Commentaty

1- Will Lakshman Do

ji's Legco?

I classes in Fiji learned, with nay, that the troublesome B. D. Lakshman had been in September, to the Leg- Council, ain fact, this could turn out l very good thing.

Colony is ripe for a little -economic brutality. Laksh the man to supply it. iman’s chief need, in the as been a forum. Lacking it, d to Lautoka, with inflam sugar-workers his only ;e, he has been inclined to is top. , the more responsible sec f the Fiji community some ave regarded BDL as a very dus man. The Colonial Co., harassed in season and his incursions into sugar y management, has tended two horns and a tail, when is portly person appeared, ith reason!

Mr. Lakshman is no fool. i contrary, he is one of the ducated and shrewdest In in Fiji. And, whether right ng (and he has been wrong, ten) he has been Fiji’s most snt and most courageous for what he believed to be terests of the Colony’s un vileged workers, nust have gained the con and goodwill of many re ile Indians, outside the mill s’ ranks, to have so decisively the well-tried and compe r. Madhaven.

Lakshman has his forum [is will be no meek and un ve voice. We, who know him , can spare a little sympathy 3 Hansard reporters. Official members, visualising future 1 debates, put their heads in lands and moan slightly, there is no need yet essimism. Lakshman must that, from his new place in Duncil, he can do more for ople he represents than ever ild do before provided he with the Council, as a respon elected member, and not t it. That Council soon will vider powers.

Lakshman, the head of the workers’ union, he could see )nly one eye; and all other could see in him only the advocate. the Hon. B. D. Lakshman, he is under an obligation to vo eyes to see the affairs

of the whole Colony, in correct relationship with the people and the district he represents. Other classes now will look to him as a Legislative Councillor, and not only as a workers’ organiser and direc tor.

As a responsible Indian leader, with forceful views and a lot of energy, he can do a great deal for the Colony of Fiji. The time has come when the Fiji Government should have a little more aware ness of the needs of the Indian industrial workers. Lakshman, MLC, can do something towards keeping the Government on its toes, in this respect.

He has the ability. But, to be a successful MLC, he will need pa tience, tolerance, and a wider sense of responsibility.

It is over to you BDL.

Colombo Plan Makes

Enemies, Not Friends

THE man whom this journal always has regarded as the soundest commentator on South East Asia-South Pacific affairs, Melbourne Herald’s Osmar White, has just spent nine months on a job for the Australian Government —six months examining Colombo Plan projects, and three months studying the Plan’s policy and history.

His report to the Government, we

hope, will alter tin slnri ml, in some degree, the purpose of the Plan.

There are no less than 6,000 Asian students now at school in Australia, and over 800 of them hold Colombo Plan scholarships In some preliminary comment, Osmar White says that this set-up is wrong. Unless we are prepared to allow these Asians to settle per manently in Australia —which they naturally wish to do, rather than return to a much more restricted life in their own countries—we tend to gain their ill-will, rather than their love and respect. Says White: “We might be better advised to spend effort and money helping Asians establish their own schools, universities and training colleges than to handicap our own educa tion system by overloading it with youngsters who will receive from it a type of social (as distinct from technical) training which they find extremely difficult to apply to their own background.”

How right he is!

And what he says about Asian students could be applied, effectively, to th e practice of sending scores of New Guinea native students to Australia each year. * * *

NG Education —Late and

Mistimed —But Welcome

P-NG Territory Treasurer Reeve, on September 29, submitted a budget without frills. It is pro posed to spend some £lB million this year—of which Australia con tributes no less than £l3 million.

The remarkable figures are re viewed on another page. (Over)

NEW GUINEA NEWS ITEM: ”Re v. Father William Booth Gill has reported gaving sighted flying objects on several occasions aroud the Goodenough Bay area. One of the obiects hovered for a while at 450 feet, and had four figeres in it who "aved. He said other observers had seen the ibjects."

The most interesting, significant and praiseworthy part of the budget contains these words: “For this year, the emphasis is clearly on the development of primary education, particularly through the Missions, and on the extension of community education for the indigenous people. . . .

“The Department of Education provision reflects the most striking of all departmental increases.

Recently, publicity has been given to the adoption of the Universal Primary Education Plan submitted by my colleague, the Director of Education, and it is for the initia tion and implementation of that Plan that additional provision is in cluded in the Department.”

Fighting off his critics in Can berra during the month, Minister Hasluck, directly and by inference, argued that the welfare and future of the natives of New Guinea are in his view of immensely more im portance than those of the Euro peans domiciled there.

It was interesting to notice that he glowed under the approving quack-quacking of his own party and Socialist Opposition who mostly know as much about New Guinea conditions as they know about the binomial theory. They cheered when Mr. Hasluck said that if there were to be more elected European members in the Legis lative Council there, there must be more native members.

What none of them realise is that these native New Guineans still are—except for a handful—un instructed, primitive savages. Of the three natives now in the Council, two cannot speak English. It would be difficult to find three more natives as qualified as these three are to sit in the Legco.

All Mr. Hasluck’s references to native self-governing ability under present conditions are arrant poppy cock, shaped and coloured for UNO observers and sociological cranks.

Of course, the indigenes must be trained and qualified for eventual self-government; but that still is far distant—9s per cent, of them still are not even faintly literate.

It is not a task for Mr. Hasluck and his Canberra cohorts. It can be accomplished only by personnel selected and trained in New Guinea, and by the co-operation of the non official European residents, whom this ineffable Minister has con sistently insulted and antagonised, almost beyond hope of reconciliation.

It is, however, a little comforting to find that native education at last takes first place in the budget.

As has been pointed out in this journal over three decades, nothing worth while can be accomplished in New Guinea without native education. Mr Hasluck is doing now what should have been attempted 30 or 40 years ago, and which Hasluck 1 iimself could and should have ten years ago.