Co Mmentary

Is Products and the

ion Market

OUGH the Common Market posal has been under dis for a year, the colonies and is of the South Pacific have only just awakened to that, if Britain joins The Six EC—which now seems certain momic future may be vitally ountries most concerned are nd New Guinea, Solomons, and Ellice, New Hebrides, noa, Tonga and Cook Islands, e in the British sphere; and Polynesia, New Caledonia v Hebrides, which are asso ith France.

Tench Territories appear to i the clear. They are politic an integral part of France, ir products (coconut de some metals and phosphatic ye been entering the Common of The Six without let or Colonial Office people in taken it as certain that the of Fiji, Solomon Islands, nd Ellice and Tonga (mainly products and sugar) will be ly protected by Britain in imon Market, just as the of the French territories are porters of copra and coco are not so sure, and they seeking reassurance. Will imodities go into the Euro irket, as produce of British 5 countries”, with the same as is now enjoyed by similar ties from the French archi ve. interests, which market iduction of sugar, seem un- The British-Fiji Sugar it does not expire until 1970, are sure it will be honoured, of the EEC, and of the Office, are less confident, eement, they say may run -rm; but they are sure that does expire, Fiji will face oblem, because sugar always one of the world’s most and uncertain food pro opra interests have other ■namely, the probable fate oducts of the Territories of and New Zealand. Exports uld be in jeopardy are the

coconut products, coffee, cocoa and rubber of Australian Papua-New Guinea; the copra and cocoa of Western Samoa (which, though no longer under New Zealand, is still regarded as NZ’s economic re sponsibility); and copra from NZ’s Islands dependencies.

It is not expected that Britain will treat the Australian-NZ Islands’ pro ducts with any more consideration than she has so far given the pro ducts of the Commonwealth countries themselves.

Some clarification of the position is being urgently sought. But there seems to be no authority competent to represent these diversified Islands’ interests, and prepared to ask Can berra, or Wellington or London for clarification, “It really doesn’t matter in the long run whether Britain joins EEC or not,” said a highly competent observer in Suva in June. “Britain’s economic condition has been slowly deteriorating for years, and if she does not get the help she hopes to get through the Common Market, she simply will be incapable of continu ing to provide the Commonwealth with safe and sheltered markets, as she has done for so long. No use blinking the facts—they are plain for any economist to see.”

P-NG at the End

Of the Tourist Limb

THE development of tourism in New Guinea, which is an uphill battle in any event, has not been helped by the withdrawal of the Qantas Super-Constellation service through Port Moresby to Manila to connect with Far Eastern services.

Qantas originally ran an Electra service from Sydney right through to Hongkong calling alternately at Port Moresby and Darwin. When they switched to Boeing 707 aircraft (which cannot use Port Moresby’s airport), Qantas put on a Super Con stellation aircraft from Sydney through Port Moresby to connect with the Boeings at Manila. It didn’t pay and has been withdrawn.

One reason why it didn’t pay was that Qantas was not permitted to pick up or land passengers on the Port Moresby-Sydney section of the route in competition with Ansett-ANA and TAA which took over the Australia-

New Guinea services from Qantas in 1960. (Through-passengers could, of course, break their journey at Port Moresby.) In view of the great pioneering work that Qantas did in establishing the Papua-New Guinea services in the post-war years, the decision to push Qantas out of P-NG was to be regretted, on sentimental grounds alone.

But on hard, practical grounds the latest development is even more re grettable. The easiest way to develop a tourist industry is to be on the way to somewhere else. The Port Moresby-Far East link was part of a round-the-Pacific circle that must eventually have developed from the present increased interest in the Paci fic. It is a natural for tourists to come down into the South Pacific from Canada and the USA by the old routes through Hawaii, Tahiti and Fiji to New Zealand and Aus tralia and return by Papua-New Guinea, the Philippines, Hongkong and/or Japan. The withdrawal of the through-service at the beginning of this year made this difficult; the with drawal of the connecting service to Manila now makes it impossible.

Tourists who want to include Papua-New Guinea in their travels now have to go there from Sydney or Brisbane and then come back about 2,000 miles in order to get a plane connection to anywhere else.

P-NG is now a complete dead-end as far as international services are concerned—an extraordinary de velopment in view of the fact that the Territory was air-minded at a time when people in most other places in the Pacific were still getting about in canoes or model-T Fords.

New Caledonia, American Samoa, Fiji and Tahiti now all have full in ternational jet airports and are on round-the-world air routes. Papua- New Guinea, which is the biggest, most populous and richest territory of them all now has only air connec tions with Australia and the Solomon Islands. ☆ ☆ ☆

Press and the

Papuan Pastor

THE Case of the Gagged Papuan Pastor provided us, in June, with a good example of how New Guinea Territory affairs can be presented in distorted fashion by the Australian metropolitan Press.

Most metropolitan newspapers gave front-page prominence to a Brisbane story of how Pastor Ravu Hanao, an LMS missionary from a village near Port Moresby, had been “or dered” by the New Guinea Adminis

tration not to make any comments on political matters while in Australia.

After the absurd stories put into Papuan mouths by some Australian newspapers in recent months, such an order might even have been jus tified; but officialdom insisted that Papuans were under no restriction.

The Administrator of Papua-New Guinea and the Department of Ter ritories went to some pains to deny that there was any directive to P-NG natives on what they should say or not say when overseas —and the Pastor denied it, too, eventually. But little notice has been taken of any of it.

The Sydney Daily Mirror, in the same issue in which it ran a story under the heading “Papuan Pastor Now Gagged by Own Church” also published an extraordinary editorial entitled “Fuzzy Wuzzy Fascism,” which said, in part; “The whole affair is unsatisfactory and must be cleared up. The Minis ter for Territories, Mr. Hasluck, must get at the truth of it.

“Assuming the district officer did give the instruction [not to talk politics] on whose authority did he act?

“Coming not so long after the Gluckmann affair when the adminis tration succeeded in keeping out of New Guinea a distinguished author ity on anthropology, this incident can only help those who for their own reasons want to force Australia to abandon New Guinea altogether.

“It is Mr. Hasluck’s duty to re pudiate the instruction absolutely. If he refuses then it can only be taken to reflect government policy. And in that case the sooner we do get out of Papua and New Guinea the better.”

It is statements like these—which would make more sense coming from Pravda —that sometimes make Ter ritorians wonder which side the Aus tralian Press is on. What service has the airing of this piece of non sense done to anyone—except to our enemies abroad?

The Hanao case—based on jour nalistic ignorance of P-NG conditions —does irremediable harm to Aus tralian interests in New Guinea and frequently causes the Papua and New Guinea Administration acute embar rassment in its relations with the UNO authorities.

The number of literate natives in Papua-New Guinea is increasing, but is still very small. Probably there is not a dozen among the whole two million competent to give a thought ful, informed answer to the kind of questions customarily asked of travel lers by newspapermen.