"Ragtag" System
pp. 5-6 · Read in the full issue
Tropical Administration and Australia's "Ragtag" System
AUSTRALIA, at the Imperial Conference in May, will move for a revision of the position of the New Hebrides Condominium, in relation to Australian interests. If this means that Australia, at long last, is about to take a statesmanlike interest in her Pacific Islands associations and obligations, a few thousand people in the Territories will scarce forebear to cheer.
We have pointed out often that the fringe of islands north-east of Australia are of the utmost strategic importance.
Papua, New Guinea, New Britain, New Ireland, the Solomons, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and Norfolk Island lie in a continuous chain across the Pacific, providing a natural barrier between Australia and Asia. Even if Australia were not interested in those Territories for economic reasons and their economic value is very high—she must be interested for reasons of defence. Australia already controls all the islaflds named, except Solomons (British Colonial Office), New Hebrides (France and British Colonial Office), and New Galedonia ((French colony).
There is no need to think about New Caledonia. It is 100 per cent French; and Australians feel for the French al most the same trusting friendship as they do for the Americans.
But there are obvious reasons why the British Administration in the Solomons and New Hebrides should be taken over by Australia. Control over those groups should be an essential part of Austra lia’s defence plan. Ninety per cent of the economic structure in the Solomons, and in the British part of the New Hebrides already is Australian. Australian currency, rather than sterling, is the accepted British currency in both places.
The Condominium is a cumbersome, expensive thing. JBoth France and Britain must recognise that it should be ter minated and the group handed over to either Britain or France. In ordinary circumstances, it should go to France, because French interests there are now far in excess of British. But, because of the special circumstances—the need for strengthening Australian defences it may be that the group, with its large, deep harbours, should come under Aus
tralian control. That is a matter that can be left to the Imperial Conference and Whitehall.
The point of interest now is whetfier Australia is competent to administer these tropical territories properly. Is her record, to date, such that Britain will be ready to hand over new responsibilities, in the shape of the Solomons and New Hebrides?
The answer is in doubt. Papua, in an administrative sense, is a credit to Aus tralia; but that is because Australia had the good luck to find Sir Hubert Murray.
Australia is responsible for four other tropical regions Northern Territory, New Guinea, Nauru, and Norfolk Island.
The two latter are well administered, but are so small as scarcely to count.
The history and present condition of Northern Territory and New Guinea are not a recommendation for the Australian brand of administration. The Northern Territory is a dismal, disheartened place —the result of being, for 40 years, the plaything of politicians. Australian political circles, even now, are convulsed because of the Federal Government’s evident determination to appoint as Administrator, a politician without any special qualification for the job.
The record in New Guinea is better, certainly. But there has been much
restlessness there, and growing criticism of the Administration, and it can be all traced back to Canberra interference, and to Canberra’s policy of appointing, as Administrators, politicians and ex politicians who, whatever their merits as citizens and soldiers, are without the special knowledge and experience which are essential if a man is to make a per sonal success of tropical administration.
A few years ago, when Sir Charles Marr was Minister for the Territories he tried to introduce a “tropical administra tion service;” but he was defeated by fossilised politicians and public service bureaucrats who let the difficulties of detail obscure the principle. All the ex isting Territory services (New Guinea, Papua, Northern Territory, Nauru, Nor folk Is.) would have been thrown into one; men would have been carefully trained in the various Territories and in due course promoted to senior positions, in whatever Territory they fell vacant; and, when an Administratorship was to be filled, there would have been a num ber of tried and trained men to choose from. The plan, of course, was modelled on the admirable British Colonial Ser vice.
The plan was rejected. To-day, we see the Australian Territory services held, traditionless, in watertight compart ments; first-class senior men hopelessly occupying positions which they outgrew long ago; hungry politicians and ageing military officers, without any tropical experience, clamouring at Canberra for Administratorships; and ex-politicans trying to carry on in administrative jobs for which they never had one day’s training.
So long as the Australian system of administering tropical territories is in this condition of “ragtag and bobtail,”
Australia’s representations regarding the well-governed British groups are not likely to be treated with great respect.