Plea For Co-Operation In Pacific Affairs

An Address Broadcast from Suva Station, Fiji, on July 24, 1936, by

R. W . Robson

T AM going to take advantage of this opportunity, kindly given to me by the Fiji Broadcasting Company Limited, to urge that some kind of organisation be created for the exchange of opinion and experience between the Territories of the South and Central Pacific.

For several years, I have been in close touch with the Pacific communities. It is to me a matter of increasing wonder that all these people, with similar con ditions of life, similar points of view, and similar problems to solve, should continue to exist in watertight compartments, almost completely isolated one from the other.

I can claim to have personal know ledge of the Territories of Papua, New Guinea and Norfolk Island, which are controlled by Australia; of Fiji, Solomon Islands, Tonga and the Gilbert and Ellice Group, which are governed by the British Colonial Office; of Samoa and the Cook Islands, controlled by New Zealand; of the New Hebrides, which constitutes a Condominium; and of New Caledonia and Tahiti, which are governed by France.

Except that there is malaria fever in the western and not in the central and eastern islands, and except for variations in the types of native people, represented by the differences between Polynesians and Melanesians, the conditions of life in all those 12 territories are almost identical. Yet, apart from the fact that the four Central Pacific groups are linked

together in the High Commission for the Western Pacific, there is absolutely no co-operation between these various terri tories, not even to the extent of con sultation on matters of common interest.

One would suppose that there would be some kind of co-operation between the Australian territories of New Guinea and Papua, because they are controlled from the same Department in Canberra. But, actually, there is no evidence of it. Papua and New Guinea have quite independent non-interchangeable public services, and separate and apparently independent policies regarding health, education, native affairs, etc.

THE only matter in which there is some semblance of co-operation in the Pacific, is in the training of native medical practitioners. In the Suva Medical School, one finds the finest types of young natives from Fiji, Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Gilbert and Ellice, Ameri can Samoa, and the Solomons, undergoing a four years’ course; and, what is equally important, learning to know each other, at work and in play. The Suva Medical School, both as a professional training institution, and as a means of creating unity of thought and purpose among the native races of the Pacific, appears to be 100 per cent, successful.

One would have supposed that, with this institution as an inspiration, there would be a general move among the 12

administrations towards co-operation in other fields. But there is no evidence of it. One finds, on the contrary, that Aus tralia is holding aloof even from this system of training native medical prac titioners. No young natives are being sent to Suva from Papua or New Guinea —although, owing to the generous contri butions of the Rockefeller Foundation, the total cost is only £75 per student per annum. Instead, a selected number of young Papuans are receiving medical training in Sydney—which is a system that, from the social angle, has some very undesirable features. So far as the Mandated Territory of New Guinea is concerned, there is no systematic training of natives as medical practitioners— although New Guinea has a huge native population, and a substantial financial surplus.

T SHOULD like to urge that there should be consultation and, wherever practic able, co-operative action in such matters as public health (more especially in the treatment of tropical diseases), in native education, in planting and agriculture, in shipping and quarantine regulations, in

the handling of the half-caste problem, and in many other matters of common concern, which will readily occur to men who know the conditions of Islands life.

One thing in which, in my opinion, there is really urgent need for an exchange of views, with a view to cooperation, is that of giving advice to planters regarding crops which they may produce at a profit, Everywhere I have gone in the South Seas I have found planters clamouring for information about practicable crops and possible markets. They can find out for themselves, or with the help of their local departments of agriculture, what crops they can grow and the approximate cost of production: but they cannot by themselves obtain that other equally vital information—namely, the character and

dependability of the market for such commodities. Such information involves a good deal more merely gSring data about the ruling price fo? certail commodities—one must have, also in formation about world demand and’sup- Ply, cost of transport from producer to market, packing and grading, and the extent of co-operation that can be expected from the big trading firms.

If . the possession of these numerous Pacific Territories by Europeans is to be justified, the primary resources of the Territories must be developed in such a wa y that there will be a contented population of small planters, in which due provision is made for native and half caste planters, as well as for Europeans That surely involves the creation, in the Pacific, of a Central Bureau of

Economics, on which the agricultural departments of the several administra tions, the planters, and the big trading firms would all have representation. This bureau would gather essential informa tion about marketing from all over the world, and distribute it to planters.

Instead of planters having to speculate blindly as to whether they could profit ably grow this, that or the other, they could apply to the Bureau for reliable data. The creation of such a Bureau of Economics seems to me to be the only logical development of the maintenance of all these separate departments of agriculture. They all are doing valu able work—but in too limited a sphere.

A LL those who try to take a helpful v interest in Pacific affairs will hope that, before long, we shall see the definite beginnings of a movement for inter territorial consultation and co-operation.

The ideal, of course, would be co operation by Britain, France, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, to advance their numerous common interests in the South Seas; but that must come slowly. Let a start be made by the British communities; and let the success of the Suva Medical School (in which already you enjoy very generous Ameri can co-operation) be your inspiration.