South Pacific Regional Commission

Preparations for the New Establishment

SINCE the South Pacific Regional Conference broke up early in February, the staff of the Australian Department of External Affairs has been busy with preparations for the establishment temporarily) in Sydney of the headquarters of the newly-created South Pacific Regional Commission. .. , f About March 20. the address of the Commission, and the name of the Organising Secretary, will be announced. A staff is being selected. As New Zealand

is jointly responsible with Australia for the plan, there will be a New Zealand officer included in the new staff in Syd ney.

The new staff will be immediately con cerned with procedure, the selection of a Secretary-General, and the preparations for the first meeting of the Commission.

Ml the nations concerned (Australia, Britain, United States, France, New Zea land and the Netherlands) will appoint members to the Commission, which will meet in Sydney in June or July.

Delegates 1 Reaction to the Canberra Conference

By R. W. Robson

IT was with regret that I found myself unable to attend the South Pacific Regional Conference in Canberra on January 26—an old-standing business arrangement kept me in New Zealand at that time.

But, as it turned out, this was an ad vantage. The politicians, after their fashion, closed the doors of the Confer ence against the press, except for two sessions; and all the really interesting discussions took place in camera. From the point of view of publicity—and I submit that in a thing like this publicity is essential—that was unwise. The large panel of journalists who had assembled in the belief that there would be real “meat” in this Conference were left kicking their heels in the Canberra heat; and, as is to be expected, their final sum maries were embittered and not very en couraging.

I was in New Zealand and Fiji when all the homing delegates bound east passed through—to New Zealand, to Fiji, to Western Samoa, to the Cook Islands and to French Oceania —and I had unexpected opportunities of discussing the Conference with them.

GENERALLY speaking, the favourable reactions to the ANZAC plan of set ting up a South Pacific Regional Commission were off-set, to an extent, by the non-Australian delegates’ resent ment of Australia’s attempt to “hog” the whole set-up. The non-Australian dele gates feel— and quite rightly—that most important territories of the Pacific lie outside Australian Territories of Papua and New Guinea. Why, then, should Australia try, in so stubborn a fashion, to shape the Conference and dominate the Commission?

The Australian delegates and spokes men left the non-Australians with the impression—probably quite unintentional and erroneous, but none the less a fact — that in their opinion no administrative record worthy of the name had been made in the other Territories, and that the policies of other countries in relation to native government in the Islands were not comparable in brilliance and design with the policies which the Australian Socialist Government is now trying to put into operation in Papua and New Guinea.

Australia’s readiness to pay 30 per cent, of the total cost of the new Commission, and her insistence that the headquarters of the Commission should be in either Australia or in the depressing little toy)n of Port Moresby at the extreme end of the region concerned, did nothing to lessen the other delegates’ suspicions.

IN a general way, the delegates were suspicious of certain plans more or less thrust upon them by Australia;

and I found everywhere a definite fear that the advisory function of the new South Pacific Regional Conference would be changed by the Socialist Governments of Australia, Britain and New Zealand into something more than advisory.

Another thing which troubled the dele gates lay in the haste and eagerness of the Australian Government in pushing on with widespread plans for research, by a variety of experts. Sober-thinking people argue that in this period of intense wide-world disturbance there is no great urgency in developing new and far reaching plans for the uplift of the Islands peoples. Time enough to make plans for the brown-skinned races when the majority of the white-skinned races have got over their post-war sicknesses and returned to better standards of life.

Instead of hurrying to appoint teams of exnerts, it is argued, it would be better to spend the next twelve months, while the world is recovering from its numerous sicknesses, in a general survey of admin istrative, health, educational and indus trial conditions in all the territories of the South Pacific, with a view to recog nising and lining up for consideration the actual needs of those nlaces, and the degree of examination and co-ordination required in any expert investigation.

IT is recognised that, as Australia was instrumental in calling the confer ence, and is naying 30 per cent, of the cost of the Commission, Australia is entitled to call most of the tune; but it will be a great mistake at this stage if the tune is loud and blatant and self assertive, and kept on a socialistic key.

Not everyone outside of Australia admires Australian Ministers’ performances as much as the Australian Ministers do.

I should be doing a completely wrong thing if I gave the impression that the dispersing delegates regarded the Confer ence as a failure and the new Commis sion as cock-eyed in its set-up. Pract ically all of them are supporters of the Commission. But some are not happy re garding immediate plans; and this is the time to sound a note of warning.

The new Commission has a tremendous possibility for good, and if it is wisely handled in its early and formative stages it will represent an achievement of which its early sponsors may well be proud.

But it is most necessary to remind the people in charge of it at this stage that Australia is not the world; that Austra lia’s share of the Pacific is represented only by a section of primitive Melanesia; and there are many South Pacific Terri tories which cannot be judged or legis lated for in terms of Melanesia.

The next meeting of the Fiji Legis lative Council has been tentatively set for the second week in March.