president’s address — SECTION E. 
9 
thanks to administration most admirable. Taking into aocount the 
largeness of the territory there, the magnitude of the resources, and a 
working power represented by 350,000 autochthones, we must be 
conscious that New Guinea will have a great future before it. 1 have 
not dwelt on this topic on this occasion to any great extent, because 
from your city emanated the momentous reports of the Hon. John 
Douglas and Sir William Macgregor, unfolding the splendid achieve- 
ments, though only three of the Australian colonies gave substantial 
support to the Administration of British New Guinea. I felt all the 
more constrained to discuss the glorious prospects of the wondrous 
land of the birds of paradise because it is in the Queensland metro- 
polis, W'here the fullest and most recent information only caii be 
gained, and this indeed exists in a compact form, irrespective of the 
literary volumes of the bravest of missionaries, in the special work 
written some few years ago by the accomplished President of the 
Queensland branch of the Iloyal Geographical Society of Australia. 
Let ns remember also that part of South-eastern Papua, through 
interjacent islets, almost touches Cape York, suggesting the possibility 
of laying at inconsiderable cost an electric cable across. What a help 
that would be to bring New Guinea more under notice. 
But one additional wish we might be tempted to express : the 
finding of a readily traversable pass from one of tlie southern harbours 
to the northern, so that a communication may be possible across the 
broad part of the peninsula without the necessity of a circuitous and 
intricate passage around the eastern point of the possession. For 
these reasons further highland explorations are still recornmendable, 
inasmuch as from culminating points, irrespective of more geographic 
triangulations, the direction of the various watersheds wmuld come into 
view with their comparative facilities for determining overland road- 
ways. Then, also, a much further insight into the geology and the 
natural production — some, doubtless, of novel interest — of this part of 
the Papuan Island would then also be gained. The non-occurrence of 
volcanic eruptions and cyclones since the British occupation there 
seems singular, and would carry some exceptional advantages. 
It must be a subject of rejoicing to all concerned that the 
administration of that possession will devolve for another term of four 
years on Sir William Macgregor, who, after the laborious and high- 
minded preliminary efforts of renowned missionaries — -some martyrs to 
their cause — and after the toils and wisdom of distinguished prede- 
cessors, has throughout that now colony fully established peace and 
safety there with increasingly hopeful prospects for expansive rural 
and mining industries. This will have increased shipping and mer- 
cantile intercourse in its sequence, and would help to relieve over- 
glutted productiveness of any Australian ports. The Governments of 
the three eastern colonies continue, in enlightened atatpmanship, to 
afford even at a period of financial depression a most liberal subsidy 
to the Administration Fund ; while the Iloyal Navy continues, by the 
prowess of the British flag and the splendour of its maritime surveys, 
to sustain and enlarge reigning supremacy also there. 
The lengthened lines of river access will readily speed the 
development of New Guinean traflBc. Eural introductions, fostered 
also from this colony, will wondrously augment the New Guinean 
