Commentary

Slow Needed on

G Trade Unions

rISLATION setting up elaborate tiachinery for the organisation ipua-New Guinea trade unions or industrial relationships now 5 only official “consent” before ling law, but most Territorians n unconvinced that either the ory or the natives themselves d anything of the sort at this of development. (See report 19). ; contribution of native mem jf Legco—or lack of contribu te the debate on the bill in i amply bore out this conten- Few natives in the Territory the remotest notion of the y of trade unionism or any of rinciples and it will probably a whole new department of in ors and inspectors to show them to do, how to collect fees, and, is even more important, how to and manage their money once ave got it. The Pacific Islanders’ disregard—and almost contempt the ordinary business principles ire part of the Western pattern z are a cross that officials who had to organise Co-operative ;ies know well. ; business principles will be only ispect of getting unionism run smoothly in Papua-New Guinea. ; will be far greater problems le industrial front where those “organised” still don’t know the ;nce (as some European mem of P-NG Legislative Council pointed out) between a riot and ke; and where a weapon of con ible power is to be put into the ; of people whose sense of re ibility is still based on native •e and not on Western ideas at the Assistant Administrator took to point out in his second read 3eech on the bill last September, rowth of industrial organisations natural process. As far as our society is concerned, it has been ;r many generations and over industrial revolutions, t in the case of New Guinea, 50 many reforms and advances, 1 be dropped on the people from 5, without regard to the fact there has been little done to ire them for it. o many of Port Moresby’s—or terra’s—ideas for the advance of P-NG natives seem to be

based on the idea of biting off more than can be swallowed and then just chewing it—and this is just another of them.

It can be said, of course, that some machinery must be prepared for the new phase of labour relations and organisation in the Territory now that it has moved away from the old native labour contract system. But it is surely not necessary to have the full blown type of thing that has evolved in Australia over a century of labour organisation.

But if the P-NG Administration chose to ignore the suggestions of experienced Europeans in the Terri tory, it chose also to ignore the ad vice of trained opinion outside. It is only about 16 months ago that the so-called Tripartite Mission on Labour Matters in P-NG issued its report.

“No objective observer,” said the Mission, “could conclude that trade unionism in the Australian pattern would necessarily be appropriate for the Territory.” And for numerous reasons that it set out—one of them being that few P-NG natives have any idea of what trade unionism means— the mission felt that nothing should be done at present to force its growth.

The mission included represent atives of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Manufactures and the Australian Council of Employers’

Federation, the president of the Aus tralian Council of Trade Unions; a vice-president of the same organisa tion; the general secretary of the Federated Engine Drivers’ and Fire men’s Association; officers of the Commonwealth Department of Trade and of the Department of Territories. (Their report was published in PIM, Feb., 1961.) ☆ ☆ ☆

Overseas Warnings For

Our Pacific Countries

THERE are valuable lessons for Fiji, Western Samoa and one or two other up-and-coming Pacific Islands countries in recent political developments in Mauritius, Zanzibar, and a number of the West Indies and Caribbean islands controlled by the British Colonial Office.

In the late ’Forties, West Indies and Colonial Office thinkers developed a plan for a West Indies Federation. It took definite shape in the next decade,

and in January, 1958, the West Indies Federation was established.

The Pacific Islands Monthly, more than once, decribed this W.I. Federa tion movement, and suggested that, maybe, here was a pattern to be fol lowed by a “South Pacific Federa tion” of British Colonies.

It appeared then to PlM —and does still—that this was the only way to create, in the South Pacific, an admin istrative and economic unit big enough, and strong enough, to be self-supporting.

Within that same period, Britain listened similarly to the demands of Mauritius for self-government. In most respects, Mauritius closely re sembles Fiji—a population of 600,000, supported mainly by sugar-growing, and the chief industry operated by Indians.

It appeared in 1958 that the West Indies Federation would grow and flourish. It was to acquire independ ence—presumably, within the British Commonwealth—in May, 1962. It was to consist of— Jamaica.

Trinidad and Tobago.

Leeward Islands (Antigua, Montserrat, St. Christopher, Nevis, Anguilla).

Windward Islands (Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St.

Vincent —with the Caymen, Turks and Caicos clusters).

But in 1959-60 the local anti- British politicians and agitators got seriously to work.

In September, 1961, Jamaica voted overwhelmingly in favour of secession from the Federation, and independ ence; and, shortly afterwards, Trini dad and Tobago followed suit.

The Federation collapsed; and in February, Mr. Maudling—the gentle man who inherited the British Colonial Office, and all its headaches, from lain Macleod—announced that the plan had been abandoned; but that Britain still hoped to create an East Caribbean Federation, to which Leeward and Windward Islands would adhere.

There are 3,200,000 people, mostly African stock, with a large admixture of Asian Indians, in the 12 islands and groups which formed the now collapsed Federation; and about two millions of them are in Jamaica and Trinidad.

Jamaica now produces sugar, bananas and coffee, and calculates it will soon get additional revenues from newly-discovered bauxite, and from American tourist and other trade now shut out of Communist Cuba. Trini dad thinks it can carry on with sugar and bananas, plus large estimated revenues from oil There is nothing much in the economy of the Leeward and Wind

ward Islands, The Jamaica and Trini dad politicians were emphatic that they were not going to carry the ad ministrative costs of their weaker Islands sisters.

Experienced economists are emphatic that there is no hope for an in dependent economy for the proposed East Caribbean Federation, unless some mainland British Caribbean colonies, like Guiana and Honduras, are included in it. But the latter show no interest.

The economists—and this is im portant to Fiji and West Samoa— question the ability of well-endowed Jamaica and Trinidad to carry on alone as independent governments, while maintaining even the moderate standard of living which they now have.

The originally proposed Federa tion, spreading taxation over millions, might have been successful, but not the dozen islands and groups split three ways, as now suggested.

Within recent weeks, a BBC tele vision unit, directed by James Mossman, visited some of these islands, and interviewed both local politicians, and men-in-the-street. The story which it told is interesting and illuminating.

The people interviewed mostly Africans, using the common language, which is heavily-accented English— expressed sharply anti-British senti ments, but insisted that Britain should continue to assist them economically, and should still admit the growing stream of West Indies immigrants, even though the West Indies now propose to cut themselves out of the British Commonwealth.

The little impromptu speeches which some of them made into the microphone showed no understanding of economics, and dripped with the glib cliches of Red agitators.

If these countries are to be run as independent administrative units, on a basis of adult suffrage, then we can only wonder about the future of the former British West Indies. Inevitably, if Cuba does finally go Communist, these Caribbean countries will come under Cuban domination and lose in dividual freedom, finally and irrevoc ably.

Fiji should note that a similar thing is happening in Mauritius. The Colonial Office, last June, handed over the Colony to the common roll; and as the majority of people there are Indians, there is little hope of individual freedom and of economic security for the European and the mixed African minorities, under the kind of administration that now is taking shape.

Fortunately, conditions in Fiji are

not wholly comparable with Mauritius. There is in Fiji a partner ship between the two minority groups —Europeans and Fijians—based on the Deed of Cession, which neither may break, even if they wished it; and this creates in Fiji a situation which precludes (for many years to come) any possibility of a govern ment controlled by a common roll.

So far as Fiji is concerned, con templation of all these recent develop ments indicates very strongly that if Fiji wants a trouble-free future, there must be (a) a continued close associa tion with Britain and (b) unity and reasonable goodwill between the three dominant racial groups.— R.W.R. ☆ ☆ ☆

Dutch Troops Arrive

Via French Airfields!

WITH continued screeching and shadow-sparring, the Indo nesians have manoeuvred themselves into a position where they must either move in strength against Dutch New Guinea, or retire into humiliating silence.

The Dutch, always realist, in March decided to send replacements to New Guinea. They planned air transportation. To their amazement and discomfiture, Britain and Japan —obviously acting under instructions from Washingtons’ tireless “anti colonialists”—would not allow Dutch planes carrying reinforcements to use any British, Japanese or American airfields.

Eventually, the air-borne Dutch troops (gravely outfitted as “tourists”) were flown into the Pacific via Peru and French Tahiti and New Cale donian airfields. De Gaulle, despite his intense preoccupation with Al geria, could take time off to administer that little slap in the face to the visionaries who, since World War 11, have virtually destroyed the British Colonial Empire.

Sooner or later, the Indonesians will take over Western New Guinea —not because they have any right to the country, but because Britain and United States have planned it that way, ever since they abandoned the Dutch and the Netherlands Indies to the Soekarno gang in 1945.

War makes strange bedfellows.

Germany and France, increasingly in alliance, are growing ever stronger in Europe, as Britain there grows weaker. Britain, dicated to now bv USA, may be increasingly anti colonial; but France and Germany are not. De Gaulle has just said so, to Holland.