Papua-New Guinea!
pp. 7-8 · Read in the full issue
More Plans and Planners For Papua-New Guinea!
NEW and a quite remarkable stage , has been reached in the history of cialist Administration in Papua-New linea, three or four years, the Australian vernment has been under sharp and Teasing criticism, by Australians, be ise of its neglect of European interests the Islands; the absurd lengths to ich it has gone in its preoccupation :h “native welfare”; its attempts to itrol trade and transport; and its all •-apparent hatred of private enterprise.
Slow, ironically, it is furiously on the fensive against attacks made upon its ands administration by the Red and ik gentlemen of the United Nations, on 3 grounds that it is enslaving, oppress j and exploiting the natives, and is Llty of deplorable capitalistic trends, lere has been nothing quite so piquant, • years, as the spectacle of Mr. Reg. illigan and Mr. J. D. L. Hood, at Lake ccess, defending the administration of ■. Ward against the charges of the Mus /ite Soldatoff and the Filipino Ingles, it the natives were grossly underpaid, der-educated, over-taxed, over-worked, d were not sufficiently consulted in re ion to government. Messrs. Halligan d Hood tried hard to explain that these 3 mostly primitive Stone Age people, 10 may be brought along towards self vernment only gently and by degrees; t they merely got the surly and snarl- I rejoinders that are so typical of the ids on the UNO war-path.
Phat was in July. At the end of Sep nber, at Lake Success, the same Idatoff, with a Polish Red and a couple other irresponsibles, set out again in 11 sail after Australia. Here, for ample, is Soldatoff, in a typical out rst:—
“There is not one native inhabitant of New Guinea who can take any part in the adminis tration of the Territory.
“New Guinea is administered solely by Aus tralian officials.
“On Nauru Island the wages paid to the native inhabitants range from £A.6O to £A.7O a year for a worker with a family of four.
“This money is just enough to allow for the purchase of 1 lb. of carrots or half a pound of tomatoes for each individual daily.
“Clearly to live on such wages is impossible.”
Just like that. He cannot accept the facts that there is no New Guinea native capable of carrying out administration duties; that the handful of natives on Nauru rarely work, because they derive such liberal revenues from phosphate royalties; and that the safest and soundest policy is to leave these natives entirely to their own way of life, under which they are well-fed, comfortable and happy.
The newspapers have been reporting much of the Soldatoff sort of rubbish.
They should defeat the game of the Com munists by ignoring such discussions.
PERHAPS, in these circumstances, we may find an explanation for the an nouncement made on October 11 by the Australian Prime Minister, that a Cabinet sub-committee and an inter departmental committee have been set up to consider a five-year development plan for Papua-New Guinea.
The development plan covers economic, social, educational, political, and financial aspects.
Mr. Chifley said the inter-departmental com mittee will comprise representatives of the De partments of External Territories, Treasury, External Affairs. Works and Housing, Com merce and Agriculture, and the Administrator of Papua-New Guinea,
A representative of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia will join the meetings as an ob server.
The Cabinet sub-committee will include the Minister for External Territories, Mr. E, J, Ward (chairman); the Prime Minister; the Minister for External Affairs, Dr. H. V. Evatt; the Minister for Works, Mr. N. Lemmon, and the Minister for Commerce, Mr. R. T, Pollard.
A few days earlier, on October 6, it was announced in the Commonwealth Gazette that the Department of External Territories had formed a new “research and development division,” which will — • Prepare, co-ordinate, and develop plans for the economic, social, and educational ad vancement of the external territories of Papua and New Guinea, Norfolk Island, and Nauru; • Organise research into all matters dealing with the administration of those territories; • Deal with Commonwealth obligations affect ing the external territories made under inter national agreements.
The Department now is seeking an Assistant-Secretary for the Division, at a salary of between £1,170 and £1,450. He must have a degree or diploma in agricul ture or economics, “as well as experience of the Territories.”
It is not stated that the 5-years’ plan ties in with the new sub-division plan; but presumably they are complementary, if not inter-woven.
THERE is nothing at all wrong with the idea of more intensive development of the Papua-New Guinea area ac cording to a plan based on science and practical knowledge. But, with the events of the past five or six years very fresh in mind, we may be pardoned if we ex press doubts concerning both the honesty of the proposal and the value of the plan proposed.
The announcement is strangely timed in relation to both the attack at Lake Success, and the Australian General Election on December 10. Canberra has shown ridiculous sensitivity regarding dis cussions at Lake Success. Some Chinese labourers at Nauru created a disturbance when they resisted repatriation, and were
quite properly disciplined. A few natives have been babbling to Communist agents.
But some Red in the United Nations made a howl about it, and about “downtrodden natives” (the Nauru natives probably are the richest and most pampered in the Pacific), whereupon an Australian Minister dropped everything, dashed off to Nauru, removed the Administrator, and made all sorts of pathetic appeals and assurances to the Trusteeship Council.
Communist delegates at Lake Success, hitting back at Australia because Aus tralia has moved to let daylight in on Red oppression in Bulgaria, Roumania and Hungary, have made charges in respect of conditions in New Guinea that are. on the face of them, ridiculous. They should have been treated by Canberra in the way that South Africa treated the Russians’ attempt to interfere in Southwest Africa.
But Canberra, in these matters, takes its time from Dr. Evatt, who has a sort of United Nations complex; and it is im possible to escape the suspicion that this proposed machinery for a Five Years’
Plan is merely a little window-dressing for the delectation of the United Nations.
If it were otherwise, why should §uch a proposal be advanced on the eve of a general election, in which there is at least a 50-50 chance that the Socialist Govern ment and all its much-criticised works will be swept away?
IF it were honest, it is quite a good pro posal. But it may be pointed out that the Territories have had a sur feit of Plans and Planners, and the elaborate machinery of the bureaucrats, and all they ask for now is some honest to-goodness administration by some prac tical men who can keep their heads out of the clouds and their feet on the hard and unromantic earth.
We may not forget the Army Research Council of around 1943-4, and the horde of anthropologists, academicians and star spangled colonels which descended upon New Guinea, complete with special trans port and happy batmen, to prepare for Mr. Ward a series of Plans which gave us the Production Control Board, the Government Shipping Monopoly, the Native Labour Ordinance, and the most disheartened and frustrated public service ever known in the history of New Guinea.
As far as we know, not one experienced non-official Territorian was then taken officially into council; and it looks as if the new Five Years’ Plan is going to be marked by the same reluctance to ac cept advice from non-officials. This hatred of people who live by individualism and private enterprise, and this child like faith in the wisdom of the bureau crat and the Planner, are typical of the Canberra set-up. By a strange coinci dence it is typical, too, of the administra tions which flourish behind the Iron Curtain. It is a super-planner, one Cripps, who has brought Britain to the brink of ruin.
It is interesting to note that, just at the moment when Canberra is trying to impress the world with its Five Years’
Plan for the development of New Guinea, and making passionate promises for the betterment of Nauru, it proposes to ap point, as Administrator of Nauru, an inconspicuous South Australian Labour politician, who probably never has seen a coconut palm, and certainly has not had one hour’s practical experience of tropical administration. Need more be said?
Major H. S. N. Robinson has resigned from the general secretaryship of the Melanesian Mission. For 25 years he has been general secretary and treasurer of the Diocese of Melanesia and he has served four bishops. His successor will be Mr. H. W. Bullen.