Value to Australia

Pim Is Challenged On

Value to Australia of New Hebrides

By a Special Correspondent

r DO not agree with your summary [ of the position in the New Hebrides —namely, your conten :on that that archipelago has no conomic future so long as the bndominium continues. I think it i of importance to the future of ustralia in the South Pacific that ustralian interests should be en mraged to go into this Territory, ad develop its rich resources.

The old days of the “Pande tonium” (governmental confusion id total lack of guidance for pri ite enterprise) have gone. In their ead has come prosperity—and a iry real prosperity—which is based i the rich soil of these islands.

The economy of the New Hebrides lands is now a very viable one, ised on copra, coffee and cocoa, ining of rich manganese deposits 111 shortly come into the picture: file, in the southern islands, there an active timber industry, run ’ Australians.

Co-operation, with some slight itional bias, is the order of the y between French and British, it there is competition in trading the Burns Philp interests seem to doing well, and are forcing the ench traders to keep prices within asonable limits.

There are 50,000 natives in this oup, and there have been interest l changes in recent decades. In 30, no less than one-third of all ese natives had spent a year or )re as plantation labourers in leensland, and the British indu ce was marked. Except for a mere ndful of officials, all the British the group are Australians; and th directly, and indirectly through Presbyterian and Anglican issions, they have maintained a od relationship with the natives, d that pro-British sentiment still marked.

FTER seeing the extensive i plantations, the bustling ship ping, and other signs of isperity, I cannot accept that .tement in the PIM recently that Jre has been no development of w Hebrides’ natural resources ce the World War I. phe Administration staff is small, t it is more than “a skeletonised ministration.” The Joint Court is ictioning at intervals, and its staff efficient. [he Australian Government hich, about 1906, fell heir to 1,000 acres of New Hebrides land, jueathed to it by the late Sir mes Burns and allied interests) s ceased to maintain a solicitor in a; but the need for this really

has passed Many of the land titles have been issued. When a solicitor is required, he is sent to New Hebrides from Australia.

The Tonkinese are not now the menace you have suggested. They are heading outwards, for Haiphong and Hanoi, as fast as they can book passages—I believe the number re maining in New Hebrides is down to 900.

There is a shortage of labour in the group, but it seems to be to some extent correcting itself. The residents of New Caledonia, who own many of the properties here, are not anxious that the immigra tion of Asiatics should be en couraged. They (the New Cale donians) now are looking for labour towards Wallis Island.

Editorial Note

THE well-informed comments of our correspondent embrace opinions which are not neces sarily those of the PIM.

Settlers in the New Hebrides have advantages (notably, better trans portation, no income taxation, little interference with private e ? t< r£ prise) which are denied those of the adjoining Solomofts Islands Territory. Nonetheless, there is nothing much in the over-all picture in the New Hebrides to encourage new settlement and enterprise. Lack of a labour supply is a very serious factor.

The British Administration is too

small, too remote, too disinterested and too ill-equipped financially to be of any real help or encourage ment to settlers. According to re port, the French Administration is more helpful. But neither can be expected to either actively assist new people to make their homes in these very attractive and rich islands, or to create conditions which would encourage suitable im migration.

The reasons for the lack of de velopment of this fine archipelago over the last 50 years have not changed.

It is generally believed that if no politico-economic partnership with the French in New Hebrides were involved, Australia would extend her Papua-New Guinea administration over Solomons and New Hebrides, to the great relief of the British Colonial Office and the British tax payer.

But Australia will not enter into a New Hebrides Condominium with France. One cannot blame Aus tralia for that.

The French, socially, are among the world’s most charming and agreeable people. But, politically, they are a pain in the neck. Aus tralia has had few contacts with the French in the Pacific—in the South Pacific Commission, for ex ample. No one can claim that they are happy contacts.

Australia, economically, is to-day almost bursting at the seams. Well endowed private enterprise, seeking opportunities, may move into the New Hebrides, as our correspondent suggests. But, if the dual control over New Hebrides could be replaced with something more workable, that trickle of private enterprise into one of Australia’s nearest and richest Tslands neighbours could become a torrent.