May Do

Australian Territories And Military

Administration

What Mr. Ward May Find, And What He May Do

AUSTRALIA S Minister for External Territories, Mr. E. Ward, accompanied by the Secretary of the Department, Mr. J. R. Halligan. and his private secretary, Mr. John Donovan, is about to make his first official visit to the Territories of Papua and New Guinea.

Territorians hope that, on his return, they may be given some decisions upon Territories questions which have been under consideration for many long months, but concerning which they can get from Mr. Ward no more information than they were able to get from Mr.

Ward’s innumerable undistinguished predecessors.

When Mr. Ward became Minister, the Territories people thought that they might see some action. He had a reputation for disturbing traditions and defying bureaucrats. But Mr. Ward, in six months’ occupancy of the Territories office, has done very little.

Territories people say now that that is what they might have expected. They have no votes. In the view of the average professional politician, they are simply a pain in the neck.

But there may be another reason.

After all. the Territories are under military control. Mr. Ward may have little authority.

Am i. r T present, the Mandated Territory of New Guinea, and the old Australian Territory of Papua, are being governed as one unit, under an admmistration (Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit—ANGAU') that is completely military The head of ANGAU, and therefore the virtual administrator of the combmed Territories, is a comparatively unknown military officer. Major-General Morris.

Associated with him are one or two other high-ranking military officers who, like General Morris appear to have had no experience whateyer in tropical terntories’ administration.

Ranking after those gentlemen are some scores of former officials from the Administrations of New Guinea and Papua, who have been given various military titles, from Corporals to Colonels.

These officials were selected arbitrarily bv the military heads. Most of the officials were taken—but many were not.

Aiv/rrvNTr' 1 fv, Q po i o „ fD j MONG the men not selected were the ty civil Admmistra tors—Mr. Leonard Murray. Administrator of Papua, and Sir Walter McNicoll, Admmistrator of New Guinea. Why were ignored and less distinguished men pU */r in t° Places? No one knows. . Leonard Murray spent all his life in Papua mostly as assistant to his famous uncle the late Sir Hubert Murray, and latterly as chief. He is a youngish, fit and healthy man, and there is no one south of the Equator if any- W^her^ who - h , as a mor f expe ? k n . o fledge of Melanesia’s complex administrative problems. The Americans, for a time, made good and effective use of Mr. Murray’s specialised knowledge and training; but he has been practically ignored by Australia.

There was every justification for the action of Mr. Fadden, in the Australian Parliament recently, asking the Government a series of questions concerning Mr.

Murray. Why, asked Mr. Fadden, should the Government select Miss Camilla

Wedgwood, an anthropologist, and send her off to the Territories with the rank of Lieut.-Colonel, to advise regarding native education, when there was avail able a man like Leonard Murray who had devoted a lifetime to the subject rwwrtm xxt ™ t* rpHEN there is Sir Walter McNicoll, 9 r less idl . e ir * Australia. Sir Wainers appointment to, and his r ecord m New Guinea were criticised because, although he had had no experi encf of tropical administration, he was 80 *r }°, direct a government in which expert knowledge was called for. But came, Sir Walter had had mor . e than six years’ experience in Territory, and could have been very useful in many ways But he, also, seems a y e |? een completely ignored, o a PP arentl y> cannot bear to appoint anyone to a high administrative Post under wartime conditions- unless he 18 a k”^ ad y a high-ranking military offi- SiL wrong with Briga ™V/r?en^ako Sll o Mcls [icoll. CB, KCMG. there enough hl £h mi htary rank and distinguished military service there to satisfy the most cautious. Sir Walters 1914-18 record wIP bear comparison with that of any

one -

|TOWEVER, there is the position: XX Although ANGAU is staffed bv former Administration officials (with military titles), it actually is controlled by a group of high-ranking military offi- C ers (who have had no previous experi ence of tropical islands administration); and those gentlemen are responsible to Australian Army Headquarters, and not directly to the Australian Government, As a matter of fact, the liaison between the Department of External Territories (now presided over by Mr Ward and Mr Halligan) and ANGAU is obscure. There seems to be regular communication between the two. and ANGAU appears to carry out the Department’s wishes re garding policy, as well as administration: but, officially. ANGAU’s official channel of communication with the Department of External Territories should be through the Minister for the Armv, and thence to the Minister for Territories A s a result of his tour, Mr. Ward prob ablv will return to Sydney with his head bursting with ideas (mostly imnractic able) for the better administration of the Territories. Every Australian poli tician who became Territories Minister made this tour; and practically every one was afflicted in the same way, and had t o be handled tactfullv by the more ex perienced officials, until some of his more vivid impressions had faded.

The situafion following Mr. Ward’s visit probably will be more difficult—not only because Mr. Ward is Mr. Ward, and liable to fieftt with high-ranking “military blokes” on sight, but also because Mr. ward really has no jurisdiction over the ANGAU government, TTOWEVER, this Ministerial visit may XX force some decisions regarding the future of the Territories, The Japs now are so far away from Papua, and so broken.• that there really is no reason whv Papua should not return to civil administration. The Army, of course, will resist the idea, with tooth and claw. But is there any more reason why Papua should be militarily-controlled than that North Queensland should be?

There are so many Japs at large in the northern part of New Guinea mainland and in the Bismarck Archipelago—where their extermination will probably occupy months—that there is no possibility of the Mandated Territory being freed from military control for a long time to come.

Carrying out the expressed wishes of the Americans, the British authorities have sent administrative officers into the Solomons and the Gilbert and Ellice Colony, which were recovered from the Japs. Those officials, acting in co-opera tion with the American commanders, are carrying on civil administration—and are responsible to the civil authority (the British High Commission for the West ern Pacific). Why should not the same system be employed in Papua?