Is it Too Soon to Visualise a New World?
pp. 7-8 · Read in the full issue
IN these days, when our ears seem to be filled with the dismal clamour of the prophets of gloom, it is profitable and encouraging to turn and calmly assess the probabilities of the future, and try to imagine conditions in the South Pacific Territories as they are likely to be after the war.
Great Britain and the United States inevitably will come together in some sort of protective union, designed perhaps to police civilisation against Hitlerism and similar monstrosities; and, unless something quite unforeseen and absolutely unpredictable occurs, the new world will be planned in accordance with the wishes and democratic viewpoints of the Anglo- American Alliance. That may be taken as certain. What will it mean in relation to the future of the Pacific territories?
Our daily lives, in this still obscure future, will be shaped and controlled by our international relationshipsand these, in turn, will be fixed by the post-war international settlement The latter must bring far-reaching changes into the Pacific. Factors which must be provided for if there is to be anything like a prospect of permanent peace, include the domination by American interests of Pneifir other tr countri e es Un h' e h 68 th* other countries which adhere to the Anglo-American Alliance; and a re-
alignment of Pacific conditions in relation to Japan, There can be no possibility of future peace in the Pacific while Japan remains as she is to-day—an overcrowded, economically-harassed nation, in the grip of one-eyed mill tarists. As a prelude to a permanent peace, Japan must either be smashed t 0 Pieces, so that she may work no further harm to her neighbours, or i ier clamant national needs in terri tory anci markets must be provided for - If wise statesmanship rules the post-war settlement of world affairs — as we believe it will—all of Japan’s legitimate needs will be provided for, 80 that there may be no further ex cuse for aggressiveness by her sabre rattling Fascists, There can be no future for the Japanese Empire, except in peaceful, sincere collaboration with the other S reat Pacific Powers (USA and Britain); and at last there are in oications that Japan is beginning to rea lB e this. There have been appar pntly important changes of policy in the last fortnight, TM m A . ... , T NTO thls post-war settlement there * intrude considerations affecting ™e S utch ; East IndiPB and the South P a cific colonies of France. We may win be. i?i U f the rich preserve of powerful Dutch interests—but the position of the
French colonies is different. Day by day, we see evidence of France’s deterioration in the spectacle of the Vichy Government surrendering more and more to Nazi control. If the French Empire is to be restored, there must be a clear re-awakening of the soul of France, made manifest in a vast political purge, in which most offensive parasitical growths must be removed from the political and economic structure of the republic.
Even assuming a clear-cut victory for the Allies, the future of France is most obscure. Britain and the United States are kindly disposed towards that clean and vigorous cross-section of France that is represented in the French Empire—but, probably, they entertain little hope of restoring that larger France which surrendered it self so pitifully to the Nazis.
Therefore, the future of New Cale donia, Tahiti and French Oceania definitely must await developments which, at the moment, cannot be foreseen. Neither Britain nor the United States want more territories— on the contrary, public opinion in both nations is emphatically against territorial aggrandisement but it would not be surprising if those South Pacific French colonies eventually found a place under the protection of the Anglo-American Alliance.
THE new world will be a world in which will be undertaken far reaching economic experiments of a most delicate character, with the ob ject of controlling capital and dis ciplining money-power. The world
probably will try to preserve the democratic system, while freeing it irom the control of monopolistic financial and commercial interests (a control wmch is exercised tnrougn party organisations and which has virtually ruined democracy), and we shall try to retain, also, tne freedom of private enterprise, which is the oasis of the system of industry and commerce evolved in a thousand years of Western European progress.
It is conceivable that capitalists and capital, fleeing from the whips and shackles which public opinion in the bigger countries is preparing for them, will seek sanctuary in the Pacific territories, and that in these territories in future there will be found far greater opportunities in industry and commerce than ever have been dreamed of in the past.
Already, we see something of this in the fact that many companies and individuals, trying to escape from the oppressive taxation of bigger coun tries, have become domiciled in the various Pacific Islands towns, where taxation of individuals is as yet very light.
AND what of future industries in the South Pacific? What of copra? The consensus of opinion, among the shrewdest judges of Pacific trade and industry, is that there is a good future for coconut planting, because, as soon as the war is over, and the international trade restrictions of the past couple of decades are removed, the world will demand and consume increasing quantities of this most palatable and cneapiy-produced vegetable oil. Copra will not (unless temporarily) go to “fancy” prices—it now has too many competitors to permit a return of the halcyon days of 1921-24—but every thing indicates that it should settle down to a good, steady, dependable market.
Upon the shape of the post-war economic world depends whether international combines like Unilever Limited will be permitted to batten upon the disunited and therefore de fenceless copra-producers. It is be lieved by many that a return to a peaceful world is not possible if the financial and commercial mono polists and combines are to be allowed to carry on their rackets unchecked, as they did for two decades prior to 1939. If the ordinary man is to have his liberties restored, such mon strosities as the Unilever Combine and the transport combines will not be tolerated, and coconut planters will be able to reap the fair reward of their enterprise and industry.
But much reform, and long periods of struggle, probably will be needed before such conditions are estab lished. It is much more likely that the present generation of planters will have to fight, as before, for the right even to live. Therefore, they should consider carefully every means at their disposal which will permit them to organise and take united action to protect their common in terests. As they are now, they are the helpless victims of every profiteer in Christendom. If they would get together, they at least could (a) make
stronger representations to the Gov ernments, and (b) defend themselves better against organisations which keep copra rates down to the basic wage.