Expert Advice For

Planters Why Cannot NG Department Serve Adjaining Territaries?

A N experienced agricultural officer of the British Colonial Service, now attached to the British Solomon Islands administration, Mr. Johns, has spent some time recently in New Guinea, studying there the work of the New Guinea Department of Agriculture, with a view to reporting to his chiefs on the advisability of establishing an agricul tural service in the British Solomon Islands.

Mr. Johns is a man of wide experience in tropical agriculture, and has served in Fiji, Zanzibar, Tanganyika, Kenya and the West Indies. He has shown a keen and practical interest in the work of the

Department of Agriculture in New Guinea—especially the experimental sta tion at Keravat.

The inquiries of Mr. Johns, and the apparent needs of the British Solomon Islands (for it is obvious that adminis trations generally are doing everything possible to encourage planters to turn their attention to something other than coconuts) again directs attention to the absurd system of watertight administra tive compartments, which are so notable a feature of government in the South Pacific Territories.

For example, there is in the Territory of New Guinea a Department of Agri culture staffed by men who, in training, experience, skill and personal enthu siasm will compare with the staff of any similar institution anywhere in the world.

It is a fact that the Australian Territory of New Guinea not only has large areas of land available for tropical agriculture, but it also has a Department of Agricul ture that is completely capable of direct ing a vast programme of agricultural development. The reasons why the Ter ritory of New Guinea, in such circum stances has remained, in a developmental sense, virtually stagnant, is a political story, and has nothing to do with the present argument.

In the two great tropical territories adjoining the territory of New Guinea — namely, the Territory of Papua and the British Solomon Islands —there are no departments of agriculture. There merely are officials (one or two) who attend to Administrative matters regarded as agricultural in character.

Yet the agricultural problems and requirements of Papua and the Solomon Islands are almost exactly, if not exactly, the same as those of New Guinea.

There apparently is not the slightest rea son —except the ridiculous political rea son labelled “boundaries” why the expert and well-staffed Department of Agriculture in New Guinea should not make its services available to Papua and Solomon Islands.

Both of the latter territories are British—one Australian and one British Colonial Office —and it ought to be a matter of simple arrangement for the two territories to get the benefit of an organisation which easily could extend its operations over three territories.

Someone may say: “But the Solomon Islands come under the jurisdiction of Suva, and in Fiji there is already a Department of Agriculture of high repute.”

That is perfectly true. But it is a fact that there is a far closer resemblance between the agriculture conditions of the Solomon Islands and New Guinea, than between the Solomon Islands and Fiji— so much so, that it is clear that if the Solomon Islands had to have this kind of expert service from either New Guinea or Fiji, it naturally would prefer New Guinea.

The foregoing argument has been put forward by thoughtful people at intervals during the past 10 years—and not one bureaucrat anywhere has taken any notice of it. But Nemesis is here, in the shape of a collapsed copra market. Unless the bureaucrats can induce the planters to produce something else, calculated to keep the territories’ revenue in existence, the bureaucrats will lose their own jobs.

So, during the next year or two, we can expect to see the bureaucrats excessively busy on behalf of the agriculturists.

Mrs. W. S. Brown, wife of the manager of Burns, Philp & Co. Ltd., Normanton, Queensland, died in February. She was a sister of Mrs. T. E. Craig, of Samarai, Papua.