New Caledonia
p. 30 · Read in the full issue
Election Skirmishes in New Caledonia
From Our Own Correspondent
Noumea, Jan. 1.
A SENSATION of the election cam paign for the General Council has been the charsre, published in the Ipcal press above the signatures of 11 members of the Comite Caledonian Party, that four of the candidates nominated by the so-called “Union” Party (representing financial and commercial interests largely) were avowed Petainists at the time the Colony rallied to General de Gaulle. Two of the candidates so charged are mentioned by name—M. Lafleur, a mining contractor working in association with the Societe le Nickel, and also asso ciated with Maison Ballande, of Bordeaux (the biggest French commercial concern in New Caledonia and the New Hebrides), and M. Marc one of Noumea’s three practising lawyers.
The “Union” Party has been dubbed
‘Parti Ballande” by its opponents. It has a more conservative programme than the asks for financial, economic and Customs autonomy and a free hand to encourage international airways and shippings to use New Caledonia’s airfields and ports.
There is also a “Social Progress” Party with a somewhat similar programme of modernisation and socialisation, which urges administrative reorganisation, bet ter opportunities for Caledonian-born citizens, and the breaking up of large estates now run as cattle stations by Maison Ballande and a few other com panies or individuals.
T j- 6 J 6 .l ar6, as w . a ew independent candidates expressing no party allegiance.
Some candidates claim that mining con cerns like the Societe le Nickel, should be nationalised, as similar concerns are being nationalised in France. One elec tion campafp-ner draws attention to the between thei Colony’s Budget ln 1938-39 (50 million francs) and the profit of the nickel company for the same year (150 millions).