Commentary

tting There Faster

a Sandwich Lunch

ST as Lae, New Guinea, has ound that having more modern ircraft did not necessarily mean etter air service ( PIM, March, 3), so the rest of the Pacific acknowledge some day that golden age of Pacific air sportation was in the mid-50’s. t-age planes will be faster —but per only if you are prepared to less, in tourist and third-class, hen Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom went into s-Pacific air transport with sh Commonwealth Pacific Air , the fare, Sydney-San Fran , was £2OO single, £365 return, hat time (1948) PIM said that ;hat scale only perambulating icians and millionaires could d to travel by air. ry amusing, of course, in the of present fares (Sydney-San cisco, first-class, £350 single; return), and the fact that the ompanies now seem to be turn over to mass transportation, few years back, all air travel de luxe, where you got more ce to the square foot than in other form of transport. Then i tourist class, with its three abreast, sandwich lunches, less v room, and 20 per cent, cut rst-class fares. w there’s to be “economy” class, ti means a cut of 20 per cent, ourist fares, and, logically, 20 lent, less space per passenger, : amenities. d this seems to be what the mers are ordering. Some air •anies say that the demand is 50-50, first-class and tourist; s put the figures nearer 75 per tourist and 25 per cent, first- It is obvious that when lomy” class begins to operate, will be no lack of takers — ugh if the air-line companies ; that it is because people pre ) travel like sardines in a can, are fooling themselves, e fact is: Except for the rity who can now pay the nomical first-class fares, jet ir transportation will merely be ans of getting the largest num f persons from A to B in the est possible time, its only re ing feature the fact that as planes will travel faster the Bd time of discomfort will be er. b pipe-dream of 10 years ago— planes of the future would le more room, more comfort at ;ost —has never eventuated, as ir companies have simply used ;xtra space to cram in more s for which they provide fewer ities. That is airline economics,

and you can t buck that.

The recent per cent, rise on all international air-fares may be economics, too. Or the behest of lATA, the airline operators’ trade union, whose decisions are more conveniently adhered to than ever were the laws of the Biblical Medes and Persians. ☆ ☆ ☆

NG's Mixed-Up Kids

Speak Their Pieces

ALTHOUGH most of the native petitions presented to the United Nations Trusteeship visiting mission in New Guinea during April can be summed up as half baked nonsense, they do give point to a proposition advanced by a Port Moresby resident in February PIM.

The Port Moresby resident was Mr. S. Fox, an accountant prom inent in community affairs, and the point that he made (although not in so many words) was that it would be smart to give the Papua- New Guinea natives self-govern ment now. when the majority of them would still voluntarily link themselves to Australia, than to wait 20 years, when they will un doubtedly follow the well-worn trail of native communities in Africa and elsewhere, and try to get rid of the lot of us.

Indications are that so far as the New Britain natives are concerned, the period set by Mr. Fox (20 years) is over-optimistic, and that a lot of them would like to see the end of us now.

It would be foolish to attribute this state of affairs simply to any natural cussedness of the New Britain people. As the West Nakanai petition put it (probably getting nearer to the bone than the author of the document understood): “We hear things as they should be, and we notice things.”

Some of the things that the New Britain natives have seen and heard in the last 10 years, from Admin istration and from private in dividuals who have been happy to shelve most of the responsibilities once accepted by those living in a native country, were neither edifying

nor prudent. . .

It was probably significant that the New Britain petitions mentioned, at various times, the desirability of having the United States administer the Territory (because the US has “money and big cars”); and how much better things were in the ‘German days.” The inference is that Australia is fallmg somewhere between those “Soft and T ar( l policies, and rapidly getting nowhere while the natives are changing into a bunch of mixed-up kids.

Post-war history in Africa, Asia

and elsewhere shows that when the tide starts to run against the gov erning power, it is without logic or reason, but that the result is in evitable.

Mr. Fox probably is correct in saying that the rest of Papua and New Guinea is still with us. It is more difficult to be sure that the Tide is not already turned in New Britain. ☆ ☆ ☆

NZ is Under Deep

Suspicion in Samoa

HOW the pendulum swings!

Over 30 years ago, the swash buckling politico-militarists of New Zealand were using brutal methods to discourage the nationalist ambitions of the Western Samoans. Sections of the Samoan Mau were bashed, and imprisoned, and two Europeans who had the courage to speak up for them were summarily deported. (The two were Mr. A. G. Smyth, now a resident of Sydney, and Mr. O. F. Nelson, who is dead —and both of these men were sent back to Samoa by a later, and different kind of NZ Govern ment, with honours.) Today, the same New Zealand is pitchforking the Samoans into self government so fast, and the stupider kinds of Samoans are being allowed to make anti-European statements so inflammatory, that various organ isations of Europeans and part- Eruopeans are crying out for pro tection.

The United Nations Trusteeship Mission began hearing petitions in Samoa early in April; and, among the first bodies to make urgent rep resentations, were the Returned Services Association, the Planters’

Association and the Chamber of Commerce. They emphasised their fears that, in view of recent utter ances by a certain class of Samoan leaders, the political and property rights of the racial minorities— especially the racial group of 6,000 Europeans and part-Europeans— would be swept away.

The Samoan Government has what it calls a Working Committee, formulating proposals for a new Constitution of Western Samoa, and it is believed that a number of re commendations have been prepared.

The representatives of the minority groups, have pointed out to the Mission that this Working Com mittee is holding its sittings in secret. The people have little know ledge of what the Working Com mittee is planning and recommend ing. Naturally, they are suspicious.

Representations similar to those made to the Mission were submitted to New Zealand Territories Minister Mathison last October bv a deputa ti o n appointed by all minority groups, jointly; but it appears that neither this Minister, nor the NZ Labour Government, has done any thing to assure the minorities that

their rights would be respected.

The record of New Zealand in the first decade of its Mandate over Western Samoa was a deplorable one—the direct result of political ignorance and bureaucratic stub bornness. It would be a remarkable thing if the NZ record there were to end in a similar way—and it will end in that way unless steps are taken to write into the new Con stitution some guarantee that the rights of minorities will be re spected. ☆ ☆ ☆

Fiji's Economic Trouble is

Whitehall's Responsibility

Fiji’s economic chickens are com ing home to roost. They are hungry, and losing their feathers.

Some heroic measures by the British Colonial Office are called for, if this important South Pacific Colony is going to avoid serious trouble. A responsible citizen of Fiji, Dr. A. S. Frater, in a letter in Fiji Times, says frankly and forth rightly that unemployment and distress are growing, and he asks what Fiji’s leaders are doing, in re lation to the ugly prospect created by over-population, and under employment of the Colony’s natural resources.

As has been pointed out, again and again, in this journal, in recent years, the blame for this economic crisis must be placed squarely upon the shoulders of the British Colonial Office.

It is seven years since the Fiji Legislative Council formally directed Britain’s attention to a set of cir cumstances known then to all observers —namely, that both Indian and Fijian communities were in creasing so rapidly that much wider and more vigorous utilisation of Fiji’s lands was called for, if economic trouble and social distress were to be avoided.

For years, the Colonial Office merely fiddled with the subject.

Finally, a Commision was set up under Sir Alan Burns to examine the situation and report. That Commission has not yet arrived— it is due in July.

Meanwhile, the conditions which alarmed the Legislative Council have at least doubled in gravity and danger.

The Burns Commission cannot re port and the Colonial Office cannot act before mid-1960 at the earliest.

But, right now, in early 1959, there is growing unemployment an d hunger; and those conditions will worsen if the economic laws which have created them are not altered.

In the simplest words, Fiji’s production is not sufficient to feed end clothe and house Fiji’s greatly increased population; and it will take years to change th© conditions which now govern Fiji’s production.

This task of alteration and re form should have been put in hand

when the need for it first was seen, right after the war. That nothing was done is the fault of the British Colonial Office.

All institutions with interests in Fiji—especially the big corporations and the governments of Australia and New Zealand —should combine now to demand that Britain, with out loss of time, should make new Government funds available. This is necessary, so that unemployment may be checked, and big repro ductive public works put in hand, during a kind of interregnum— while a new Constitution is being framed, and special measures being introduced to re-establish produc tion in Fiji at a level where it can take care of its own needs. ☆ ☆ ☆

How A Dictator Treated

P-NG's Non-Officials

THIS journal goes to press before the New Guinea Administration meets the Legislative Council on April 20, to announce its proposals regarding income taxation.

At the end of March the Aus tralian Territories Minister Hasluck, still the dictator, appeared to be determined still to force his new Taxation Bills upon the Territory, in the manner planned by his Port Moresby officials.

But the Territory’s non-official classes (and a good proportion of the official class, though they kept their hands hidden) were fighting back in mid-April, still hoping that other Australian Ministers, in the name of justice and decent govern ment, would put a curb upon the intransigent Hasluck.

Immediately the March Legco session ended, and the non-official members returned to their districts and reported that Canberra was try ing to rush income taxation upon them (despite the plea of the Jan uary 31 deputation in Canberra that the plan be postponed for more ex pert consideration) the Taxpayers’

Association came vigorously into action.

A sum of money was subscribed overnight, and a large advertise ment, begging Australian voters to come to the aid of the Territorians in their battle against the high minded Minister and ruthless Treasurer Reeve, was inserted in every leading newspaper in Aus tralia.

By mid-April, a number of MP’s were gathering data about the New Guinea situation, apparently with the idea of somehow bringing pressure to bear, to restrain the dictatorial Minister.

It is a year since this journal warned Papua and New Guinea that the Molochs of Canberra, at a Cabinet meeting, had accepted the principle of income taxation in the Territory. We said then that Can berra was merely waiting for the right time.

Canberra paused, in 1958, to ex amine the new situation created Id the oil companies’ decision (sino reversed) to abandon drilling i Papua. It prepared the ground, b introducing the silly and unjuj head tax of £2 per head per mas per annum. It pounced, by secret'.; preparing the necessary legislatic for introduction, without notic in March.

Territorians laid themselves ope to bureaucratic oppression by n*j acting quickly enough, and by nu taking the cunning of the Hasluo team sufficiently into account.

The Review of Finance was clever political manoeuvre. It wr prepared by a Hasluck nominee, wH knew well the plans which the Mix ister hoped to implement; and was widely distributed in noi official Papua and New Guinea I high officials, with a kindly, dii arming smile.

The non-officials were slow digesting the Review. Then, wh« they saw its implications, and dii covered the wolfish teeth Treasurer Reeve behind the R! view’s seemingly innocuous phrase they rushed an influential deput; tion of protest to Canberra, to b< that further steps be delayed um independent experts should examii the economic effect of this fa reaching change in taxation. Bi they were too late.

When the startled Leg; awakened to officialdom’s devices,« March 12, non-official membe threatened to resign in a body the still-hidden Tax Bills were pr ceeded with. The Minister was rea« for them.

“There is no cause for all thk he said, in effect, on March ; “Your Minister knows best —he hi had the best expert advice. You a not getting new taxes thrust up< you—only a rearrangement of taxe and you will have every opportuni cf expressing your views before t; Bills become law.”

Some MP’s, notably Mr. R.

Wheeler, smelling something ui pleasant in Ministerial tactics, chs lenged the Minister in the House: His retort was suave and swe; “These people have had the Revii of Taxation before them since Is September, when it was present to their Legislative Council,” said. Which was perfectly trr Four months passed before the no; officials realised how nicely th were being led up the path of t: Hasluck-Reeve garden, and rush their deputation South.

Even in Canberra, on January : they responded to a nice, big do of Hasluck soothing-syrup, a went home feeling sure that, befo the inevitable income tax came the plan would be examined by r dependent experts, and a guarani given that the change would be i: troduced in the way calculated do the least economic harm in ti Territory.

Well, they are wiser men no