Regulation

[?]N New Guinea

Social Advancement by

ITE cannot think of any other T Territory in the South Pacific where “Papua-New Guinea ranch Circular No. 10 of 1957” ould have been necessary; or where le Government would have done in such ham-handed fashion.

Here it is:

Instruction To Masters

Passengers

1. —As it would seem expedient, in order assist Masters to uphold and preserve the oper status of native officers of the Adminis ation whilst travelling as passengers on Iministration vessels, to issue instructions lative to their accommodation, treatment and neral welfare, it is directed that it is the ty of a Master of an Administration vessel, en if contrary to the demands or desires of ch other passengers as may travel, to ensure at native officers of the Administration travel der conditions not inferior to those applic le to European officers of the same standing, ch native officers shall, if they so desire, entitled to European rations and similarly all have the same right of entry into blic rooms and places on board. 2. —Whilst Masters are expected to exercise ct, they are reminded that a Master may, as last resort, require a person irrespective race, to leave a ship for behaviour pre tidal to the good conduct of the ship. In ch a case, full and detailed entries are to made in the log.

G. A. Hawley,

Superintendent of Marine.

In plain language it means that native public servants travelling on Administration ships should be treated in the same way as Euro pean passengers, and that if any European passenger objects to this, the Master should put him off at the next port.

The idea of racial equality is a pretty new one in New Guinea—it got going about 1946. Before the war, Europeans and natives lived in worlds apart—worlds that impinged only when and as it suited each community (although in Papua the impingement was a little more than on the Other Side).

It is hard to understand why these social distinctions should have been so fine cut because Australians normally lean over backwards to prove that they are no better than their fellow men. The fact that the natives on their local heath look like the raw material for the hewers of wood and drawers of water had something to do with it, we suspect.

The post-war desire to lift the natives from village level came from the theorists and not from a great push from the natives themselves.

But when the theorists’ ideas seeped down to plain Australians who had to implement them, some of the results were flat-footed in the ex treme. And in the fight was enlisted the beloved tool of Australian bureaucracy, the circular instruction.

Hence No. 10, now before us.

Although issued under the signa ture of the Superintendent of Marine it is a pretty safe bet that it did not emanate from men whose sole concern is ships.

Should New Guinea natives who live like Europeans be treated in the same way on public transport?

Why not? Elsewhere in the Pacific these things are accepted as a natural social growth. But if the man who hatched our Circular No. 10 thinks that that will create the right climate in which it can happen in New Guinea, he still has a lot to learn about human nature.

Our sympathies go to the un fortunate native clerk who finds himself on an Administration vessel with a Master who “works to regulations”, and. a couple of dled in-the-wool Befores who have never heard that there is a social revolu

tion currently in progress.

J.T.