for future ef fort. When Mr. Galatas was seen in Ilo ilo two weeks ago, he said there is still 25,000 tons of this copper to be mined when the world price offers a sufficient net profit. Meantime still more luck has turned up. According to samples in Iloilo and the reports of an Italian engineer geologist, F. Parboni, employed at the project, two molybdenum deposits have been found, one in iron, the other in copper, and the latter is re ported large and rich enough to war rant installing a 30-ton concentration plant. Molybdenum is a semipre cious industrial metal whose price current is about 46 cents a lb. due to its high fusing point. It is used as a flux, or conditioning agent, in high grade steels. The known supply is scattered and limited, hence the enor mous price. Further work will be done at San Remigio before the con centration plant is decided upon, Mr. Galatas says. The largest known molybdenum deposit now being worked is that at Climax, Colorado, property of the Climax company whose dollar-par stock usually sells at some fifty times par value. The deposit averages */% of 1% in molybdenum. But Milton Sutherland, while i',n America last year, examined another deposit sim ilarly promising, possibly better, in Nevada sixty miles from Goldfield. Here the surface averaged % of 1%, and the tunnel Vs of There re mained 600 feet of tunneling to do, where surface samples were averag ing 1% molybdenum.' The Climax company is said to be watching this deposit very closely. So wealthy is its own property that the diggings have become a town bearing its name, Climax. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL