Amalgamation

The Twin Sisters Spit at Each

Other

From Our Own Correspondent

Rabaul, Feb. 26.

THE plan of amalgamation with Papua is not at all popular here. The Legislative Council scorned the idea, and in sisted that New Guinea be left alone to develop its own lines.

From Our Own Correspondent

Port Moresby, Feb. 28.

So New Guinea thinks that it would be an “insufferable indignity” to be tied to “a stagnant territory like Papua”! Let us say, in reply, that Papua has never seriously considered the idea. The con stitution of the two Territories is funda mentally different. Papua has not the slightest wish to be merely a port of entry and recruiting ground for New Guinea. She would have new burdens and no advantages.

Editorial Note

This editor has not enjoyed a spectacle so much since, as a small onlooker, he took a keen interest in dog-fights!

As a matter of fact, there is nothing for those two charming sisters, Papua and New Guinea, to squabble about.

There is no suggestion to amalgamate the two Territories. Such a thing is quite impracticable. All that is proposed is to amalgamate, as far as is possible, the public services of the two Territories.

There are practical difficulties in the way of that, too; but the obvious advantages far outweigh the objections. The matter is now under discussion by the Pacific Administrators at Canberra, and the re sult of their deliberations will be inter esting.

What Britain Is Doing

The High Commissioner for the West ern Pacific (Sir Murchison Fletcher), is trying to amalgamate the public service corps of the various Territories under his control—Fiji, Solomons, Gilbert and Ellice, New Hebrides, Tonga—so that he may move his men about more freely, giving them a more valuable experience and a wider variety of climatic condi tions. He already has done it with his medical service, and he hopes, before very long, that the scheme will be com plete and apply to all personnel. It is expected to operate most beneficially, for both the public servants and the terri tories under their charge.

If the British High Commissioner can do it in respect of the widely dissimilar territories named, surely Australia can do it in connection with New Guinea, Papua, Nauru, Norfolk Island, and the Northern Territory. It is a Tropical Ser vice Corps that is aimed at —not an am algamation of Territories.