Just Happened

Not Planned as Nations Pacific Territories Just Happened

s most people know, the colon ion of the South Pacific Islands Europeans was wholly unplanned, uitous, haphazard. 3NCE, the present-day adminis trative and political problems which now are roosting in and md the Islands, to the frequent arrassment of the “South Pacific ’ —Britain, France, USA, Aus :a , New Zealand and The lerlands >r example, there is the clamour it the future of New Guinea, ticians. and so-called experts of dus kinds visit the Territory, and l talk portentously about “our ciousness of this emerging onalism”. What nonsense!

"Political Accidents"

iw —if any—of these people ever ; pointed to the historical fact this line of archipelagoes never planned by nature or by man I self-governing nation, nor to ethnological fact that it con -5 a wide variety of Melanesian II groups, speaking no less than separate languages. pua and New Guinea came to er as an administrative unit be e of a series of political ients, caused mostly by trade ries and European wars, is difficult enough to make a ?d nation out of a one-language, illy united people like the oans—it is far more difficult an area like Papua and New lea, where there is little com ity of interest. lese reflections are induced by a ing of a valuable new book, lin in the Pacific Islands, just Dieted after many years of re ;h by Professor W. P, Morrell, he University of Otago, New md.

Tells How and Why e author’s purpose was to show and why Britain became in td in Pacific Islands responsi es; and, in doing that, he, of ;e, examined the earliest records luropean penetration of these tnerable archipelagoes—as he ■ibes it, an “intrusion that was outcome of the overflowing pes of European civilisation”, us we get from him not only ;count of how Britain came into South Seas, but also an ex dinarily useful record covering irrival. activities and designs of ce, United States, and Ger 7. ere now are a score of Inde ent Colonies, Territories, Pro rates, etc., in the Pacific, all sll in g with administrative [ ems, and none of them really

planned in the beginning for nation hood. This book shows how most of them were created by such things as missionary enterprises, thrusting traders, and war settlements, and it explains all kinds of anomalies.

These anomalies, for example: • Why should the Southern and Central Solomon Islands be admin istered on a shoestring by distant Britain, while the northern Solomons are included with New Guinea to enjoy Australia’s annual gift of £l5 million per annum? • Why should the Samoan archi pelago—all one people and one language—be split in two, one ad ministered from Washington and one now attaining independence under the care of New Zealand? • Why should the large, rich, desirable archipelago of the New Hebrides languish as a “Condo minium”, simply because neither Britain nor France will surrender to the other its tenuous, 50-years old claim to these islands?

• Why should all the problems and headaches of governing modern Fiji remain with Britain, while the whole of the Colony’s economy is owned by Australia, which does not con tribute one penny piece to the Colony’s tightly-drawn budget?

Britain, France, Australia, and the Netherlands especially are now faced with some first-class admin istrative problems among the Territories they hold in the South Pacific. Professor Morrell’s new book does not supply any solutions; but his research has been carried out so thoroughly, and his records pre sented so clearly, that his carefully documented and indexed Britain In the Pacific Islands becomes a “must” for all those serious people who, to day, are trying to arrange the political and economic future of this growing and clamorous Island world.

—Rwr.

(Britain In The Pacific Islands.

Published by Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Australian price, 89/3.)