In Fiji

Commentary . . .

tific Federation Could

I on Many Problems

TTH the birth of 1958, the whole of Britain’s Carribbean Terri tories, hitherto administered as 3zen independent units, began to stion as the West Indies Federa , an important new country fin the British Commonwealth.

Tiy should we not begin to plan, larly, for a South Pacific Fed ion? It seems to offer the only ns by which we can attempt to e the various politico-economic )lems of the South Pacific Terri es. ipua and New Guinea have a ;lopment problem, an education »lem, and a racial problem, le large Solomons, richly en ed by nature, under-populated undeveloped, has many problems, :h can be summed up in the lem of survival, iw Hebrides has a super-problem e problem of how it ever is go to become a worthwhile home anyone under the stifling Con inium, Ibert and Ellice has the problem 00 many people for too few s. ji has a series of most acute lems—r aci a 1, developmental, ical—which grow in urgency as population grows, sstern Samoa, just now stepping into a large measure of self rnment, could be helped greatly be sympathetic co-operation of »outh Pacific neighbours, ok Islands and Niue could be arly helped. oner or later, a plan to solve West New Guinea-Indonesia sr by adding West New Guinea Australian New Guinea, as a 1 Trusteeship, will be developed, might be done, simply, through uth Pacific Federation, itain, Australia and New Zea are primarily interested. Why id they not get together now, i endeavour to at least arrange nvention? b South Pacific Commission has n that co-operation is possible.

West Indies Federation has ed the way. * * *

Pattern of

Cold War

C free world is full of mischief; nd nearly all the mischief has common origin. It is calculated irass and weaken the Western ns. It is part of the Cold War. scow believes that if these dis

turbances can be maintained, at an increasing tempo, the non-Com mumst world will fall to pieces leaving choice pickings for the Reds’

Moscow probably is right.

Take a Sputnik view across the world, and note the trouble-spots. • Behind the mess in Indonesia is the tireless hand of the Com munist. The more confusion there, the greater the embarrassment of the West —and the more certainty of eventual Communist control. • The Suez Canal has been taken from Anglo-French control; the Arab States are wavering; Russians, offering enormous monetary aid “without strings”, dominated the Asian-African Conference in Cairo: Egypt and Syria will definitely cross the line into the Soviet bloc, the moment the Anglo-American con tainment of the Communist nations is weakened. This is all Moscow’s planning. • There is a challenge to British authority in Singapore, Cyprus, Malta —all places vital to Anglo- American strategy. Something keeps on stirring up the Leftist elements in those places. • France, which should play a mighty part in defence of Western Europe, is torn and weakened by political unrest. Communists work

ceaselessly on the industrial masses and the North African colonies. • Venezeula has just stifled an apparently purposeless revolution.

The free world draws most of its vital oil supplies from Venezuela, the Middle East and Indonesia.

Is there a discernible pattern in all this restlessness?

In America, there is a growing body of well-informed opinion which argues that the West never can win a Cold War. “Let us cease struggling with the tentacles, and make a direct attack on the head of the octopus,” they say. “That is the only way to international peace.” * * *

Income-Tax Uneasiness

In Fiji

IF the Fiji Government is wise, it will take an early opportunity to clarify its plans regarding amendments of the Income Tax laws.

To meet an unexpected situation created by the departure of Tax ation Chief Drysdale, the new tax plan was introduced in November without adequate warning or ex planation, and in its half-baked form it created a very bad im pression.

For reasons best known to itself, Fiji has introduced Australian tax ation personnel to the Colony. Fiji private enterprise, consequently, re gards all new taxation plans un easily. Australia is notorious among the nations for the iniquity and ferocity of its taxation systems.

In Australia, for example, a com pany’s profits are double-taxed — once when the profit is disclosed, and again when the remaining profit is distributed to shareholders. To ensure that the shareholders shall not escape the second grab, by leav ing the once-taxed profits undis tributed in the hands of the com pany, the Taxation moguls intro duced the undistributed profits tax —under which the moguls seize 10/- of every £ of profit that remains undistributed, less a small reten tion allowance.

Fiji’s new taxation proposals make provision for an “undistributed profits tax” —and the very term is anathema to Australians. It is one of the most unjust and oppressive things in the Australian system.

Ninety per cent, of the capital which makes Fiji tick economically was provided by Australia. Fiji wants more capital, for developmental purposes.

It has been indicated that Fiji's new tax plans are designed to catch persistent tax-evaders, and will be very limited in their application.

But so much manifest injustice

has been manoeuvred into law and into operation by skilled tax collectors, in defiance of Parlia mentary watchdogs, that reassur ances in very definite terms should be given on income-tax policy, by the Fiji Government, before that Tax Bill goes before the Legislative Council again. * * *

Pioneering—On

Inion Principles

AN Australian union executive said in December that if trade unions were established in New Guinea there would be no trouble in getting jobs filled up there. The implication was that tradesmen hesitated to go forth from Australia unless they had Union protection.

Even if there is any truth in this, most employers would consider the cure worse than the disease, believ ing that the heavy end of the stick is theirs already—higher wages, fares, extensive leave privileges, accommodation, etc.

Generally, people go to work in P-NG either because they feel that they will get rich quicker; or be cause they want to be “different” and get away from it all. Sometimes it is a combination of both.

They are individualists who want tc go to the Territory; and in dividualists don’t usually care

whether they are sheltered by a trade union or not.

In the past there have been rare cases of P-NG employers victimising employees, but the boot has often been on the other foot —to the ex tent that a lot of people who got a job in NG immediately assumed a higher social status. It was a case of little pools in which the frogs all had considerable dimensions.

This was slightly more so before the war than since—but it still holds good as a general principle.

In moments of grandeur, Aus tralia holds the Territory up to public gaze as “a sacred trust”. The question is whether the Territory is to be developed according to the tune called by organisations like the Communist-led building workers’ union. And in this connection people who say that having unions in P-NG is “OK for Europeans but not for natives”, are just fooling themselves.

If trade unions are permitted to dominate the scene in P-NG to the same extent they do in Australia, it would be impossible not to involve and influence native people.

If the cynical view is taken—that world Socialism (or Communism) is inevitable—then Territorians can let things take their course. But if they think that the natives of P-NG should be given yet more time be fore Australian-type trade unionism is unleashed on them, now is the time to do something about it.

There is still a big job of pioneer ing to do in New Guinea. Pioneering is best done by individualists whc are not hamstrung by trade unior prohibitions. * * *

So Khrushchev Sent

New Year Greetings

THE people who know most abou world .affairs —and they arj those who say the least —believ that only one factor preventei World War 111 in 1956 and That factor is the existence of a rins of United States air bases arounj the Soviet Empire, where America and British planes, loaded witl nuclear-fission bombs, maintain 1 24-hours-per-day watch. (If you want more informatio: about this terrifying organisatioi read the long article by James I Michener, in January issue c Readers’ Digest.) Moscow’s plan, to take over th world for Communism, was read for implementation over a year agi In 12 years of brilliantly-directe “white-anting”, the Reds riddle the economy and weakened the d( fensive structure of most of the fre nations.

But America had moved fast. Th Reds learned in 1956-57, throug their efficient secret services, thj at the very first attack by Re planes, bombers from our bases i Alaska, Okinawa, Philippines, Midd East, North Africa, Britain and Ic( land would swoop upon Russia ar her satellites, and cause devastatic literally beyond the imagination ( man.

True, the Anglo-American atta( would release forces which probab would cripple or exterminate mu( of the human race. But our choii was made long ago. Better v should perish, thus, than accept tl horrors of Red slavery.

The Reds paused. NATO w strengthened.

The masses of the free worl shaken by Sputniks, newspap wailings, and the Yuletide cooiJ of the Bulganins and Khrushchev wondered why the NATO chie! assembled in Paris on Xmas Ev made no propitiatory gesture. Th merely demanded more air bas* closer to the Iron Curtain; and t sisted they would go more than hal way to meet any genuine Russit move towards international peace; That implacable ring of load bombers, their noses pointed ceas lessly at the heart of the MusCi vite empire, is a far more deao thing than the wandering Sputnu significant as the latter yet may Khrushchev knows it. So he reph to the resolutions of top-level NAT by sending New Year greetings!

Queen Elizabeth and the vane heads of States!