Rabaul Bickerings and Tropical Administration

IT was fortunate, perhaps, that the un seemly squabble between the Adminis trator of New Guinea and his “subjects” came when it did; because it has served effectively to show up some of the faults of a system which Australia proposed to enlarge.

It has been proposed that Australian administration shall take the place of English administration in certain Pacific territories (notably, the New Hebrides and the Solomons) which already are far more Australian than English in their oversea connections and associations. If this should mean that Australia simply is going to organise two more-parties of public servants in watertight compart ments, presided over by two more poli tical appointees, the residents of the New Hebrides and Solomons would be well advised, at this stage, to resist the con templated change to the utmost of their power.

It should be a primary condition of any extension of Australian authority in the Pacific that Australia creates a corps of men trained and competent to undertake tropical administration, and able to pro vide, out of their own ranks, officers cap able of occupying the highest positions in that service.

Already, Australia administers five tropical territories North Australia, Papua, New Guinea, Nauru and Norfolk Island —and it is scarcely necessary to stress the fact -that the administrators, who exercise absolute and almost un challengeable authority, should be speci alists trained for their jobs and, tempera mentally, men of calm, patient, well balanced judgment. Yet two of the main territories, Nth. Australia and New Guinea, are controlled now by men who were arbitrarily selected, without compe tition, by a Cabinet which had no special qualifications for making such appoint ments. Mr. Abbott and General McNicoll may be men of great personal merit; but the fact remains that neither had had one hour’s training in the specialised work of tropical administration, and that they came under official notice in the first place only because they happened to have been elected to Parliament.

Meanwhile, each territory maintains its own public service, each service divided into departments, each departmental head supremely conscious of the fact that, however, well he may acquit himself, the principal positions are not for him—they

are reserved, mostly, for political appoin

tees. It is an intolerable system.

Its weakness has been demonstrated during the month, in Rabaul. Almost every issue of the newspapers, for three weeks, has contained something about the bickerings between the Administra tor, who says that Rabaul is habitable and reasonably safe, and a section of the non-official Europeans, who say it is not.

The managers of the big trading firms have insisted upon a policy of caution, in considering the scope and character of their future establishments in Rabaul; while the utterances of Administrator on this subject have had an unfortunate appearance of either flippancy or bad temper.

The attitude of the Administrator may be perfectly right; but, if it is, he cer tainly has done the right things in the wrong way. The Administrator may not have ordered the evacuation of Rabaul; but, in his statement of June 1 (see pages 13 and 14), he clearly confirmed it, and added that the town would not be haoi table (or “tenable”) for several weeks, and apparently approved all the arrange ments for a temporary settlement at Kokopo. Yet, only six days later, he was issuing statements which could be interpreted only as insistence on the im mediate re-occupation of the town. Was it any wonder that a large - section of the Europeans became angry and resentful!

This was a time, if ever there was one, when the Administrator should have

acted in close consultation and co-opera tion with the commercial community, and with the rank and file of Europeans, whose interests had been so disastrously affected. Patience, tact and sympathy were called for. Instead of that, General McNicoll’s far-too-numerous utterances, as reported in Australian newspapers, suggested a stubborn insistence on his dictatorial authority, combined with peevishness and impatience. The impres sion made “down South” was not good.

General McNicoll was a successful school master and a distinguished soldier. But the methods of the schoolroom, and the heavy heel of the autocratic G.0.C., are very much out of place on an occasion like this. In fact, they are out of place nowadays in tropical administration gen erally. The unfortunate record of New Zealand in Western Samoa, between 1925 and 1932, is proof of that.

Criticism is difficult. We must set

against the Administrator’s apparently

temperamental inability to co-operate

with the non-official community, his per sonal courtesy, his energy and his

organising genius, admirably displayed

on this occasion.