NNG, Too!

All This And NNG, Too!

The native people of Aus tralian and Netherlands New Guinea would welcome federa tion of the two territories according to A. M. P. Reuben Taureka, recently nominated to the Legislative Council of Papua- New Guinea and already pre sident of the P-NG’s Workers’

Association, the Territory’s first native trade union.

Taureka said that he was not just speaking for himself when he said this, but that it was “the general feeling of educated natives on both sides of the border”, that both New Guineas should become one.

Taureka had been asked to comment on a statement made by Dr. Joseph Luns, Nether lands Foreign Minister, after Luns’ recent meeting in Holland with the Australian Prime Min ister.

Dr. Luns said then that a federated New Guinea was “cer tainly a possibility”.

Taureka said that the Workers’

Association had been in “con stant contact” with various native organisations and political groups in West New Guinea, and that “generally, we think along the same lines.”

Most observers of the New Guinea scene would probaby agree that both Taureka and Dr. Luns are talking about 20 years prematurely. Taureka’s Workers’ Association represents a tiny minority of the Papua- New Guinea population, and there was far more common sense and down-to-earth reality in the comment made by “a senior Administration spokes man”.

This unknown but practical gentleman said: “A federation is something that the natives themselves will have to decide when they attain independence. ■ . . Australia has a big enough burden developing Papua-New Guinea without tackling, on a joint basis with the Dutch, West New Guinea, too.”