Samoa
p. 12 · Read in the full issue
Un Praise Nz’S
But Russia Is Amok Concerning New Guinea
DURING a discussion in Paris in Oc tober by a committee of the United Nations on a report of the Trustee ship Council, many delegates praised the New Zealand Administration in Western Samoa and the willingness of the New Zealand Government to co-operate with and assist the Council.
Russian delegates in the Trusteeship Council, however, attacked the Australian administration of New Guinea. They said that Australia had taken away consider able areas of land from the natives — or, at most, had bought it for a mere trifle. They said that health services were poor—there were only 11 doctors for over one million natives. Australian policy was not favouring the development of ‘ local organs of self-government.”
One Russian delegate said that Aus tralia’s plan for the Papua-New Guinea administrative union was “a flagrant violation of the UNO Charter,” and sug gested that a colonies-hungry Australia was trying to grab New Guinea.
The irresponsible Russian statements (obviously supplied by the Australian Reds) will amuse the people who know the facts. The facts are that no area of native land in New Guinea worth mentioning had been alienated since Aus tralia took over New Guinea in 1914; that the pres nt Government has been bitterly criticised for spending too much on native welfare in New Guinea; that the Admin istration cannot engage doctors, because there are not enough doctors to meet current d mands outside the tropics; and that all trusteeship interests have been most scrupulously safeguarded in the plan for administrative union.
Captain P. G. Taylor, well-known pioneer of civil aviation in the Pacific, is to become a director of Trans Oceanic Airways of Sydney, which, under the managing-directorship of Squadron- Leader Bryan Monkton, carries on charter services in Eastern Australia and the Western Pacific. Caotain Taylor at pre sent is away in Sweden on a special mission. His last big job in the Pacific was his survey of the proposed alternative Trans-Pacific route from Mexico to Aus tralia, via Clipperton Island and French Oceania.