Commentary

Death of a New

Guinea Native

ONE day last March, a farmer in the Lae District of New Guinea, Mr. Reginald John Sear, 39, ad ministered a “moderately heavy punch” to the body of Surumbani, me of his native labourers. The aative’s spleen was ruptured, and le died.

The planter was charged with un awful killing. Mr. Justice Kelly, in Clay, found that Sear had punched ;he native, and that this was a actor in his death; but in view of ill the circumstances, he imposed l fine of £l5O.

Immediately, there was a storm hroughout the Australian news )aper Press. The suggestion was hat Sear had been “let off with a ine” because Surumbani was only , native, with a life of little value.

It was a good example of Aus tralia's difficulties in governing this 'erritory. Conditions in New Guinea re so different from those in Aus ralia that 99.9 per cent, of Aus ralians are quite incapable of mak ig a fair judgment in a case like lis.

A very large proportion of New ruinea natives who suffer from un seated malaria have enlarged pleens, and quite a light blow will ipture the spleen and cause death, he Director of Native Affairs (Mr. . Roberts) in a formal statement i Port Moresby on May 22 (when e said that the natives generally sit that justice had been done in ie Sear case) said that natives ith enlarged spleens often died as ie result of sharp exertion in their tmes and village activities. He had en a native die, following a jump om a 4-feet fence.

The Judges in Papua and New uinea—and not the Australian iliticians and the Administration ficials —are, in the ultimate lalysis, the real guardians of life, w and liberty in the Territory, ae Territory Judges are today— id, with one possible exception, ive been since Australia took over men who command the respect id confidence of all classes, native eluded. They receive their Com issions directly from the Gov nor-General—they are not in any ty responsible to either the Ad inistration, or the politicians and reaucrats who run the Adminis ition.

VTost people who know New Guinea 11 support the judgment of Mr. stice Kelly. 3ear broke the law; he may not ike a native, or anyone else. The

natives of Papua-New Guinea have the same protection from the law as anyone else. In Australia, if a person assaults another, he takes the full responsibility for his act.

In New Guinea, if a white man strikes a native he also takes full responsibility for his act. There are few natives, indeed, who do not these days know their legal rights in this matter, or hesitate about “making court”. Further, there are 3,000 Public Servants in the Terri tory, paid something like £7,000,000 per annum in salaries whose funda mental purpose in being there is to look after the interests of the natives, in the instances where they are incapable of looking after them selves.

Sear’s act apparently led to the death of the native he assaulted; but the Judge found that the cir cumstances mitigated the crime— that the death was accidental. He pointed out that if the punishment was to be a gaol sentence it would have to be more than six months: and that, in turn, according to the Judge, meant Sear’s automatic ex clusion from the Territory where he was a hard working farmer who had invested his capital in the Territory and had a wife and family to support.

The fine, the publicity and ex pense, no doubt, have been a heavy punishment for Mr. Sear, in the circumstances.

It will be a day of disaster for the Territory when Australian pro fessors and other self-appointed experts, whose shouting in this in stance has given the case wholly undeserved prominence in the news papers, are allowed to over-ride the Judges. ☆ ☆ ☆

NG Tax Outlook Seems

Hopeless and Grim

A STRONG, irrefutable case for the postponement of the income tax system was presented by New Guinea interests to Australia s Acting Prime Minister late in May.

The answer —that the Bill will be pushed through at the June and July sittings of Legco, and will

operate retrospectively Ju jy **

1959—was a rejection of the well reasoned arguments of the New Guinea community, and ment of the bulldozing methods by which Minister Hasluck is trymg to impose this system upon the Tern tory without expert inquiry and without sufficient notice to the people chiefly concerned.

Canberra yet may have a change of heart; but the indications, early in June, are that the tax will operate from July 1.

The Minister’s continuous plea,, repeated by the Acting Prime Min ister, that the most careful con sideration will be given to all sug gested amendments, means nothing —except that New Guinea’s most urgent request (that the applica tion of the new system be post poned until an expert, independent examination be made of the probable effect of the system, and P-NG interests affected may have an opportunity to adjust their or ganisation to the new conditions) has been rejected.

We rarely have seen a worse ex ample of the ruthless application of a taxation system to a people who are without any means of resisting the imposition. It puts the coping stone on the record of Hasluck dictatorship in Papua and New Guinea. It shows the character of the Menzies Government which, in spite of every plea, apparently is content to allow this very stubborn Minister to play around with New Guinea in whatever manner he thinks fit.

The New Guinea community is not opposing income tax, as this clever Minister so persistently sug gests. The New Guineans merely ask that the whole effect of the new system be expertly examined, and sufficient notice given of its application.

For example, what is the position of companies with large accumula tions of profits from past years of trading, which have not yet been distributed to shareholders? The Bill, as it is now, makes all future distributions taxable. Yet Australia, when introducing income taxation in 1914, acknowledged the justice of the plea that shareholders’ funds, accumulated in tax-free years, should be ear-marked as funds not liable to taxation on distribution; and it took 20 years, in some cases, to clear those funds out of the capital structure of the companies.

The Bill, as it now stands, makes no provision for the legal complica tions which obviously must arise out of the different status of Papua (a Territory of Australia) and New Guinea (a Trusteeship Territory).

What is to be done in regard to absentee shareholders, who are liable to taxation in their own countries?

Australia has treaties and agree ments with various other countries, tc ensure that justice is done to absentee shareholders. The New Guinea Bill makes no adequate pro vision.

These are only a few of the many deficiencies shown by a quick ex amination of the Bill. They are part of signs which suggest that the Bill was prepared and rushed into the Legislative Council, not as part of a carefully-prepared, co ordinated plan, but in order that

Dictator Hasluck and his power drunk bureaucrats could quickly put an end to the abuse by certain com panies of the Territory’s tax freedom.

There is no doubt that some Aus tralian companies were using New Guinea registration to dodge income tax—the market-places, for years, have echoed to stories of it. But the bureaucrats, in fashioning this weapon for reform—and, we fear, revenge—in regard to a few tax dodgers, are going to impose cruel injustice upon a large number of people who simply cannot defend themselves.

Mr. Hasluck and Mr. Reeve, most ingenuously, argue that, although income tax goes on, all export taxes, and about a tenth of the import taxes, come off.

They surely cannot imagine that the removal of export and import taxes is going to benefit the middle man. He will start paying income tax immediately; but he will not be affected by the removal of ex port taxes, and any reduction in the price of common goods, through removal of import duties, will not reach him for years, if ever. ☆ ☆ ☆

Should Judges Be

Allowed to Judge?

TWO Territories in the Pacific have been involved in con troversies over what might be regarded as the usurping of the power of the Courts by a higher authority which is not a Court.

In Western Samoa, in May, a considerable amount of civil and judicial annoyance manifested it self when the High Commissioner, Mr. G. R. Powles, ordered the re hearing of a case wherein a Samoan salesman had been convicted by Judge Roth well of stealing one shilling from Morris Hedstrom Ltd. and sentenced to 14 days’ gaol. Mr.

Powles presumably thought the sentence excessive in view of the amount involved, although he also knew the background was that petty thieving—particularly of employees from their employers whom they evidently regard as fair game—is so rife in Western Samoa that it has come to be almost an occupational disease.

Judge Rothwell (presumably be cause there was no other Judge available at the time) re-heard the case, and found exactly as he had on the previous occasion—but this time he had something to say about it.

In a fairly lengthy statement he said, in part: “The section (No. 245 of the Samoa Act, 1921) makes possible the exercise of a semi

judicial power without any of the safeguards of hearing, or proper in vestigation, and must of necessity tend to capricious and irresponsible order for a new trial, and paves the way for the application of pressure whether political, personal or other wise. The prestige of the court is necessarily weakened.”

The Samoan salesman, he made clear, had the same right to appeal to a higher court after the second hearing, as he had had after the first.

The other Territory involved in judicial differences of opinion was, or course, New Guinea, where the now celebrated Sear case has created a 14-days wonder in Aus tralia.

In this event, it was not the Ad ministrator of Papua-New Guinea who attempted to (as Judge Roth well, of W. Samoa, might have put it) ‘‘exercise semi-judicial power”— he did not have time to get around to it before Minister for Territories Hasluck was on the job.

Although Judge Kelly did not de liver his verdict until May 20, by May 22 the Public Relations Office in Port Moresby was able to issue a statement on behalf of Mr.

Hasluck (who was in Australia), not only to the effect that Mr. Hasluck had called for an examination of the documents relating to the trial, but that the purpose of the exam ination conducted through the P-NG Crown Law Office, was to find whether it would be possible to successfully “bring an appeal to have the sentence increased”

It is obvious that Mr. Hasluck was —as they say in Australia — sweating this one out, and that when a verdict was delivered that he did not like, he simply put into motion the machinery that could, perhaps, undo it.

And, in case the Press should leap to the conclusion that Mr.

Hasluck was making a practice of these things, on the same Press hand-out that outlined his inten tions in the Sear case, this para graph was appended: Some editorial comment has referred to the case of Namatjira. [Namatjira, cele brated aboriginal artist, was found guilty of having supplied liquor to other abo rigines.] The intervention of the Minister in that case was not an intervention into the work of the Courts. After the Courts had completed their work and the sen tenced man had been handed into custody, the Executive made a decision in con formity with the Prison Regulations re garding the place where the sentence should be served.

It’s ancient history now, but as we remember it, it was before Namatjira’s appeal casa had been decided that Mr. Hasluck announced that “no matter what the verdict”, Namatjira would never serve his sentence locked up in an ordinary gaol.

It is obvious, of course, that Mr, Powles and Mr. Hasluck have acted with the highest principles, in both cases cited here.

But if this sort of over-riding authority can be exercised on the courts of the Territories of Papua- New Guinea and West Samoa; if citizens of either Territory have to stand trial, not only before the Courts but before officials and Cabinet Ministers; then why not do away with the expensive trappings of fully constituted Courts—even when they are presided over (as they are in most cases) by men who not only know the law, but have had long experience in the Territories in which they perform their judicial functions?

Some sort of Supreme Being, who will take his orders direct from the Government of the day, might fill the official bill a lot better. Although it is doubtful if even the academic experts who have had so much to say in the Sear case, would regard that as being according to the best principles of Democracy. ☆ ☆ ☆

How Not To Help The

S. Pacific Commission

THERE is evidence lately that the South Pacific Commission has been profiting by experience.

It’s been learning that a few things done well are better than many things only half-done; that an avalanche of paper from Noumea is far less valuable than a per sonal contact across a desk; that South Pacific Governments are fickle bodies, led by politicians and public servants who are brim full of little jealousies and parochial arrog ance, so that a wily approach is called for. Unfortunately, because of the bad will engendered by some of its earlier mistakes, the SPC is having some difficulty in spreading news of its new attitude, but there is reason to believe that it will win out in the end.

Member Governments will help the SPC in its comeback if they revise their attitudes and at least meet the SPC half-way. For in stance, PIM understands that one factor that is holding up the work of the Commission is the insistence by Canberra that all SPC com munications to Australian territories must go through that capital city, instead of direct. This is frustrat ing and time-wasting.

Canberra should either (a) ex plain how anybody gains by this insistence on maintaining a bureaucratic bottleneck (b) give SPC and territory officials credit for having a little bit of intelligence, and wipe the system right away.