Mr. Ward Will View His Kingdom
pp. 7-8 · Read in the full issue
AT an early date—“early in the New Year,” says Canberra—the Hon. E. J. Ward, Minister in Charge of Australia’s Pacific Territories, will travel north to inspect the Socialistic paradise he has created in Papua and New Guinea.
It is an old saying that if one puts a beggar on horseback, he will ride to the devil. In other words, if you give an inexperienced man control of an important establishment, he prob ably will wreck it. Mr. Ward, a Leftist thinker of fixed ideas, without any background of business experi ence, administrative skill or know ledge of living conditions in the tropics, was given dictatorial powers over the hitherto prosperous Terri tories; and he has certainly ridden them to the devil. Here, carefully listed, are his major accomplish ments:— He has placed a halter around the neck of Big Business, by limiting the trading operations of the firms, so that the distribution of goods to Europeans and natives is under re striction. They may not handle the Islands’ main agricultural product (copra), and they have no control over shipping.
As part of his plan of throttling Big Business, he has created the Production Control Board, which compulsorily acquires all copra pro duced, and pays the grower whatever price it thinks fit; and he has taken charge of all shipping, both overseas
and coastal, so that sea-trans portation within the Territories is a Government monopoly.
He has destroyed the old native labour indenture system—evolved in 40 years of practical co-operation between Administration and em ployers—and has put in its place another native labour system, that is the product of his own violently prejudiced mind in combination with ideas presented by a carefully-chosen group of impractical missionaries and idealistic anthropologists. The result is an undependable, ex pensive and less efficient labour supply.
He is spending between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000 per annum—funds provided by overtaxed Australia—on a policy designed to convert the Stone Age people of Papua and New Guinea into intelligent peasant farmers, and to push European planters, miners and traders out of the Territories, altogether.
Mr. Ward has been carrying out this general plan for five years. One could see his hand at work between 1942 and 1945. It was not a free hand, because the Army was in occupation, and it could do little more than sketch the design. But as soon as the war was over, and the military marched out, Mr. Ward’s plans came quickly into effect; and in 1946 and 1947 we have seen a huge and expensive organisation created for the benefit and glorification of
Fuzzy-wuzzy, while non-official Euro pean settlers, and Private Enterprise generally, has been taking a fearful hiding.
MANY of us, in our innocence, knowing nothing of the capa bilities of Mr. Ward, had foreseen a period of prosperity and progress in Papua and New Guinea. We knew that all the natural products of the country would be in great demand, that their prices would be high, and that the majority of the returned Europeans, through the compensation provided by the fortuitously-conceived War Damage Commission, would be well equipped to take fullest advan tage of these conditions.
A post-war boom in New Guinea seemed inevitable; and we believed that, by the time it was over, New Guinea would be developed, settled, staffed and equipped to play its im portant part in the defence of Aus tralia—as a great natural barrier between an empty white continent, and the hungry masses of over crowded Asia.
Instead of that, under the bright pink Socialism of Mr. Ward, we have two Territories which have become the home of two thousand depressed Europeans, one million bewildered natives, and an economy which is kept going only on funds generously shovelled out of the Australian Treasury by Ministerial incompetents who know nothing of the value of money.
Mr. Ward, of course, would describe the foregoing as Fascist nonsense—
the mere outpourings of the mouth piece of Big Business. He insists that he has applied his talents and his powers to rescuing the natives from virtual slavery, and the European settlers from the grip of the mono polistic Big Firms.
In actual fact, his policy in New Guinea is simply a part of the Aus tralian Socialist Government’s attack upon Private Enterprise generally.
The difference is that in Australia, the people can kick back—as in the Victorian election. In New Guinea, they are unrepresented in Parlia ment, voiceless and powerless.
THERE were plenty of opportunities for reform in New Guinea. The Territories which the Japs invaded at the end of 1941 were no colonial models —no great praise was given to Australian administration. Beyond any doubt, the Big Firms had mono polistic powers which were capable of abuse. Unquestionably, there was need for a new native policy, so that our use of native labour would become part of a system under which the natives generally would be assisted towards education, better health, technical training and a gradually improved standard of living. Aus tralia’s native policy in the Territories was not all it should have been; but it was not the hand-maiden of in dustrial slavery, as Mr. Ward has so frequently alleged.
The evils and abuses in New Guinea were not nearly sufficient to justify the socialistic revolution which Mr.
Ward engineered and directed. They could and should have been dealt with by a moderate Administration, working in close association with the experienced non-official Europeans in the Territories, and especially the planters and the missionaries. In 1940, the Australian Government, like the great majority of Europeans in the two Territories, had a keen appreciation of Australia’s Territorial obligations, and would have honoured them.
THIS writer, before 1940, travelled all over Papua and New Guinea —as well as over most South Pacific Territories—and he saw nothing in the nature of abuse of power or in justice to the natives, sufficient to raise an outcry about. The adminis trative policies had many short comings, which he stressed in articles published at the time; but nothing to justify a revolution.
The two Territories despite those shortcomings, made good progress be tween 1920 and 1940—sufficient to support the statement that if Aus tralia had followed her policies—with certain important amendments— after 1945, both European and native interests would have been properly taken care of.
Perhaps the Big Firms were too strong in certain directions; but it must be remembered that no task of pioneering and organisation—such as was called for in New Guinea—can be successfully undertaken except by
powerful financial interests, motivated by a prospect of big profits. Mr.
Ward’s present set-up in New Guinea could no more pioneer developmental progress in that great primitive country than it could fly to the moon.
In the two years since the Jap sur render let Mr. Ward loose in New Guinea we have seen more blunder ing, more chaos, and more monstrous social injustice in the Territories than we saw in the two decades prior to the war.
We had hoped to see the Europeans of New Guinea, who suffered so cruelly in the invasion, compensated by the benefits of a substantial “boom.” Instead, they have become the victims of the political accident which let a team of Socialistic doctrinaires and anthropological dreamers loose upon the country. Is it any wonder that the best of New Guinea’s pioneer settlers are now preparing to migrate to the British African colonies, where the qualities of personal initiative and private enterprise are appreciated, and the native policy is framed by realists?
THE people of New Guinea will be interested in seeing Australia’s Mr. Ward. They must not expect to meet either a charlatan or a fool.
Mr. Ward is a man of unusual quality—he probably is the most able man in the Canberra Government.
He is widely read, he has—when he wishes—suave and charming man ners, and his private life is un impeachable.
But he probably is the most dangerous man in public life in Aus tralia. That is because his judgment is coloured and twisted by his hates, and his hates form the background of his political life. He is a section alist run amok. He does not plan for the good of all classes—only for one class. In his view, there can be only one class of people in the world worthy of his consideration, and they are those who subscribe to his Marxist ideas—all others are Fascists, ex ploiters, criminals or nitwits, and must on no account be tolerated.
When he is treated in similar fashion by others, he puts on a show of fury that is a most interesting revelation of character. Somewhere in his early life he must have suf fered great social injustice, so that, to the zeal of the true reformer, he has added the blind passion of a man consistently thwarted. And that is a pity, because “Eddie” Ward, over and above it all, is a man of great natural ability, who really could have done for his fellow-men something immensely more impressive than he has accomplished so far in the Terri tories.
As it is, the turn of the political wheel probably will soon throw him back into the oblivion of opposition, where he will be able to accomplish nothing. When he returns to power, probably with the next turn of the nolitical wheel, he will be too old to be of much use—or danger,