Travel North

PIM Editor Can Again Travel North Wardism and the Permit System

NOW that Socialist control of Papua- New Guinea is gone, the editor of the Pacific Islands Monthly will be permitted to visit the Australian Terri tories again. Before War and Wardism, he usually had a look round the Terri tories every year.

Although he did a minor war job in the Gilberts in 1941, he was unable to visit Papua and New Guinea between 1940 and 1945; but, as soon as the Japs surrendered, and the war was over, he made formal application to be allowed to visit Papua-New Guinea.

To his astonishment, the Socialist Minister for Territories, Mr. Ward, re plied personally to the application. He said (see PIM, February, 1946) that he could see no good reason why Mr. Rob son should visit the Territories, and therefore the application was refused. He added that if Mr. Robson would renew his application in six months’ time, the application would be “considered.”

The PIM editor wrote the following footnote: “It is unlikely that we shall visit the Territories in 1946; but we shall visit the Territories many, many times after Minister Ward, and the quaint Socialist structure he has erected in the Territories, have been consigned to the limbo of forgotten politicians.”

Unfortunately, the Australian Socialist Government was not defeated in 1946, as we had hoped; and, as the editor was un willing to again stick his neck out for Mr. Ward’s axe, he had to wait another three years. The PlM’s assistant editor (Mrs. Tudor), disguised as a woman, has been able to get past Canberra’s guard, and visit Territories’ centres, but for years past the editor has confined his travels to Fiji and places eastward.

Now that responsible government has been restored, it is hoped that the cum bersome, bureaucratic system of Travel Permits will be wiped out, and only sufficient control retained to regulate traffic to the capacity of the accommoda tion available in Papua and New Guinea.