Australian Policy Inconsistent

Editorial Note

Australian Policy Inconsistent and Ridiculous

The following letter, by the editor of the “Pacific Islands Monthly,” was pub lished in some of the leading daily newspapers in Australia in July: I WONDER if the people of Australia know half the outrages being com mitted in their name by their precious Socialist Government. For example, are they aware of what their Immigration Minister, Mr. Calwell, is doing to Islands people of the highly-esteemed Polynesian stock?

A few weeks ago, the Tongan wife of a British resident of Perth, a Mr. Garrick, was informed that she and her children must get out of Australia by September.

She is well-born (cousin of Queen Salote) £nd well-educated. I understand Mr. and Mrs. Garrick already have left Australia for a free country (Britain), and I have read with enjoyment Mr. Garrick’s pertinent comments upon Australian Socialist institutions.

Here is another case, just brought to notice. Mr. Richard Lebendahn, 27-years old linotyper, of mixed German and Samoan parentage, a British subject and a resident of Fiji, was offered a position

by a Queensland daily newspaper, but has been forbidden by Mr. Calwell to enter Australia —presumably because of his Samoan blood.

Tongans and Samoans are of the same race as the Maoris —and there are many Polynesians and thousands of part- Polynesians resident in Australia. When Mr. Calwell announced that Maoris were banned, he was sharply checked by the New Zealand Socialist Prime Minister, whose Government holds power through the votes of the four Maori members (the European members of the NZ Parliament are exactly divided between Socialists and non-Socialists). Mr. Calwell promptly somersaulted, and announced that Maoris could enter Australia.

I then wrote to the New Z-ealand Prime Minister, and asked him if he would use his good offices also on behalf of Polynesians generally, and of Samoans and Cook Islanders in particular. I re minded him that New Zealand is re sponsible for the government of Samoans and Cook Islanders, who are Polynesians, like the Maoris. Mr. Fraser replied in a letter which was a masterpiece of evasion—the effect of whiclv was that “it does not appear that they (other cases affecting Polynesians) are matters with which the New Zealand Government could concern itself.”

The Territories of Papua and New Guinea have been crippled economically by the Australian Socialist Government.

Mr. Ward defends his ban on European enterprise in New Guinea by emphasising Canberra’s passionate interest in the wellbeing of the natives. But the primitive New Guinea Melanesians racially are far below the Polynesians, who are treated by Mr. Calwell as undesirable.

Actually, Polynesians are generally more intelligent, dependable and loyal than the great majority of the Central and South Europeans whom Mr Calwell is so eagerly bringing into the Commonwealth.

Mr. Leo White, of White’s Aviation Ltd., Auckland, paid a short visit to Fiji to take a series of aerial photographs. He left for Australia on August 1.

A number of officers in the Fiji Posts and Telegraphs Department have recently

been promoted. Mr. H. Edmunds hae been appointed Accountant, Mr. W. E. Morrison has been appointed a Postmaster (Special Grade), and Mr. C. E. Mansell and Mr.

J. Wiley have been appointed Assistant Accountants.