Self-Government For Ready

Ready Or Not!

?EE

by A. D. Blue

New Guinea got its name from an early navigator’s fancied esemblance between the natives of the Guinea Coast of West vfrica and those of this Pacific Island. I think the con etween the two outweigh the similarities but this could be he fault of the Australians, rather than of the New Guinea latives.

IE history books tell us that New Guinea received its name frpm the Spanish navigator Ynigo iz de Retez in 1545. Sailing along north coast on his way to South erica, de Retez, in the lordly casual manner of 16th century lorers, formally took possession the island in the name of the Lg of Spain. (I wonder if Pre ;nt Soekarno remembers that e incident of history). ie Retez thought that the natives saw resembled those he had seen the Guinea coast of West Africa, from my knowledge of both ces I feel sure that his acquaint ;e with them must have been :ht. ifter having spent a good many rs in West Africa, and having "owed this up by several voyages md the coast of Papua-New inea I don’t think the two places i at all similar. But in spite of s, many of the problems now fac ■ the Australian administration in pua-New Guinea, are similar to >se which faced the early British aiinistrators in West Africa. [These are the basic colonial jblems of poverty, under-nourish ;nt, illiteracy, tribalism, and so No one with knowledge of West rica can fail to be interested in w Guinea and this applies equally the reverse.

No European Counter-Hands

My own experiences were mostly that part of West Africa called geria, with which I was intimately nnected for 18 years. Nigeria, with jopulation of 35,000,000, has a Euro an population of only about 6,000; hie Papua-New Guinea with a pulation of 1,750,000 has a Euro an population of about 20,000. icse figures, intelligently inter eted, tell much of the story.

They should be read in the further knowledge that the area of Papua- New Guinea is about half that 01 Nigeria. This large ratio of Euro peans to natives in New Guinea is the first thing which must strike the visitor from West Africa—in fact, the visitor from any British colony.

I remember calling at Port Moresby post office on my first visit

e and seeing four Europeans ing behind the counter, some g I have never seen in west ca. I doubt, indeed, if, even in earliest days, any European has served behind the counter of r est African post office, find it hard to believe that Port esby has no native people ible of this by no means onerous s Whether there are or not, this e of affairs is a grave indictment he Australian administration of Territory. tie situation, in this respect, is quite as bad in Rabaul, and in >r places in the old German ritory, because of the valuable lent of Chinese and people of ed-blood there. bserving the number of highly i Australians doing work of a iparatively unskilled nature iv the wives of Government lials—I cannot escape the con iion that a substantial proportion Australia’s generous financial p to New Guinea is frittered iy - , . much more vigorous policy of ploying the native people is re red, and I say this after making i allowances for their extreme kwardness.

"he economy of British West •ica is based almost wholly on peasant production of the staple ps of the various countries; cocoa Ghana; cocoa, groundnuts, oil m products, and cotton in r e na - groundnuts in the Gambia; i oil palm products in Sierra me.

Mineral production, at present, tys a small part in the national momies, unless in the case of gold Ghana, and diamond and iron ; production in Sierra Leone, neral production is the only part the economy under European ptrol.

Australia’s land policy in New linea is similar to the traditional itish policy in West Africa. Non ,tives cannot buy land in West rica, and there are no privately med freehold European planta ms there.

The few European-owned planta

ins in West Africa are held under ase, and operated by the large unpanies who deal in the staple ops, and they occupy a small •oportion of the available land, heir main raison d'etre is in their iucational and scientific value to le native producers, and to the ivernment.

No Land Problems West Africa, of course, is much Lore densely populated than Papua ew Guinea, so that any alienation f land for European plantations or arming was never really a practic ble proposition. Climatic and other onditions reinforced this.

The early British administrations

recognised these factors, and acted upon them. Unfortunately, admin istrations in other colonies have not been so ready to recognise the 0t in New Guinea as regards availability of land f.® r European farming is entirely de ferent from that in West Africa.

The administration’s recent plan to allot land to ex-soldiers, if carried out under proper safeguards for the future, as well as the present needs of the native peoples, could be of great benefit to New Guineas economy. . ... ..

With carefully selected settlers it could also be of great benefit socially and educationally. The slightest suggestion of a “White Highlands” policy must, however, be strictly avoided.

The Australian Government s re fusal to draw up a time-table for New Guinea’s advance to self-gov ernment is understandable. So long, that is, as this is not taken to mean that there is all the time in the world for a gradual approach to this problem.

Won't Be Ready For It I have often heard Australians in New Guinea say complacently that “of course, one must remember that these people are hundreds of years behind the times”. And: It will take three or four generations, at least, for these people to be educated to a stage where they can govern themselves”.

I heard similar talk in Nigeria less than 20 years ago. spoken by

same kind of people. Whatever 3-table the Australian Govern it may draw up in the secret re es of Canberra, self-government certainly be granted to Papua t Guinea before the people are iy for it. nless, that is, Australia and New nea are to write a new and ilutionary chapter in colonial nry. ■ is true that West Africa, when came under European control, tained native states at a com atively high level of culture, and t for a century ago and more, re have always been a small nber of highly educated West icans. in the other hand, it is the case t many of the men who are play prominent parts in West African tirs today, came from tribes ich were almost completely un ilised when the Europeans first ived on the scene, anthropologists and sociologists re long realised that western cul e and civilisation have often been re readily adopted by completely fivilised peoples than by peoples an intermediate stage of civilisa ?his is not an unmixed blessing, it can sometimes lead to ,stility between the different iples in a country, and upset what s for long been looked on as the tural order of things, n Nigeria the Ibo peoples of the stern Region have made greater vances in the past 50 years than 3 Yoruba peoples of the west, who ve a much longer tradition of ilisation and culture. In the rth the pagan peoples—once the ,ves of their Fulani and Hausa ighbours—are taking to modern iys with greater zest than their :mer masters.

A somewhat similar reversal of lationships has a lot to do with e troubles between the id their former slaves in the dgian trust territory of Ruanda mndi.

They Mean Well Whatever one’s opinion of the pre nt administration’s record in ipua-New Guinea, no impartial iserver can doubt that the Aus alian Government is honestly arching for a policy which will ork in the best interest of the itive peoples.

Colonial policy is, at best, a case ’ the half-blind leading the blind, id the Australia-New Guinea re tionship is no exception to this lie That this would probably de corate the blind leading the iind, should the United Nations rusteeship Council have a greater iy in policy, still leaves no room ir complacency.

I sometimes wonder if Australia’s chool of Pacific Administration is laking the most—or any—use of

the vast pool of knowledge and ex perience which is at the disposal of Britain’s Colonial Office. In the field of personnel, at least, I am sure that there are many former officers, both administrative and technical, who could be of great assistance to the Papua-New Guinea administration.

Australians in New Guinea may be interested to know that income tax has been levied on West Africa s Europeans for at least 30 years, and is in force in most British colonies.

Hongkong and Singapore, however, did not institute it until the post war years.

The principle of “no taxation with out representation”, therefore, is more honoured in the breach than in the observance in Britain s colonies and former colonies.

The Legislative Assemblies in most British colonies, however, although usually officially controlled until the post-war years, have never just been rubber stamps for Colonial Office decisions. They have, even in the earliest days, been much more rep resentative of local opinion than the Papua-New Guinea Legislative Council.

This can be taken as a reflection of the greater prestige and authority of the British Colonial Service, and perhaps, also, of greater under standing on the part of the Colonial Office and British Colonial Secretaries.

The PM May Be In Gaol In the matter of readiness for self-government, it can be said that New Guinea is hardly at the stage of British West Africa at the be ginning of the century. It should be remembered, however, that political and economic progress in West Africa between 1900 and 1940. was almost insignificant, and that ninety per cent, of the advance to self-government has been telescoped into the decade and a half since be tween 1945 and 1960. This could happen, too, in P-NG.

In 1945. the Senior Service of the British West African administra tions contained very few Africans.

Ten years later the proportion was approaching one-half, and there were several African heads of de partments in positions of authority over Europeans.

There were also African Cabinet Ministers, directing the policy of Government departments to senior British civil servants.

It is, therefore, not being over fanciful to suggest that New Guinea’s first Prime Minister could today be a Tolai cocoa planter, or the son of a cannibal chief in some remote village in the Highlands.

Or—if the British pattern be even more closely followed —New Guinea’s first Prime Minister may even be, at present, languishing in some prison cell.