Attitude Offensive to

India's Menon On

West N. Guinea

Attitude Offensive to Australia

THAT Indian propagandist at large, Mr. Krishna Menon, made himself offensive to Australia on February 28, during the United Nations discussion on Indonesia’s claim to Western New Guinea.

Australia staunchly supported the Dutch in their possession of West N. Guinea; and this, of course, annoyed the representative of India, which in international affairs is pro- Indonesian.

Menon said that, “because Aus tralia has half of New Guinea under its control as a colony, it does not want the other part to pass out of European control.”

He also argued that, if possession of New Guinea was stategically im portant to Australia, it also was strategically important to Indonesia.

He could not resist a tilt at Aus tralia’s treatment of aborigines. He said that once there were 300,000 of 400,000 blacks in Australia—now there were only 50,000; and he asked what had happened to the re mainder.

Kristna Menon excels in this kind of facile, shoddy rubbish, advanced as sober argument in a conference.

Of what use to point out to him that (a) there are no records to show how many aborigines there were in Australia 150 years ago— certainly not 300,000; (b) the Aus tralian aborigine is a type more primitive even than the poorest types in New Guinea —and such people, no matter what is done for them, suffer at the first impact with civilisation. But the aborigines, like most Native Races in the South Seas, are now increasing in num bers.

If Krishna Menon is a true repre sentative of India, it would be in teresting to know where India is going.