NZ Minister An Islands Man
p. 23 · Read in the full issue
From Judy Tudor, in Port Moresby Mr. F. L. A. Gotz (pronounced Gertz), has not lived permanently in the tropics since 1936, hut he still seems to fit into the Islands scene .
Mr. Gotz is NZ Minister for Internal Affairs, Defence and\ Island Territories.
WITH Malietoa Tanumafili 11, one of the two Fautua of Western Samoa, he was New Zealand’s representative at the opening of the new Legislative Council in Nether lands New Guinea and of the re constituted Legislative Council in Papua-New Guinea in early April.
He visited Papua-New Guinea briefly and privately last year (be fore his Government came to office in NZ), and spent a couple of months wandering around the Solomons on a small mission boat with the Bishop of Melanesia.
For six years before 1936 he was manager of NZ Reparation Estates in Western Samoa and before that was a rubber planter in Malaya.
Territorian Outlook
At present his other two portfolios in the NZ Cabinet outweigh his duties in respect of NZ’s Island Ter ritories. With Samoan independence next year his kingdom is a dwindling one in that department.
With that tropical background it probably shouldn’t be surprising that he sees New Guinea —and its 64 million dollar question of in dependence —more with the eyes of
a Territorian than in the way we have come to expect of Australian politicians.
He did not say so, but probably feels grateful that the problems, in ternational and domestic, of wet nursing P-NG in the years immedi ately ahead are Australia’s respon sibility and not New Zealand’s.
In comparison with bringing Western Samoa to self-government, he feels that Australia’s problems are tremendous.
There is not the same human material to work with to begin with; and the need to educate the disunited Papuans and New Guineans is a huge task in itself.
With Territorians he believes that this pressure for self-government comes from without and that left alone the people will work out their own destiny in their own good time.
He sees New Guinea as having great economic potential if develop ment capital is encouraged from outside the Territory.
Few European Territorians would disagree with that. The trouble at present, of course, being that of persuading prospective investors that P-NG is still a safe bet.