Australian Labourites and New Guinea Servicemen

Some Phrases That Should Not Be Forgotten

FOR purposes of record, if for no other reason, we reprint here, from the Australian “Hansard,” some of the utterances regarding New Guinea resi dents made in the Australian Parliament by gentlemen who describe themselves as Labour members.

Our first quotation is as follows: “It is amusing to hear people say that we shall not give up New Guinea. To these people I would say that if it should become necessary to defend our Man dated Territory, they should defend it themselves.”

The date was November, 1938, and the speaker was the Hon. E. J. Ward, now Australia’s Minister for External Terri tories, and the gentleman largely respon sible for present conditions in Papua and New Guinea.

The 1943 elections brought into Parlia ment a curious Labour Party specimen called Bryson; and this is what Mr.

Bryson had to say on July 19, 1945, when he was supporting Mr. Ward’s Papua- New Guinea Provisional Administration Bill: “I am not prepared to support white men in New Guinea, whether they be ex-soldiers or not, making large profits by means of slave labour. The sugges tion has been made that the white settlers in these territories are acting as a buffer between Australia and potential enemies.

That argument should not have been introduced, because the statement is incorrect. When the Japanese attacked the islands to the north of Australia the only fight that was put up there was by our soldiers.

“When the Japanese invaded New

Guinea the white settlers left as quickly as they could. We have also heard of the valorous conduct of certain black troops in New Guinea, and also black carriers. Their labour should not be exploited by people who go to New Guinea for the sole purpose of making profits at the expense of the natives.”

Mr. Rankin: That is a rotten statement.

Mr. Bryson: It is true.

Mr. Rankin: Sentimental talk at the expense of the ex-Servicemen who have suffered considerable loss!

Mr. Bryson There is no sentiment about it. We have heard sentimental references to “the poor soldier-planters” who settled in New Guinea, but they went there for one purpose only. The former residents of New Guinea set out to exploit the country and make as much profit as possible for themselves.

Mr. White: They are pioneers. Why not give them credit for it?

Mr. Bryson: I give them credit for that but while they are exploiting the resources of the territory there is no reason why they should employ slave labour.

A little later, Mr. Abbott (Liberal) said: The member for Bourke (Bryson) made a slanderous reflection on the courage of the white planters of New Guinea and the white population generally. He said that the planters in New Guinea and Papua left as hurriedly as possible and fled to the mainland.

Mr. Chambers - And so they did!

Mr. Abbott: The member for Adelaide may repeat that statement till he is blue in the face, but he will not convince me of the truth of it. The report of Mr.

Barry, KC. does not bear it out. Some

of the elderlv men may have left, but a great many settlers fought gallantly in the New Guinea Rifles, and others served as guides to the Australian troops when they arrived.

THE “Sydney Bulletin” (which is the only Australian newspaper compe tent and prepared to discuss Pacific Islands affairs the commentaries of others are mostly ludicrous) refers to the slanders of Bryson and Chambers in a recent issue, when reviewing “Green Armour,” a book about the New Guinea campaigns, by Osmar White, recently published. White, a distinguished war correspondent, has paid a great tribute to the men of New Guinea, ‘ a raggle taggle army of miners, foresters and

civil servants, called to the colours on the day of Pearl Harbour.” Here is only one._ of many such quotations taken White’s book and published in the Huiletin”; It describes the conditions m the Morobe region in July, 1942.

“White men available for service in the area totalled about 800. Many of the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles were beyond military age, but could not be spared because local, knowledge was so precious. Of these 800, only about 300 were fit to fight. The commandos were going down in droves with malaria, dysentery, pneumonia and infected sores.

Ammunition and foodstuffs were getting very short. ...”

“The men had done an astonishing an d h €ro i c j 0 b. They had bluffed more than 12,000 enemy troops into believing that the hinterland was held by strong forces. The guerrilla patrols had been so active that the Japanese dared not venture more than a few miles inland f o r fear of being picked off one by one or wiped out by ambushes. Even more important than that, the guerrillas had maintained watching stations of such efficiency that not a single enemy air craft could land on or take off from the

Markham valley or the Salamaua air field without the fact being reported al most immediately to Moresby.

“Debilitated by fever, half-starved, liv ing under the worst conditions of war, the men of New Guinea and the tough green youngsters who belatedly reinforced them had already done service which should make their country deeply proud and grateful.”

One of the most depressing things seen in the immediate post-war period was the spectacle of the war-torn Territories, and the Territorians who fought and suffered there so gallantly, being “pushed around” by Wards and Brysons and Chambers, who never have vouchsafed them a word of admiration, and whose only concern is to impose upon them some form of Socialistic tyranny, cal culated to discourage their natural initiative and enterprise.