Shape of Things

Editorial . . .

fhy Cannot Australia

5 Honest About N. Guinea?

AUSTRALIA'S attitude in relation I to Indonesia’s claim to Dutch I New Guinea is of considerable iportance both to The Netherlands, d the countries of the South jcific; but Australia’s Ministers are -itatingly coy on the subject.

Indonesia’s politicians have been jining around Western Europe and B United Nations, insisting that fy must get possession of Western iw Guinea; and they have been Iking a talk with Netherlands at fe Hague, at Ministerial level, in ier to promote more amicable re lons.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Casey, feting his opposite number in Jonesia, said incautiously that »y both hoped that Netherlands \ Indonesia would settle their dif fences by a peaceful talk. This fe immediately seized upon as evid ;e that Australia had altered her itude towards Dutch New Guinea diich hitherto has been completely lince then (in early, December) Btralia has declared that her at ide has not changed. Nether ids, while ready to confer with lonesia, has emphasised that she I enter no further discussions re ding the status of Dutch New Jnea. Indonesia now says she I make another appeal to UNO. leanwhile, there has been some favourable comment (voiced ecially by George Whittaker, iC) in New Guinea on the abrupt ncellation of Administrator land’s proposed friendly visit to adjoining Territory of Dutch New inea. No explanation was given; f various observers have assumed ,t the cancellation orders came in Canberra, where high ofiicial q. probably decided that the learance of Brigadier Cleland in llandia would give pain to the r-squawking gentlemen of the ionesian Government, he reaction upon the Dutch has n unfortunate. ocialist Britain, after World War abandoned her Dutch allies and iwed the Javanese rabble to ow the Dutch out of Indonesia, ich they had colonised and built, ing 300 years, into a prosperous I united country. Socialist Aus lia, under the direction of the brgettable Dr. Evatt, helped the (onesians against the Dutch in 5-47, and encouraged her Com nist wharfies to refuse to load tch ships in Sydney Harbour, tie wonder that the Dutch regard with suspicion!

Vhy cannot Australia be frank

and honest? Isolated here in the South Pacific, faced with 1,000 million hungry Asians, we Euro peans need trustworthy friends, to stand beside us when the crisis comes. The Dutch were our friends in Indonesia —they fought beside us to the death, against the invading Japanese—and they are our friends in Western New Guinea.

The Indonesians are wholly un dependable—first, because they are Asians, and no idealistic babbling can hide the basic hatred of Asians for Europeans; and, second, because they are increasingly under the in fluence of Muscovite Communism, whose chief purpose is to destroy the British Commonwealth.

Everyone knows that the con tinued occupation of Western New Guinea by the Dutch is essential to the safety of the South Pacific, and that Indonesia has no shadow of claim to the Territory, anyway.

Why cannot Australia say so? (In Singapore, on December 8, a spokesman for the Indonesian dele gation on its way to the Hague, said Australia’s atitude on the Dutch NG issue was “helpful,” and that his government “appreciated Australia’s advocacy of negotiation.”)

Teachers in Demand

Dr. Mohammed Roem, De

scribed as leader of a party of six prominent Indonesians mak ing a 10-days tour of Australia as guests of the Commonwealth Gov ernment, has been pleading for Australian teachers for Indonesia’s higher schools.

Australia, officially, made no reply.

But it would be typical of the Colombo Planners if they decided to send Australians to work in the Javanese schools, while the whole scheme of native education in Papua and New Guinea is held up by lack of trained teachers.

Australia is spending some £3O million on the Colombo Plan, with the idea of converting Asia’s funda mental hate into love of us. How much more good could have been achieved by using the money on water conservation and irrigation in Northern Australia!

Shape of Things

To Come

THE result of the general election in Indonesia on September 29 — the first since the Javanese politicians seized power from the Dutch in 1945-46—will not be known, finally, until about April, 1956. This is because the electoral system,

"Gentlemen—My successor needs no introduction."

based on a complicated adaptation of proportional representation, calls for endless re-counting and adjust ments.

However, there has been a first counting of 28 millions of the 30 million votes cast; and an unofficial survey suggests that, out of each 26 members elected (there will be some hundreds altogether), the main parties will be represented approx imately thus: Nationalists 7 Masjumi (extreme Moslems) 7 Nahdatul Ulama (conserv ative Moslems) 6 Communists 6 A very large proportion of the 30 million voters are illiterate and, of course, they voted as directed by them communal chiefs and political organisers.

An attempt probably will be made to place a Moslem Government in power—although there is bitter enmity between the two Moslem parties. Both, of course, are anti communist. The Nationalists are pure opportunists, and they may team up with the Communists (as they are doing now) merely to keep themselves in power.

Whichever way, Indonesia seems destined to continue as a restless, undependable and dangerous (be cause of its Communist associations) neighbour of the South Pacific countries.

NG Forests and

Australian Newsprint

PLANNERS for New Guinea should take a look at (a) Australia’s enormous consumption of paper and (b) the enormous soft-wood jungles of Papua and New Guinea; and then perhaps they may see something worth planning about.

Australia, per capita, is one of the biggest consumers of newsprint in the world. Newsprint is being made in Australia; but the supply never will be enough, mostly be cause Australia is a lightly-timbered country, and the eucalypt, in any event, is not the best timber for pulping.

Australia’s newsprint requirements are around 100,000 tons per annum.

In 1954-55, she imported pulp and paper worth £35 millions.

In the jungles of New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago there are endless forests, and at least a proportion of the trees should be suitable for pulping.

Australian politicians go in ever lasting fear of the press; with the result that newsprint so far has escaped import restrictions. But the unfairness of it can be seen when Sydney’s daily newspapers frequently publish 80 pages, nearly all ad vertisement, which few readers even look at. That requires huge amounts of overseas newsprint, while persons wishing to import

essential goods cannot get a license.

When the inevitable happens, and newsprint is rationed, someone might suggest the establishment of a paper-pulping industry in New Guinea.