Commentary

nesia Prances

Dur NW Frontier

1 is being written on January 6, >2, while Mr. Soekarno is mak irious martial noises on our western frontier, and calling his ce and his navy onto the alert, i the latter are so new that ave still upon them the smell : Communist factories from they recently came, the time this is read, Mr. no’s forces may be actually in against the Dutch. Or they e still exercising around the ;as. It does not matter. :r Mr. Soekarno is shooting, •ely yelling, the fact remains 1 the South Pacific countries ral, and Australia in particular, ow see clearly the shape of to come. er or later, there will be Indo in West New Guinea, right threshold of the South Pacific; strongest political influence in lia today is Communist, vitally affects the future of tish and French here in the Pacific, and of the indigenous in their control. But Britain lited States and France could e less. latter have had many oppor in the past 15 years, of put r. Soekarno firmly back in t, where he would have no ban nuisance value; but they hing. have allowed Mr. Soekarno flish an affectionate relation th Moscow and Berlin, and Red armaments. (The U.S., ermany, Italy and others who know better have also had in supplying his military re nts). The Western Powers lored the strong protests which :en made by Australia, from time, against this dangerous • of strength in the archi i connecting overcrowded (and Red) Asia, with the unpro louth Pacific. alia got the first real taste of her Prime Minister sharply d Soekarno that he had / promised that Indonesia lot resort to violence in her it with The Netherlands, o’s retort was fully in char fituperative, and a typically ■epudiation of what he had cen.

Australia and Australian New Guinea need be under no delusions.

Fighting or no fighting, there is plenty more of this kind of thing to come.

And what Australia must grimly accept, today, will be the portion of the other South Pacific countries to morrow. For, by themselves, the South Pacific countries, under present circumstances, are defenceless.

There is little menace in Indo nesians, as Indonesians; they can be dealt with expeditiously. The danger lies in the efficient Red organisation which is slowly taking control of the 95 million Indonesians, and in the Communist nations which supplied the bulk of Indonesia’s armaments, and, with the majority of the countries that make up UN’s Afro-Asian bloc, promised Soekarno all necessary sup port.

If the Dutch really wanted to hold on in West New Guinea, the problem for us would be simplified.

But the Dutch are heartily sick of the Territory, into which they have sunk probably hundreds of millions of pounds, since 1945, but which is

economically valueless. Their main concern now is the welfare of the many thousands of Dutch-Indonesians v/ho sought succour there when they fled from Indonesian persecution in the late Netherlands Indies; and the promises of “s e 1 f-determination” which they gave the native New Guineans (or Papuans). But both of those considerations will count little v/hen the pressure is on.

Young Fiji Prefers The

Devil We Know'

THE opinion was expressed in the Fiji Legislative Council in mid- December, by Ratu Penaia Ganilau, and supported strongly by two other Fijian representatives, that if the present form of government (absolute rule by the British Colonial Office) is to be changed, the responsibility for government must be placed in the hands of the Fijians. Until otherwise indicated, this can be taken as an official Fiji viewpoint, marking a new stage in the history of the Crown Colony.

Hitherto, government has been a benevolent autocracy British Colonial Office administration, guided to a degree by advice from a

Legislative Council in which Euro peans, Fijians and Indians have equal representation. It has worked well enough—except that Colonial Office bureaucrats have failed rather dis mally to provide for a very rapid increase in the Fijian and Indian communities.

The Indians, although now out numbering all other races, and ever lastingly adjured by irresponsible demagogues to “remember the principles of democracy”, have been politically silent and inactive. But they have watched, with liveliest interest, the disintegration of the British Colonial Office under lam Macleod, lately lamented Colonial Secretary. They felt that a common roll, and “democratic government”, was just around the corner.

But, slowly and firmly, control of Fijian native affairs is being taken over by a younger class of educated Fijians, who have at least all the political awareness and sophistica tion of Europeans. They, also, have seen the brutality of the winds of change that are blowing through the British Empire. Probably, they have noted recent events in Mauritius.

Maybe, there was a period when the younger Fijian leaders thought that political union with the Indians was possible. If so, all such ideas disappeared in 1960-61, when the mass of Indian cane-growers allowed themselves to be led like sheep, by a small gang of bigots and hate mongers, into a war against the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, to the confusion and heavy economic loss of the whole Colony.

Silent and thoughtful, over these many months, the Fijians watched the 200,000 Indians of Fiji fighting among themselves, hopelessly divided by modern greeds and ancient prejudices into a score of squabbling sections. Fijians applied the obvious moral. , . , One easily may make good mends of individual Indians. There can be much merit in Indian citizenship.

But, to a degree that is truly remark able, Indians lack political nous— that peculiar quality needed when an administrative organisation has to be applied fairly and justly to widely differing classes. I The Fijians, growing up politically, now have spoken. J So far as they are concerned, there will be no common roll —with all that it implies—in Fiji. The Colonial Office had best abandon any ideas it may have been cherishing about a government based on adult suffrage.

The Fijians prefer the present system —and the old adage, “better the devil you know tian the devil you don’t”.