British Officials

In The British Solomons

Letter to the Editor A SAYING was current amongst the Old Timers during the war that if the old Tulagi set-up was re-estab lished, then we had lost the war.

The incredible has happened. Tulagi ism, and all that it stands for, is again entrenched in the British Solomons at Honiara. So abandon hope for a better future, all you pioneers and struggling planters!

The writer, with recent first-hand knowledge, had no doubts. The treat ment accorded the homing 14 BSI Resi dents per the “Southern Cross” in April, by Honiara Officialdom (August PIM) should shatter any remaining illusions held by others.

Perhaps one of the most pathetic aspects of human relationships is the doggedness with which poor humans cling to faith and hope in a cause which has already crumbled to decay. Year after year, decade after decade, men in the Solomons have struggled on, buoyed up by the hope that British Justice would at last be done to them, stead fastly refusing to believe that ignorance, selfishness, and apathy would always prevail against them.

Now they know exactly where they stand. The official leopard does not change its spots. Tulagi is still Tulagi, even at Honiara!

A HEART-CRY from the “Southern Cross”; “The hours passed. No official came to welcome us. Official dom, in fact, gave us the impression that they hated us. We, in turn, decided that we did not much like the stiff English rulers . . .”

What did they expect? The extended hand and a welcoming smile? Surely they knew better than that! Official smiles and favours are only for the great of the earth, or pals. Who were these voyagers who had just come home through the perils of the sea? Only a band of non-official heroes and pioneers who had helped to make the Solomons safe for officials to live in.

Some of them were broken in fortune, but were game enough to come back to face it all again in the land they loved.

None of them had wealth, or favours to bestow ... so the cold Official “brush off” for them, Honiara was running true to type—Tulagi type.

A FEW months ago a District Commis sioner, an Englishman, asked a Mission chief in the Solomons; “Why do Australians hate the English?” He should have said: “Some Englishmen of the Official type.”

The answer, of course, is that Aus tralians have a profound respect and affection for the great majority of Eng lishmen —perhaps the finest race Earth has bred. But Englishmen join Austra lians —and Americans —in voicing their criticism, amounting to contempt, almost, of a certain type of British official who hides his inefficient futility behind a facade of superior condescension, cold hostility, and snobbishness. This is the type which should be kept at Home.

Instead of being ambassadors of Empire, they are the most disruptive force of Empire good relationships—and of American as well —for numerous Ameri can officers in the Solomons expressed the same sentiments that are being stated herein.

During the war, a precious plan was incubated in Fiji which aimed at per manently excluding all commercial and planting interests from the Solomons, by making the Group a close preserve for Officials and Missionaries. The war having got the planters and traders out, they were to be kept out.

The plan was strangled at birth by the Higher-Ups. But it revealed the hand of Fiji officialdom. Baffled in that direction, it should not be expected that the same officialdom will show any cor dial desire to help rehabilitate and assist those it tried to eliminate.

I am, etc.,

Caulfield, Vic.

Leslie F. Gill.

28/8/46.