New Guinea Balance Sheet

London Colonial Expert Endorses Mr. Ward's Policy for the Territories

AN article in_ the “Sydney Morning Herald” of March 28. describes Mr.

Ward, Australian Minister for Ex ternal Territories, as one of New Guinea’s chief assets; and the Public Service and the commercial fraternity as part of the Territories’ liabilities.

The article is by Dr. Lucy Mair, a lec turer in Colonial Administration at the London School of Economics, and lat terly, a lecturer at the School of Civil Affairs at Holdsworthy, NSW, which trained Army men for posts as Patrol Officers in ANGAU. She spent a brief time in New Guinea as the guest of Ex ternal Territories.

Using her own 'language, Dr. Mair’s asset is that she brings a fresh view point to bear on New Guinea; and, whether Territorians will admit it or not, there is something to be said for the viewpoint of an intelligent visitor who can see a Territory, not complete of itself, as residents are apt to do, but in relation to the rest of the world and world trends.

Her disqualifications are that she was associated with Mr. Ward’s department, and went to New Guinea as his guest, and therefore cannot be expected to take an unbiased view of affairs there.

She shows little appreciation of the problems of New Guinea’s European resi dents in fact, refuses to acknowledge that they have problems—and therefore shows little sympathy for them. From the context of an article (called, inci dentally, “New Guinea’s Future Under Trusteeship”) it is indicated that she does not understand the distinction between Papua and the former Mandated Terri tory. It is the Mandate that will be administered under trusteeship, not Papua. In part, her article says:— The restored Civil Government started with these assets: An Administrator with the outside experience that in all other Colonial Territories of the world is re garded as a necessary qualification for the post, a full appreciation of modern trends in colonial policy, and a clear conception of the practical measures that they in volve; a Minister who, for the first time in Australia’s history, had the vision to formulate a policy covering all aspects of development; and a small number of energetic young officials whose experi ence in direct contact with natives has convinced them of the necessity and the practicability of such a policy.

As liabilities, it has: A group of public servants who are more deeply concerned with their own seniority than with the future of New Guinea; a large body of opinion, inside and outside the Public Ser vice, which knows nothing of conditions in the rest of the colonial world and dreads all change; a constitutional rela tionship with Canberra which leads to endless delays on the simplest issues; and the almost complete apathv of the Aus tralian public.

If New Guinea fails to attain standards that are now taken for granted elsewhere,

it will not be because they are unattain able. It will merely be because Australia is not prepared to implement the claims of her representatives abroad to be the apostles of trusteeship by paying what, in terms of modern budgets, would not even be a very high cost.

Editorial Note

rno describe Mr. Ward as the first per- X son in Australia’s history to have such a vision splendid, is plainly ridiculous. Murray, Wisdom, Griffith—to name a few Administrators of Papua or New Guinea—had vision and, as well, the good sense to believe also in a policy of gradualness.

It can be said of Mr. Ward—who, before he became Minister for External Terri tories, was totally disinterested in Fuzzy wuzzies—that he started out in his new role with many pre-conceived ideas about down-trodden natives and their so-called exploitation by Europeans. He then gathered around him theorists of his own political colouring—men and women who had been kept in correct focus by pre vious Administrations, but who under Mr. Ward went to work to formulate a new native labour policy for New Guinea.

Some of their “reforms” were sane and inevitable. Some were stupid. All would have been more valuable had Mr. Ward been realist enough to add men of prac tical experience to his close circle of advisers. He was no realist; neither did he introduce his policy gradually, as was fair and just, but followed the well-worn revolutionary pattern of destroying the old system—the best of it with the worst —and then starting in from that rubble pile to build up the new.

Dr. Mair states that the grievances of the business community and the Public Service are from time to time published in the press, and she comments: “One would think that these were the only people in New Guinea; or, possibly, that the million natives have nothing to com plain of.”

The million natives -of New Guinea have had plenty of which to complain, particularly under the v/ar and imme diate post-war conditions, where Dr. Man saw them. And Australia has a tremen dous amount to learn from other Colonial Administrations. But there has been no lack of newspaper publicity for the Fuzzy wuzzies; since they were discovered by the Australian and overseas Bobby-sox press in 1942, millions of words have been spilled on their virtues and on plans for their future.

On the other hand, space for the just grievances of the European residents of the Territories has seldom been given; and, when it has, reluctantly, there has been complete lack of understanding of Europeans’ problems, or of sympathy.

New Guinea residents were lucky if they escaped the Japanese holocaust with a whole skin; yet no poems have been written eulogising their virtues, imagin ary and otherwise; and there have been no vast schemes blue-printing new heavens and earths for them. Their lot would have been immeasurably worse, however, if they had left it entirely in the hands of the generous construc tionists of Canberra; only by standing to gether and fighting every inch of the way have they managed to survive the onslaughts of Ward’s petty bureaucracy.

Territorians, therefore, will not be im pressed by Dr. Mair’s contention that they have howled over-often to the Aus tralian press.

theorists may feel J that the chaos that has prevailed in Papua and southern New Guinea since October, 1945, is worthwhile so long as their programme of reform is started on schedule. But the realists, whether within or without the Territories, will be hard to convince of that. The essential fact to them is that in Europe men, women and children are starving for want of the very fats which they can produce in New Guinea and which, in the form of copra, are being allowed to rot; that Aus tralia is so short of copra herself that she is importing it from Ceylon, and that a soap famine in Australia is threatened.

When labour contracts were cancelled last October all work on plantations in Papua and south of the Markham ceased.

Because of the shipping position, many of these released labourers could not be immediately repatriated to their places; some of them were still waiting in camps —where they were fed at Government ex pense—in December. On February 28, when territory north of the Markham was taken over by Civil Government, all labour contracts were cancelled there also. The same acute muddle now exists in the northern districts.

It is hard to convince plain men that such waste of money, manpower and a commodity for which the world is clam ouring, is not criminal.

NO doubt, as Dr. Mair indicates, the Territory will sort itself out of its present mess and achieve in the future some measure of success. But this will not be because of Mr. Ward and his visions, or because of his advisers and their theories, but because practical, fair minded men are prepared to knuckle down and do a job of work in a coun try that, whatever its hardshios and drawbacks, they are prepared to make their own.

The perennial native-versus-European wrangling is quite unprofitable at this stage, in any event; so much depends upon the point of view. It is a safe bet that if their Government salaries could be taken from Ward, Mair & Co., if they could be landed on some New Guinea beach with their bare hands, a little gear and their initiative for equipment, and be persuaded to take themselves to the bush for the purpose of making a living—in stead of proceeding on grand conducted tours—they would, in perhaps five years, have a very different opinion of New Guinea, its European residents and its natives, than they have to-day.

It is disclosed that a number of issues of New Caledonian stamps were made by the Vichy Government in France during the war years which have never been seen in New Caledonia. The Noumea “Bulletin de Commerce” remarks that they must have proved a source of profit for metropolitan collaborationists. The Issues include an air-mail stamp of 100 francs, issued June 26, 1944; a Defence of the Empire series issued July 21, 1941; an air-mail PEIQI (protection of native youth) issue of three stamps; a Marshal Petain issue of two stamps (September, 1941); two Oeuvres Coloniales stamps (June 26, 1944); and a Caledonian stamp of the French Entr’aide series (June 25, 1945).

Mr. H. W. Gray, who was for many years in the service of Burns, Philp (South Sea) Co., Ltd., at various Islands branches, and latterly manager at Lau toka, Fiji, has been appointed a director and general manager of Mate’s, Ltd., and Tawonga Timbers Pty., Ltd., of Albury, NSW. The control of these two com panies was recently acquired by Burns Philp & Co., Ltd.