Commentary

Ainister Hasluck Sorts

)ut The Tangle

T has been given a lot of publicity, so there is no need to publish here the re-statement of Aus alian policy in Papua and New ninea, made by Australian Terri fies Minister Hasluck on August . Most of it had been said before, recent months.

Mr. Hasluck’s real purpose—in lich he succeeded very well —was straighten out the tangle of inions and comments broadcast June and July (see page 17 of ly PIM ), wherein confusion has sn made more confounded by a s-reading of a statement made Prime Minister Menzies at Mas : Airport on June 20.

Vlr. Menzies was made to say it, in his view, Australia should part from P-NG sooner rather m later. The PM actually said it that; but in a context that anged the meaning somewhat, t the tireless commentators took as a flat contradiction of views t expressed by Mr. Hasluck.

Mr. Hasluck had been saying, in rope and America, that Australia st remain in New Guinea for )ther three or four decades—or lerations —if New Guineans were be left there in a condition where y could govern themselves.) lo the newspapers, and the iticians and the UN visionaries— Dse knowledge of P-NG can best expressed with the minus sign— I a really merry time in July [ust, planning the imminent de ture of Australia from P-NG, I the kind of government that :ht come into power, loth Prime Minister and Terri es Minister were greatly irri ;d. n examination of the full text what Mr. Menzies said on June showed that his meaning was represented. On the contrary, as explained in a speech on July there was no conflict between views and those of Mr. Hasluck. \ had already pointed this out its July issue \ late August, to get the record Mr. Hasluck issued iphlets in a flood, giving the text anous statements made by him and Mr. Menzies. It is a re mng flood. Taken in conjunc with speeches made by Opposi , and Labour leader Calwell, it ;d satisfy property-owners in ua and New Guinea that their Jstments are safe for many ides yet to come, owever, it is a pity that Mr. i C 9 U I ( I not himself have 1 this, in so many words His ? re-statement of policy of

August 23 contains nothing calcu lated directly to cheer and en courage private enterprise one gets comfort only by inference.

Anyone who has studied history and observed conditions in New Guinea over the last 50 years knows that planters and traders do at least as much as Administration and Missions to Europeanise the natives, and encourage them to adopt less primitive standards of life.

But Mr. Hasluck, the conscious Socialist, always avoids that par ticular point. In recent times he has met P-NG planters and traders with a show of affability and good will; but in none of his public statements is there any real ack nowledgment of the debt the Ad ministration owes to private enter prise, or any expressed hope that, in the future, there will be closer co-operation between official and non-official classes. ☆ ☆ ☆

New Moves In Native

Education In P-NG

AFTER decades of dithering, the Australian Government now is making a sweeping frontal at tack upon the problem of introduc ing literacy to the widely differing Melanesian communities which make up the Territory of Papua and New Guinea.

Although Australia generally is exceedingly short of school-teachers, the Department of Territories is now offering special inducements to Australian teachers to go to New Guinea for a brief period of years, to train selected natives to be village school teachers.

The Christian Missions, which have undertaken so large a part of the education task in P-NG for 50 yea(rs, are co-operating with the Department in this extension of activities. The Methodist Church, like the Department, is advertising widely for white teachers to train brown teachers.

This combined effort is entirely praiseworthy. Its effect will be to greatly hasten social progress among the native peoples, from most primitive village life to a con dition where they at least can be prepared for some degree of real self-government.

But why was the effort so long de layed? As has been pointed out dozens of times in this journal, over the last quarter-century, it was im possible to really lift the standards of life in this ‘country unless the natives were provided with some means by which the Administration could instruct and direct them.

In a one-language country, the

task is simple—the Administration learns the language. But what could be done in Papua and New Guinea, where a vast agglomeration or mostly primitive tribes speak at least 500 different languages?

There obviously was only one thing to do—namely, provide machinery through which hundreds of selected natives can be taught simple English, and given enough education to allow them to go out and teach in the village schools.

It was obvious, yet it took 15 years of time, and a lot of screaming by United Nations and other in strumentalities, before the Admin istration really got around to it.

However, better late than never.

The next thing to ensure is that all this preliminary training of teachers is done in the Territory, and not in Australia.

The system of sending Melan esians to Australia for special education, and then returning them to their villages, is cruel and mischievous, and indefensible so long as these people are unable to become permanent residents of Aus tralia.

It is gratifying to see, through out the Territory, increasing evid ence that the whole scheme of native education is being linked with technical training.

Age limitations give Mr. G. T.

Roscoe only a short term as Director of Education; but, already, he has more than justified his appoint ment. ☆ ☆ ☆

A Cyclone in the

Gluckman Teacup

r[E refusal of a permit to enter New Guinea for Professor Max Gluckman of the Department of Anthropology at Manchester University (he has been “visiting” the National University in Canberra for some months) has set off this month’s New Guinea fuss in Aus tralia, and has ended—as New Guinea fusses usually do—with almost everyone involved making fools of themselves. (See Pacific Report, this issue).

All countries, of course, reserve the right to refuse a visa, even for a tourist visit, and without giving reasons; but even if P-NG was doing only this in the Gluckman case, this might have been an occasion, in view of the shortness of the visit and the other circum stances, when an ounce of common sense would have been worth a ton of moral right.

The refusal of the permit cut every academician to the quick; but when neither the Minister for Territories nor the Administrator of P-NG (who is nominally the person who “refuses” permits), would give any reasons for it, Australian news papers got into the act. Led by The

Sydney Morning Herald whose “We Hate Hasluck”, or “Pooh to Paul” policy obscures most of its New Guinea thinking these days— they deplored this travesty of British justice which could damn a man without saying why.

The Professor himself, after initially saying that as a guest in Australia he wouldn’t dream of criticising the Government, went on to give daily “statements” to the Press and to appear in a TV inter view. The Australians must have acted in good faith, he said, on reports from British Security or Northern Rhodesia which “must have been full of lies”, or “only malicious gossip”, or (worse still) “compiled by politically immature people”. He was not anxious to have this “false information made public”.

The Territories Department or the P-NG Administration, could possibly have taken the wind out of the Professor’s sails at this stage by saying why they didn’t want him in the Territory—but they didn’t.

They kept silent, and made another peg for their critics to hang them on.

There have been rat-bags and no-hopers a-plenty who have slipped through the screen and established themselves in the Terri tory, so it is hard to see how a three-weeks’ visit by an expatriate South Africa Professor—who has strong views on racial matters there and elsewhere —could make much difference, one way or another.

Even if he had gone away and said later that Australians treated the natives worse than dogs or that they were unfit to administer a primitive country, it would have been no worse than what Australian politicians, newspaper reporters and ether critics have already said, ad nauseam.

The professor and his permit are, of course, only symptoms of the disease; the disease itself is the permit system, and PIM has been saying so for 15 years. While the system does not prevent the entry into the Territory of undesirables who are guaranteed to give Euro peans a bad name, it does allow others to be kept out for no other reason than that bureaucracy does not like them.

It transpires, from all the recent turmoil about Professor Gluckman, that 15 other people have been re fused permits in the last 10 years.

PIM, of course, can remember back further than that. During the Labour Government and Mr. Eddie Ward’s term as Minister for Terri tories, Mr. R. W. Robson, PlM’s publisher, was refused permission to go to Papua-New Guinea. No reason was given except that it was “not possible, at present, to grant permission”. Shortly after the last refusal, another member of PlM’s editorial staff applied for permission to visit the Territory and this was granted immediately from which

we concluded that the Robsonian sin was simply that of being persona non grata at that time.

The matter was regarded as inconvenient but slightly amusing— not a national calamity or a Party political weapon.

We doubt whether Professor Gluckman’s troubles are national in scope, either. There must be few things left in P-NG that a 40years procession of anthropologists hasn’t dealt with. But, on the other hand, it is unlikely he would have done much harm, either. The Territory has, in its time, received and digested stranger visitors than the professor. ☆ ☆ ☆

Danger! Need For

Reform in Fiji

The end of the sugar deadlock in Fiji, while a great relief to Government and citizens, does not mean the end of the Colony’s troubles. On the contrary, they are just beginning.

Already, they had appeared in the fields of administration and economics, but they have been obscured by the quarrel between mill-owners and cane-growers—a dispute that has been unduly pro longed by an Indian coterie whose motives are not clear, and deeply suspect.

Fiji’s troubles come basically from the fact that Fiji’s administrative system has failed dismally, hereto fore. in providing for a rapid popula tion increase, complicated by com munity unbalance and the difficulty of gearing the land-owning Fijians’ village-communal way of life to the practices and demands of the now more numerous, non-land-owning Indians.

The stark problems created by in creased population and Colonial Office incompetence now have been presented—at least ten years late— by the Burns Commission. Internal reorganisation is demanded, most urgently; the people apparently are reconciled to the idea of far-reach ing changes; but there is a pitiful lack of the machinery needed to shape the necessary reforms, and carry them out, as part of an in tegrated plan.

The present machinery consists only of a Governor with wider powers than perhaps is generally recognised; and a Legislative Coun cil completely dominated by the Governor’s nominees—Departmental heads and selected non-officials. In view of what clearly is coming, that is not enough.

Because they have social and economic grievances which are not adequately taken care of by the present governmental system, the Fiji-born Indians are developing a political consciousness which may not be ignored. In fact, it must be provided for. and soon.

Meanwhile, and unexpectedly, a new generation of Fijians is likewist developing a political consciousness The events of the past year havt greatly stimulated its growth, anc sharply shaped its direction and its thinking. It is not too friendly t( either of the other two dominan races, Europeans and Indians—ant especially the latter.

If the policy of drift and inr guided political growth goes on there easily could be disaster ii sight, in the shape of racial con flict. It would be madness to ignon the signs.

The Burns Report dodged th constitutional issue argued tha the present worn-out system woul< serve for a while yet. That i fallacy. The call is for action befor trouble develops—not afterwards.

Mr. Julian Amery, due very soo: in Fiji, has dealt successfully wit! some very difficult trouble-spots t his Colonial Empire in the past tw years. We believe that he will re cognise in Fiji the need for con stitional change that will be wis« swift and firm.

A benevolent autocracy probabl is the very best form of govern ment for Fiji, under present con ditions. But that calls for wisdon experience, benevolence and strengt in a degree difficult to find. Any way, how can a Colonial Offic autocracy be maintained in a worl that now has gone crazy on the sub ject of self-government for in digenous races?