What Australia Proposes To Do With New Guinea—

and a Question About Samoa

I?VER since Hitler, In 1939, like ~r Omar Khayyam’s hero, shattered the world, with a view to remoulding it nearer to his heart’s desire, it has Deen recognised that the Government or New Guinea would be changed.

New Guinea was governed by Austraiia under mandate from the League of Nations; and the League was doomed, of course, from the moment that World War II began— no matter who were the victors.

The Axis Powers were destroyed by e +F n *xT^-?^j^ ons ’ and the Charter vT Nations, on which is cased UNO (United Nations Organisation) was signed at San Francisco June L 1^ 45 ' UNO re P. laces the League of Nations; and Article 75 of SL«!!f 1 i. er provides for an international trusteeship system (“for the e^ m l Str^ and supervision of may be P laced s }J bs I ?^ ue ut individual which will take the Mandate system. All + ones ha ; ve announced willingness to surrender their Mandates in favour of UNO trusteeship.

Until UNO makes further progress, and hammers its trusteeship system into practical shape, however, nothmg more can be done. Therefore,

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AUSTRALIA has approached the matter in a series of steps. On January 17, 1946, the Government declared its intention of placing New Guinea under the trusteeship system, On March 13. 1946, the Minister for External Affairs promised that Par liament would be given details of the plan. On August 7, 1946, the Prime Minister stated that Australia was consulting other States concerning the draft of a proposed agreement between Australia and UNO.

Australia’s draft proposes; (a) Aus tralia will have complete and ex elusive power in controlling New Guinea’s administration, subject only to an obligation to carry out duties imposed by the Charter; (b) it must be recognised that Australia’s control of New Guinea is fundamental to her defence; (c) Australia undertakes to promote the welfare and advance ment of the native peoples; (d) Aus tralia is to have the right to provide naval, military and air bases in New Guinea and to erect fortifications; (e) Australia is to have the right “to bring New Guinea into a customs, fiscal or administrative union or federation with other dependent ter ritories . . and to establish common services.”

The Prime Minister’s statement is summarised in the foregoing para graph; and, assuming that UNO raises no objection, it outlines the character of New Guinea’s future administra tion. Pa P ua and New Guinea will be governed as one Territory, much as

at present. In fact, the policy that has been put into operation during the past couple of years will be the policy of the future—if the Socialists are returned to power in Canberra.

That policy can be summed up as follows: •The interests and welfare of Euro peans, and of European enterprise, will be secondary at all times to the welfare and advancement of the natives, as in terpreted for the Australian Minister by various sociologists, anthropologists and advisers. • The Territories will be administered in accordance with the plans of such ad visers, irrespective of financial considera tions, and on the assumption that the Australian taxpayers will pay all the costs. • Government instrumentalities, and not private enterprise, will be responsible for such services as the provision of transport (sea and air), the purchase of the products of plantations, the financ ing of planters, miners, etc., the pro vision of native labour, and so forth. • The Territories will be heavily gar risoned and fortified.

This outline of Australian policy in the Territories indicates little concern for the encouragement of private enterprise and of European interests generally. European settlement does enter into Canberra calculations, of course; but subject strictly to the Socialistic provisos that the profit motive shall not be encouraged, that big company concerns shall be re stricted in their operations, and that the whites shall get no benefit what ever from employing natives rather than Europeans.

These assumptions may be proved wrong—we hope they are!—but they

are based logically on the events of the past five years, and on what we know to be happening in New Guinea to-day.

THE outlook for Papua-New Guinea settlers and for private enter prise is extremely discouraging, at present. There will be much activity in the two Territories, for at least a couple of years: but it will be mostly administrative activity, at the Aus tralian taxpayers’ expense—and it will come to a tragic end just as soon as the taxpayer rebels against having to pay at least half a million a year for the mollycoddling of Fuzzy wuzzy.

The only hope for the future of European enterprise in New Guinea lies in the defeat of the Australian Labour Party in the September elec tions—and there is little sign of that at present. Such a change would not be a disaster for the New Guinea natives. On the contrary, it might be a very good thing for them. Terri torians of vision and experience are not opposed to natives being assisted, protected and “advanced” in every possible way. But a new regime would insist on native policy being directed by men of practical knowledge and experience, rather than by well meaning theorists, and they certainly would not permit European interests and financial considerations to be sacrificed to the academicians’ Utopia, as they are now.

THE plan of the Australian Socialists, in relation to Papua-New Guinea, is clear enough; but we have had no indication of what is proposed for Western Samoa by the New Zealand Socialist Government, which also is facing a general election.

The circumstances of the two Man dated Territories (New Guinea and Samoa) are completely different. New Guinea definitely is part of the Islands perimeter guarding Australia against Asia, and its control by Aus tralia is essential to Australia’s defence. The New Guinea natives are primitive Melanesians, and must remain in the care of a sympathetic European country for a couple of generations before they can be given even a share in local government. The control of Samoa is not necessarv for the defence of New Zealand; and the cultured and homogeneous Poly nesians who occupy Samoa are as capable of self-government as are their cousins, the Tongans.

It is possible that the plans to be developed by UNO for the future of Samoa will be influenced by the machinery created by the Americans for the administration of the Caroline and other islands, lately mandated to Japan. If the Micronesians of those widely-scattered archipelagoes are considered worthy of some measure of self-government, it can scarcely withheld from Western and Eastern (American) Samoa.

Probably, important recommenda tions in this regard will come, in due course, from the South Seas Regional Commission, now being promoted by Britain, Australia and New Zealand, to function in a close tie-up with the Trusteeship machinery of UNO,