Help NG Servicemen

Before S-E Asia Legco Member Urges Soldier Settlement

IF the Australian Government could afford to make a gift of £35,000,000 to buy the friend ship of the people of South-East Asia, said Mr. Carl Jacobsen, speak ing to an adjournment of the Papua-New Guinea Legislative Council in May, then it surely could find sufficient money to finance a War Service Land Settlement Scheme in Papua and New Guinea.

He said that he had been advised that the matter was “receiving some attention’—but that had been said of the Land Titles Restoration Ordinance, which took a matter of six years to be enacted.

Soldier Settlement in Australia was a States matter, but in P-NG it surely was the responsibility of the Commonwealth: and, to his mind, the securing of the friendship and loyalty of returned men in the Territory was as important as con tributing to a Colombo Plan, and probably such friendship and loyalty would be more sincere.

A number of Australians who had fought in New Guinea thought well enough of the country to return after the war. These and local

volunteers were fully as deserving of enjoying the privileges of a Land Settlement Scheme as their comrades who had remained in Australia.

Mr. Jacobsen said that he was taking the opportunity to formally protest against the delay in imple menting such a scheme in the Territory, and he urged that some

thing be done without furthei delay. (In reply to a question by Mr Jacobsen at another stage of tin session, the Government Secretary! said that “the matter of the tablishment of a scheme for Wai Service Land Settlement in th( Territory of Papua and Nev Guinea has been the subject o]

:ose investigation. As a result, •oposals for a scheme similar to nat operating in tha Common ealth are under examination at •esent by the Minister for Terri ries and the Minister for the In rior.”)