Commentary

p Rooted Causes

The PIR Mutiny

sTNING a peace-time native jgiment and keeping morale ad efficiency high is something which the Australian Army et to prove that it knows much, i mutiny, strike, riot—call it you will —in the Pacific Island lent at Taurama, near Port by, in late December has i all the shocked comment in territory that other riots by elements in the PIR did three ago. 1, as usual, in the Territory n is sharply divided between who would like to see the tent disbanded (“No kind of a tion and a potential menace :t Moresby,” according to one at); and a minority who think t was all the fault of the De ent of the Army which wasn’t enough off the mark with pay ses. only general satisfaction to have been with Police issioner Chris Normoyle’s constabulary, which met the diers who had broken out of ks somewhere near Port ay general hospital, and ed them up” in fine style, •itorians identify themselves he Royal P-NG Native Den ary which has had an un tied record of service going lalf a century; but they don’t y themselves with the PIR, is an “alien” body.

PIR is part of the Australian e forces and the cost of main- T , these 800 native soldiers and Australian officers is not paid t of the Territory budget, the soldiers themselves are ed from exactly the same 3 as the Royal Constabulary, tien, is the conduct of the two of men so very different? The lat native police have to be out to quell native soldiers is lurd situation in itself, obvious answer lies in the sation of the two bodies, and articularly in the officers who lem.

European officers, from both .tive Affairs Department and ice, who are in charge of the )ulary make a career in the ry. The officers in charge of R do not. They go to the ry on short tours of duty of four years. the PIR riots at the end I it was decided that these ours, and consequent lack of :anding between officers and 'ere mainly the trouble. One measures taken to correct the m was the establishment of a

liaison officer whose job it was to explain the Army to the recruits, and recruits to Australian officers.

The liaison officer was Major Don Barrett, who is also a cocoa planter in New Britain. He retired about six months ago but whether this has any bearing on the fact that no one was apparently able to explain the Army’s pay policy to the PIR re cently, it would be hard to say.

The Army, it was said, had had the matter of increased pay in hand for some time—it just had not got around to finalising it. It was unfortunate timing, therefore, that increases became “official” immedi ately after PIR elements staged their strike. These lads may not know much about Army discipline but they know enough about cause and effect to work that one out.

The old-fashioned word for strike in the Army is “mutiny”. And an army which can mutiny because of alleged pay grievances is not likely to be of much value in a real crisis.

The whole value of the PIR, except as a gesture, under present military circumstances, is open to doubt.

But Australia is not likely to take the step of disbanding the PIR at the present stage, when there is so much talk of self-government for the Territory. No doubt when Aus tralia moves out she will want to leave independent P-NG with an army it can call its own.

Nothing the peace-time PIR has done up to date, however, is likely to inspire residents of the Terri tory as to what it is likely to do under self-government.

In the meantime, the PIR trouble must be regarded as just another symptom of a more serious disease— the lack of comprehensive planning by Australia on how she is to pro ceed in order to bring the Territory to a stage where self-government is possible. ☆ ☆ ☆

The New Year Shows

Us An Ugly Picture

“T ET us all stand together, and fl J take a realistic view of our troubles, and I am sure that by tolerance and unity we shall come through all right. . . ”

“It is a monstrous thing that, with science opening for us new worlds of wealth and plenty, the nations should be squabbling among them selves. Why don’t we wake up to the silliness of it all. . . .”

And so on, through newspapers and radio and television, cliches ad nauseam. Quack, quack, quack!

Why in the name of common sense can these prattlers not see that we can do nothing (we being

the people of the West) to alter the international set-up or reduce the tensions? Nothing, that is, by talk ing. We are where we are because world Communism has arranged it this way; and because every month Communism drives us nearer to the ideological explosion which means World War 111.

All farseeing people (a pitiful minority, certainly!) know that this increasing sociological and political unrest between peoples and classes and nations is part of the Cold War.

It is not a thing of our contriving.

It has been all planned, shaped and forced upon us, with diabolical cleverness, by the gangs of political opportunists and international ad venturers who masquerade as Gov ernments behind the Iron and Bam boo Curtains, and who hold hundreds of millions of people in a sort of sociological bondage.

The Western masses, through their precious “democratic system”, provide us with our so-called gov ernments; and the despots of the Totalitarian world play with these governments as if they were puppets, pushing them there, pulling them here, until the unfortunate “states men” simply do not know where they are going, or what actually they are trying to do.

It is all part of the conspiracy entered into by the international Reds after World I, under which our most cherished institutions— democracy, private enterprise, in dividual freedom, inherited wealth — have been honeycombed and twisted and used by selected groups as in struments for the destruction of what we call Western civilisation.

When the Western system col lapses—as it inevitably will, unless we introduce some new kind of world control over the nations, of which there is at present not a sign —lnternational Communism will take over, and mankind will go into another Dark Age.

The sociological madnesses which at present ravage Congo and Cuba, Laos and Algeria—with others to follow —are all in the pattern, planned campaigns of the Cold War.

While the distracted Westerners rush from place to place, trying to re-establish political orderliness (while themselves dislocating economic orderliness) the Reds are constantly preparing new attacks upon the Western world, while keeping their big military boots hard down on the necks of the helpless nations behind the Curtains.

There is only one way to put a stop to it all, and save humanity from indescribable disaster. The whole Western world should unite and arm, smash international Com munism, and free the enslaved nations from the Totalitarian yoke.

But that means that the West’s masses must themselves see the danger, and be prepared to fight to defend individual freedom against international Communism. And there is not a sign of that.

Kambiu With A or 0

Is Still The Mother

Gus Smales, Rabaul newspaper correspondent (and a Behind), although just one of the many, said all that was necessary to Sydney sider (a B-4 who therefore should have known better) on the subject of the word “Kambiu” (December

Pim, P 65) :

Tut-tut on your puzzle over the word “Kambiu”. The answer is very simple—it is the name of the mountain loosely called “The Mother”.

Malay town is right at the foot of the mountain, and the people take their name from this fact. The street runs along the base of the mountain, and so gets its name the same way.

By the way, it is more correctly spelt with an O instead of an A— KOMBIU, coming from the Tolai.

Sydneysider had already floundered on the explanation by sheer chance in an old book by the pioneer Methodist Missionary, Dr. George Brown, wherein he describes the Rabaul eruptions of 1878 in which Vulcan Island emerged from the sea, and the Beehives, in the middle of the harbour, subsided somewhat.

He knew they had done this be cause at high tide after the erup tion the houses on them were lapped by the sea.

It must be a long time now since there were houses of any sort on the Beehives.

Those "Browned Off" Verses

Were a Fake

We were surprised—and filled with dismay—when we received the following letter addressed to The Editor: On page 88 of the October issue of “PIM” you published some verses under the title of “Browned Off”. You explain that these verses were sent to you by Syd Pasley, of Kavieng, New Guinea. You infer that my original verses were couched in such language as to be unprintable, and that you have slightly expurgated them with the result as printed.

Let me publicly state that these verses do not in any way resemble anything I have written, nor did I send them to you.

If these verses were sent to you in my name, it was done without my knowledge or consent. I have never written any verses even slightly resembling those that you publish. And the sentiments expressed therein do not in any way resemble my own feelings towards these islands. Ido not hate any part of them; and as for hating these ruddy natives, I have certainly never expressed such sentiments.

I have spent the greater part of my life in these islands and hope to spend the rest of it here.

Either someone falsely sent you verses alleged to be written by me, or you have grossly dirtorted some other verses that I may have written.

I am, etc.,

S. M. Pasley.