Condominium

Unfortunate Aspects Of New Hebrides

Letter to the Editor.

IWAS interested in the letter on the New Hebrides in the March P.1.M., by “Onlooker”. The translation of a passage from his letter appears in italics in the May number of the French New Hebrides monthly, the “Neo-Hebridais”.

In it “Onlooker” says in effect that “we New Hebrideans follow very closely everything that happens in New Guinea, etc., etc.”, and that if a concensus of opinion were taken he is certain that the majority of the more solid British planters and citizens would be very much opposed to Australia taking over Britain’s share in the Condominium Administration; and, further, that if such a thing did come to pass they would put themselves under the French flag.

One could make a nasty retort to that; but there is no need.

Let “Onlooker” consider the follow ing: Five years ago Burns. Philp and Co. formed a French Company in the New Hebrides, and all the trading de

partment of its inter-island steamer is controlled by French employees. Every other British concern in the N.H. that has been able to afford it has also form ed similar Companies on a smaller scale.

The number of the British planters and traders who remain in the Group you can count on your fingers and toes.

In the Condominium Service, out of eleven British posts, four are held by Frenchmen, some of them for several years. A neutral post also has been fill ed by a Frenchman for the past 15 years.

The British Residency officials now dress themselves in quasi-diplomatic uni forms of Gilbertian cut, spangled with Jubilee and Coronation medals, in a last effort to impress the French.

With Condominium salaries paid at 124 francs to the £, Customs duties at 180 fr. to the £ and certain Condominium allowances at 25 fr. to the £, and post age stamps at 150 francs to the £, and with British colonisation starved from birth, and now breathing its last through neglect, it is very doubtful that the Commonwealth would wish to take over such a muddle.

“Pandemonium” it has often been call ed, but this epithet is rather uncalled for as it casts a slur on the Condomin ium officials on both sides, who are doing their jobs manfully and under extreme difficulties.

The Condominium is the only Gov ernment Service in the world that has no pension or superannuation scheme. A Condominium officer can be retrenched at any old time, after years of service, and years in the tropics, and the Re sident Commissioners can—if they like —refuse him his fare back to civilisation.

The R.C.’s have fullest powers to grant or refuse anything. There are no “rights”.

That British colonisation and enter prise have fallen to zero in the New Hebrides, when they have been an un qualified success in every corner of the globe, clearly shows that there is a nig ger in the woodpile somewhere. Is it pure neglect and indifference on the part of the Home Government or policy?

Or is it the failure on the part of the local British authorities to understand colonisation and colonists? I leave the questions for others to answer.

Certain it is, however, that whenever a British artisan or mechanic has at tempted to ply his trade here, he has been treated like dirt, as something less than a kanaka, and he has had to get out. The whole system here has been mediaeval. The R.C. is absolute monarch and plots scandals and intri gues among the courtiers, etc.

In the New Hebrides there is a cry ing need for a couple of competent boot makers, a couple of motor mechanics, and a couple of farriers. But I should hesitate to advise any Britisher to come here in any of those capacities, under the present regime.

“Onlooker’s” and his friends’ close watching of the Commonwealth Admin istration in New Guinea has not told them all. I often meet people who have spent many years there and they tell a different story. Muddles and mistakes there might have been, but through it all there has always been progress. Na

lives there are well controlled, and the District Officers sent out there by the Commonwealth Government are ex-Uni versity, with a high pass in anthropology, and they serve a cadetship when they get there.

Can it be said that natives are con trolled in the New Hebrides?

N.H. natives are difficult to sign on, and are likely to flit at any moment. A houseboy has been known to clear out in the middle of a meal, just for no rea son at all. And what can you do about it? There is no fixed scale of wages, and they just play fast and loose, and are paid wages that soon make them independent. In New Guinea there is a fixed scale of wages.

I feel sure that if Australia did take over Britain’s part of the Condominium, it would be with the idea of fostering British colonisation here. The New Hebrides could do with more British people.

At no time in the history of the Con dominium were the relations between British and French more cordial than they are at present. This is due largely to the present French Resident Com missioner, M. Casimir, who has just re turned from leave, and his predecessor, who has just left us, M. Sautot, Life, however, is very drab for the British in New Hebrides: (1) Because we are so few; (2) because we have no British schools here and the Brit isher has to send his children away to school, therefore there is no home and family life such as the French enjoy.

To-day, I read in the French monthly of the arrival at Vila of a new French schoolmaster and schoolmistress from France, to take up duty in the French Government School. The French School, as it was, brought its students to something a grade above kindergar ten; but the new teachers will bring it up to something equivalent to Austra lian Q.C. standard.

At the present time the Condominium has a surplus of 2,000,000 francs (about £ll,OOO sterling) accumulated over two years, and doesn’t know what to do with there is much that could be done.

I do not care—and there are many like me—who takes or does not take Britain’s share in the Condominium, but I do hope that something will be done in the near future to raise the or dinary Britisher’s standard here.

I am, etc.,

Inlooker.

Efate, 28/6/38.