Training Ex-Servicemen As Plantation

Managers

By F. J. Morgan

MANY young Australians serving in the South-west Pacific area may desire to settle in the islands where they have fought. The life of a planter in the tropics has always exercised the imagination of adventurous youth, but enthusiasm alone is not enough.

To achieve any measure of success it is essential that the prospective planter must first have had some experience in plantation management and control of native labour before taking up land.

There has never been a surplus of really good experienced plantation managers.

One difficulty confronting ex-Servicemen is the lack of an institution which offers a course in tropical agriculture under South Pacific conditions. The Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad reserves entry to its practical course to students from the West Indies, and the course is based on conditions in the Caribbean area. In any case, a long tech nical course is not altogether suitable for men who have served through a long war and who are desirous of settling down as soon as possible.

It is necessary, therefore, that there should be established a Training plan tation in the islands, where selected ex- Servicemen can be given a practical course in plantation management, under the same conditions, of rehabilitation and

sustenance, as the Commonwealth Govern ment proposes for the assistance of dis charged Servicemen undergoing industrial training in Australia.

The course should combine practical work with theoretical tuition designed to assist in the selection of suitable land, choice of crops, control of native labour and marketing of produce.

THE advantage of such preliminary

training to the prospective planter is obvious, but the subject has also national and international aspects.

Apart altogether from the necessity for minimising chances of failure in land settlement policy, as it concerns ex- Servicemen in the Island Territories of the Commonwealth, Australia, in common with other Pacific Powers if must establish successful colonies of vigorous European stock in what is now called “the island screen.” The lessons of this war cannot be forgotten, and the islands may at some future time again become the first line of Australian defence. The value of men with local knowledge has been proved many times during the New Guinea and Solomon Islands campaigns.

In its efforts to encourage settlement of ex-Servicemen in the islands, it is the duty of the Government to guarantee each man access to markets- for his pro duce. And in this regard the national value of shipping and air-transport com panies is self-evident. Their development must be encouraged, by subsidy if neces sary, for if the islands are to be settled, and if the settlers are to be a national • asset and not a liability, there must be cheap and efficient transport services be tween islands and mainland ports of entry. There is no use training men and settling them in places remote from world centres of distribution unless they can be assured of cheap, regular transport and markets for the products of their industry.

This aspect of the matter must be con sidered. rE Commonwealth Government should take immediate steps to ascertain approximately the number of men still serving in the armed forces who would be interested in taking a course of training preparatory to settling in the islands after the war, and should follow up by making the necessary arrangements to begin tuition for these men as soon as the war situation in the Pacific makes it possible to do so.

There should be no insurmountable difficulties in arranging for one or more of the Government plantations in New' Guinea or Papua to be made available for the purpose. ,