We Too Ha ve Had Our

IN a straight-from-the-shoulder article in Sydney Sun recently, Dr. W. E. H.

Stanner, of the Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National Uni versity, Canberra, gave us something that we have ceased to expect from University professors—sense. It was as refreshing as a cool breeze in a roomful of human fug.

In his own experience, Dr. Stanner says, he has found that universities, politics, government, churches and the professions are riddled with a style of social thought that, at one extreme, fuses with moral cynicism and, at the other, with a greenstick Utopianism.

He says that Australians, since about 1940, have been saturated in the same kind of mentality that produced what he calls the “moonstruck” groundnut scheme in Africa which cost the British public about £36 million and broke the hearts of Englishmen and Africans.

The groundnut scheme mentality, he thinks, consists of five main elements:— • An inability to distinguish between a fable —that is, a false belief making strong appeal to the emotions —and plain if difficult facts of record. • A contempt for the humble common sense of human experience and a stupid addiction to glittering slogans invented by phrase-mongers. • A credulity toward social “planning” and “engineering,” based on pseudo scientific theories of economics, politics and society. • An astonishing misconception of the nature of human society, how it works, how it may prudently be improved to

accord with developing ideas, and how narrow is the line between stability and chaos. • A stubbornly purblind refusal to see that many social facts are independent of the human will, and do not respond at call to personal or national preferences.

Most of the great disappointments and tragedies in social history began with a fable that is compounded of half-truths, emotional slogans and a concealed or open promise of Utopia. The groundnut scheme had all these elements. For a generation, British Colonial history has been misrepresented and vilified by the fables and slogans of all the isms, from Communism to Fascism—no one who wished to say simply that colonial ad ministration was just plain difficult, could get a hearing. After the war, the British people decided that they were through with what used to be called commonsense —that was “reactionary”—what they wanted was “progressive men” and “dynamic” outlooks, and “big thinking.”

“Well,” says Dr. Stanner, “they got a groundnut plan so progressive it shot through; so dynamic that its feet never touched ground at all; and so big that it ate itself to death while producing nothing.”

HE lists half a dozen Australian “groundnut schemes” of recent years. We quote three here;— NEW GUINEA POLlCY— Fables: “Ex ploited natives”; “the past is dead”; “the four freedoms for New Guinea”: “a peasant nation in 20 years.” Outcome: The same old problems, greatly exacer bated.

Indonesian Policy Fables:

“Wicked Dutch imperialism”; the “in evitable” end of “colonialism”;- “a pro gressive policy will win Indonesian friendship.” Outcome: No Indonesian friendship, and a danger to Australia clearly foreseen by Mr. Curtin in 1939.

IMMIGRATION— FabIes: “Populate or perish”; “an empty continent”; “immigra

tion is development”: “250,000 migrants a year”; “America did it, so can we”; “immigration means greater military strength.”

Outcome: A flood of ifl-assorted ethnic, social and political elements pouring into a strained, badly-structured, defective economy to dissipate further an already weakened Australian way of life.

Australia with her thriving export of day-old chicks seems to be doing her bit to improve the poultry stocks of New Guinea. With a somewhat similar idea, the Director of Agriculture of Dutch New Guinea, Dr. Joseph Brant jes, who recently visited Sydney, has taken back five dozen Australorp eggs which he hopes will hatch out in Hollandia and form the nucleus of a stud poultry farm.

Miss Dorothy Stewart who has been helping Mr. Arthur Brown establish his Ascot Hotel in Rabaul, New Guinea, left for Queensland by air on May 28. She plans to be away from the Territory for about six months. Her place at the Ascot has been taken by Mr. and Mrs. Dick Seath, who arrived in Rabaul on the May Bulolo.