The Administratorship Of New Guinea

WHEN a delegation of Papua-New Guinea public servants waited upon the Minister for External Territories in Canberra in December, and badgered him about their working conditions, Mr.

Spender stated bluntly—and with justi fiable irritation—that this was typical of many matters that were being referred to him in Australia and which should be dealt with on the spot, in the Territories.

Later, in Port Moresby, a meeting of public servants, having heard the dele gation’s report, passed “a vote of no confidence” in the Department of Ex ternal Territories.

About the same time, by official edict, the title of “District Officer” was changed to that of “District Commissioner,” in accordance with the promise given by the Minister nine months ago. But it was an empty gesture. There was no sign of the transfer, from Port Moresby to the District Commissioner in the field, of that large measure of local executive authority without which the District Commissioner is hamstrung.

The vicious system under which every decision out of the office-boy class must be made by the administrator in Port Moresby—and, very often, referred by him to the omnipotent Mr. Reg Halligan, in Canberra —apparently is to continue.

The whole set-up tends to make the Minister appear ridiculous; and it is little

wonder that Mr. Spender appears irritated and critical. It is quite well known that both Mr. Spender and his Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Mr. Howse, are looking on, in apparent helplessness, while Mr.

Spender’s much-lauded Territories Policy of last May is rendered more or less nugatory by the fumbling, inexperienced hands of the Ward-appointed Adminis trator, Colonel J. K. Murray.

The question naturally arises: Why, if Colonel Murray cannot implement the policy of the new Australian Government, Is Colonel Murray retained in office? The answer is that the appointment of Colonel Murray was renewed for five years, in 1949, by that arch-politician, Mr. Eddie Ward. Further, Colonel Murray is a courteous and completely sincere gentle man, who is manifestly doing his best, and Mr. Spender presumably shrinks from harsh measures.

But Colonel Murray is so clearly a mis fit in the Administratorship that it is most unfair that the Territories, and the Minister’s own record, should be made to suffer by that final act of unadulterated Ward-ism. A most unsuitable political appointment—that of ex-Socialist Minister Frost to the post of Commissioner in Ceylon—was terminated by the new Aus tralian Government by simply sacking Mr. Frost and paying him compensation; and something of the same line may have to be followed in relation to New Guinea.