In The South Pacific

As a French Journalist sees it:

It's Not All Paradise In The South Pacific

In a year of travel, we have visited the Tongan isles, Fiji, New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, the British Solomons, New Guinea and parts of Australia. We have had recourse to three shipping companies, six air servires, and we have each worn out two pairs of shoes.

ETS7E have moved about on horse rf back, in canoe, on Land Rovers, Jeeps, 2-horsepower Citroen, ind motor bicycles.

Some 30 of our articles have already leen published and we are taking lack to Europe as many again, as veil as innumerable notes and ome 6,000 photographs, 1,000 of hem in colour.

When we have had time to digest nd handle all this material, we lope, either together or independ ntly, to start off on our travels gain—probably to the USSR and he Far East.

We shall then again experience he barriers that face every traveller -visas, vaccination, exchange and ther difficulties that are common 0 this century. “Who are you? /here have you come from? Where re you making for? Are you a ichelor, married, widowed, divorced? ross out the particulars that don’t pply.”

But the Australian authorities ave been particularly helpful, -ather to my surprise, I may say, nee the Australian immigration ithorities and Customs people have ie reputation of being rather ough”. And you are hardly able to ip them a bank-note to obtain >me favour, as you can do in some mntries I could mention.

It is different again in Tonga.

Dnga:—

IHERE the Minister of Police goes - out of his way to examine the cause of your visit. Journalists, id —worse still—photographers, are it in much favour with the Royal ithorities.

When I went ashore at Nukualofa st April I had to undergo a stiff iterrogation: “Will your stay last month? All right, but not more tan a month? Will Her Majesty ceive you? Hum, Hum! She is not 1 exotic curiosity. We shall see.’’

Prisoner Upon a Throne

I saw the Queen on several casions but had only one oppor nity of speaking with her. But if ie did not accord an official inter ew either to Katharina von Arx myself, she made daily inquiries i to our well-being, and appointed

an aide-de-camp to look after us, and she made us presents.

During our stay we became aware that the sovereign is not only HM Salote Tubou, Queen of the tiny Tongan group, but a sort of distant divinity and almost inaccessible. She lives like a prisoner on her throne, She is aware of the jealously and intrigue that seem to surround her.

She hesitates to make a gesture or cecord a smile that might in any way be regarded as a favour, She must remain alone, eat alone, a formal life carried to the point

that her own sons cannot sit at her table.

She is the captive of two opposing currents: the Nobles, who would democratise the Crown and bring her nearer to her more humble sub jects, are opposed by the conserva tives, anxious to maintain their in fluence and preserve their privileges.

In the first group you find the young men, awake to the spirit of a new age. In the other are found dignitaries of the old school; also Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul.

These isles disappointed me. The

arrival at Nukualofa lacks charm.

Gone are the luxuriant splendours of the Tahitian scene and the savage grandeur of the Marquesas.

The capital turned out to be a square arrangement of uneven sur faced streets, very warm at mid-day.

There is the main artery, the street of commerce, where the usual stores, Burns Philp, Hedstroms, and others, are found. It is only the flowers that adorn the houses that save the place from looking drab.

Puritanical Hypocrisy

But Vava’u, the big isle to the north, made up for what I had been missing.

This isle has beauty, is less bourgeois than Tongatabu. Here there is less denunciation of the liberty that is part of the Poly nesian nature; Vava’u is not spoiled by the puritanical hypocrisy which one feels elsewhere in the archi pelago.

The isle enjoys a rather special reputation as the place where one can enjoy oneself. One goes there for a holiday and so the memories one brings away are quite precious and imperishable.

New Caledonia:—

WITH special pleasure I revisited New Caledonia, where I formerly lived for some years.

My friends there had not forgotten me, and I and my companion were well received.

Noumea has changed. It has be come a town of some importance, whose new suburbs now spread out some kilometres from the centre. A new hotel has been opened, the automatic telephones installed.

Salaries are high, and cost of living extremely high.

During our stay, Japan was buying up nickel ore as fast as ships could load. There was a feeling of optimism and the Administration was enjoying its customary and agreeable slumber. A few people, perhaps the better informed, were urging caution.

Since we left, the situation has modified. Several mines have had to close down or carry on at a re duced production rate.

This has been a bad knock for the promoters, and the super optimistic forecasts of the Economic Bureau have proved false. The Bureau had estimated that in 1957 the exports of ore to Japan would exceed a million tons compared with 773,000 tons in 1956.

£5,000 a Year Ministers

All the same, the near future of the colony does not appear to be unfavourable. Whether the plans drawn up are completely or only partially successful, it is the job both of public and private interests to see that the Caledonian economy functions properly. Above all it is

necessary to maintain mining pro ductivity.

The production of nickel metal will remain the principal source of Caledonian revenue, but the island must diversify its general mineral output more so that the economy of the country will not be so vulnerable in case of a nickel slump.

The price of New Caledonian nickel is still too high. It may not be generally known that up to 1956 metropolitan France granted a subsidy to Caledonian nickel with the idea of making it competitive on the world market.

Since then, French industrial users and their European colleagues, among them the Germans, have had to pay the full price. But because of the strong demand for nickel metal (nickel treated and bought in the form of matte on fonte) a black market has existed, and they say it is this that has so opportunely saved the big operators from dif ficulty.

The attempt is now being made to lower the cost of nickel-metal production to bring it into closer relation with world prices. To this

end a vast programme of hydra electric and electro-metallurgic in stallation was launched in 1955.

The Nickel Company is investim a great deal fo capital in these imi provements, and France still more But if local charges, wages am so on, are increased much further it will cancel out the benefits a this modernisation programme.

What of 1960?

The short term future of nicke seems to be satisfactory, but wha will happen in 1960? Then, accordl ing to the experts, Canada, whicl is now sinking a great amount a new capital in the industry, wil have completed her own programm. of production and development Also, America’s strategic stock-pilJ is due to reach its contemplate* size about the same time. Thus, ii two or three years time, a certaii amount of over-production am some difficulty in getting rid o: supplies are to be feared.

I would like to be able to speal of New Caledonian agriculture anc cattle raising but this is difficult ii not impossible—one may almost sa: that these activities no longer exist The mines have emptied tin countryside of its labour force. Im porters of foodstuffs still have j fine future before them!

The metropolitan officials in Nev, Caledonia are still grossly overpaid I hardly dare to quote figures anc give examples here—if I did, Plh readers would not believe me Fortunately, the workers of th( Renault Biilancourt and grea, industrial undertakings in France victims of our political anarchy who are called on to contribute to th» vast sums wasted in the colonies b: cur overpaid officialdom, are ir ignorance of the scandalous wast age that goes on. • One must also draw attention to the scale of 'payment estabiishec by the newly constituted Neu Caledonian legislature, for its eigh\ new so-called “Ministers”, who are each receiving £A42O a month, plui housing, a car and a Ministerial secretary. In addition, members o, the local Territorial Assembly, which replaces the former General Council now draw £A329 a month.

How does this compare with the pay of British or Australian Parlia mentarians?

Anyhow, these are charges that New Caledonia and not France wil] have to pay—it is their look-out.

Many people, of course, perhaps actuated by jealousy, told me the new “Ministry” is nothing better than an expensive joke.

One can’t help wondering what might happen if the 1,500,000 native inhabitants of New Guinea ever arrive at a comparable stage of evolution. What would their “Ministry” be likely to cost? New Caledonia has only 70,000 in habitants.

If I may offer advice to the island's new “Ministers”, it is that they should profit from their arrival in power to vote themselves a hand some pension. But perhaps they’ve done this already. One is never so well served as when one helps one self!

New Hebrides:—

IN the New Hebrides we owed to the ethnologist Guiart the visit we were able to pay to the in terior of Santo. Without him this visit would have been impossible.

After an unfortunate happening in 1952, when a settler was re sponsible for the death of two “men Santo”, it was Guiart who was able to restore calm among the tribes of chief Mol Valiv. We were able to make an agreeable stay here, from which we came away with many notes and photographs.

Shocks in Pac. Fes.

I again met in the Hebrides M.

Anthonioz, the French Resident Commissioner, rather to my surprise, since our fonctionnaires rarely stay in the same place for long, and Anthonioz came here as far back ns 1949.

I was also surprised to find he had come to terms with the monotony of administrative life, for hitherto he has been rather a man revolutions, of civil wars, of dramatic happenings.

The role of dictator, of course, foes not displease him either. But in the New Hebrides he doesn’t exist alone. The British are there to act as a brake, and although they may 3e looked on by their opposite French numbers as a set of imbeciles, :hey are yet capable of bringing )ff a subtle tactical success.

I am thinking of what happened to the war-time dollar harvest eaped by the Condominium, that is ;o say, by the British and French administrations jointly. If one is to relieve the story one hears on the spot, almost all this valuable :urrency went into the pocket of the Britanniques” although we had suf ficient need of it in France.

So let us be under no delusion: [f M. Anthonioz sometimes seems ;o parody the famous mot of King -ouis XIV in declaring “les Hebrides e’est moi” (as he suggested to Katharina von Arx) he vas adding a bit of wishful think ng to the position France holds in he archipelago. Let me explain nyself: The New Hebrides is costly to France because the exchange is inked with the sterling area. Great Britain (or, rather, Australia) senefits almost entirely from the eommercial transactions that go on. ’n this connection let me quote M.

Guiart in a recent book published n Paris in colaboraMon with Gov ernor Deschamp: “The actual cost

to metropolitan France of the organ isation of the group is an annual deficit of some 1 milliard 401,878,000 metropolitan frs., poured out to safe guard the economic interests of a population of French origin which numbers scarcely more than 1,200 inhabitants.” (This deficit is in 'pounds sterling, of course!) The Future of N. Hebrides Periodically the question is raised as to whether the New Hebrides should not be passed over completely to France. There are logical reasons (including the cost of the group to France) why this outcome would seem to be justified.

But settlers in the Hebrides would probably be sorry to depart from the present regime. If one goes around with ears open, it is to find that they are not dissatisfied with the Condominium.

One single control would deprive them of liberties they now enjoy, and also the?r freedom to take advantage of their attachment to a currency of some stability, the Aus tralian pound.

When the special New Hebridean franc, which circulates in the Group alongside the Australian pound, was devalued last September, there was considerable discontent, for the Fiench population had thought their NH franc was solidly tied at an unchangeable rate to the £A. It was a bitter disillusionment to find that this was not the case.

The new situation has placed the colonists in a painful situation. But in reality their situation even be fore devaluation was a far from brilliant one.

The metier of colonist has become precarious and the arrival in the Hebrides of an inspector of labour who declared he would shoot all the planters if he had the chance has hardly given them encouragement.

The desire to protect the native workers so that they do not work cn the plantations for wages in adequate or inferior to those pro mised is reasonable. But to go to the other extreme and expect to assimilate them to the conditions and pay of European workers, under the delusion that their work will be as productive, is a very different proposition. This would be an ex traordinary way of encouraging the economic development of the Group, a scheme only possible in the eyes of an absolutely irresponsible ad ministration.

Bsip:—

Friendliness

WE did not stay long in the British Solomons. All there was time to do was to visit a

leper station and a few old battle fields of the Pacific war.

In the absence of Sir John Gutch, the High Commissioner, his repre sentative, Mr. R. J. Minnitt, did all that was possible for us, and we take this opportunity of thanking him.

We should have much liked to visit Malaita, where native life in the tribal sense still continues to some extent as in the past. But, pressed for time, we were obliged, to take the plane which links Honiara and Lae.

Papua-New Guinea:—

MANY writers have written in the spirit of “See Tahiti and die!”

For my part I would much rather apply the phrase to Papua and New Guinea. But for different reasons.

Papua/New Guinea represents in the Pacific one of the Territories most worthy of attention, so vast and rich ethnographically, artistic ally and linguistically that one would need many lives to get abreast of it all.

Universal Treasure Trove In the limited space of this article one can only remark, first of all, that with relatively limited resources i bearing in mind the size of the country), Australia is doing a very great deal. We saw some fine roads, good bridges, posts in the bush of surprising comfort, and air trans port facilities really well developed.

Papua and New Guinea indeed owe much to aviation and the skill of pilots who assure communica tions day by day, and in all sorts of weather.

It is amazing to see the grassy and uneven runways that sometimes do service as aerodromes. Perched on and cut out of mountain slopes they exact the utmost flying skill from pilots. I couldn’t help recalling similar skill of the great French aviator, Mermoz, who pioneered flights over the Andes of South America. Indeed, the aviation in Papua-New Guinea recalled to me the heroic days of the postal ser vice in that sub-continent.

Talked to Everyone

After having accompanied a patrol that was carrying out an annual census in the high valley of Chimbu fEastern Highlands) we stayed at Maprik and on the Sepik River, talking to administrators, colonists, recruiters, gold prospectors, native chiefs, getting to know what we could, in a limited time, of their lives, their difficuties, their hopes.

From nearly everyone we received the utmost help and consideration.

From the air we got some idea of the uncontrolled territories, landing at Tari, Erave, Mendi and elsewhere.

We much appreciated the cordial welcome we received from the in

habitants, so that by the end of oun stay we felt quite at home.

Of all the places we visited it is to New Guinea that we gave our most ardent attention and of which we retain the most appreciative memories. It has been an unforget table experience and a marvellous source of interest.

CIERTAINLY our visit had its less f pleasant side. For example, the treatment of my colleague; Katharina von Arx, by an airline official in Lae when she pointed out) certain difficulties she was experi encing in preparing certain publicity stories. He said to her: “It is not my fault if your paper gave you a man’s job. I have daughters, and I know what a woman should da and not do”.

And at Maprik, when we wanted to learn all we could of the fight) against Malaria, the doctor in charge opposed the idea —not formally, but) by showing such a discouraging amount of inertia or lack of en thusiasm that it was impossible for us to get the material we had hoped) for. • One final criticism of existing things in New Guinea! The Sepih. region is extremely rich in objects of native art, but I was astonished', at the way self-styled anthro pologists, who are really nothing but opportunist traders —and there are', many of them —are allowed to carry\ off such objects by the ton, their one and only object being to sell, them for their own personal pro fit in overseas countries, the USA for example.

I was told that laws in force would allow the Administration toi forbid their export by buying them: back at a reasonable price. But; these regulations do not allow for 1 the fact that the officials who should: control such traffic are far from be ing experts, so that it is com paratively easy to pass off real) objects of value as worthless modern objects.

Why can’t the export of native; art objects be centralised at Port, Moresby (or Lae, or Madang—where; doesn’t matter) so that one or more: specialists could control and veto exports of objects whose value will one day be better recognised?

In my view, the museums of the world, starting with those of Aus tralia, are to-day being robbed by traffickers of what should rightly be theirs.

Immigration Problems

While in Australia we were essenti ally occupied in studying immigra tion problems. We watched the arrival of New Australians, saw them settling in, visited their centres, and the industries and farms where they are employed. We gathered a large number of impressions and everywhere were greatly helped by

the immigration authorities. Our thanks go to the Department and also to the Trade Unions whose view of things is not the same as the official view.

This article, naturally, is far from being the whole story of our travels.

In limited space perhaps undue im portance has been given to the few criticisms I have to make, not least about the French.

These remarks I make above all because I am French and because I have great faith in the future of France.

France is a great country, her people hard working and eminently civilised: but she has not the political leaders just now, or the internal and external administrators that she merits. Like the majority of my compatriots, I hate to see a swarm of second-rate people giving an idea of France that France does not deserve.

I write from the heart, and what criticisms I make are intended to be constructive.