Papua's Murray-Symbol

The Month's New Reading

With Judy Tudor

Papua's Murray-Symbol Of An Era

It probably would have surprised the late Sir Hubert Murray, who suffered keenly from feelings of disappointment and frustration in the later years of his life in Papua, to find tiimself now represented in Oxford University Press’ “Great Australians” series.

RANCIS West’s Hubert Murray is no more than essay length I, by the look of the booklet, is bably intended for secondary 00l students. Nonetheless, it is excellent sketch of a man who ame a legend in his own time, tough he himself often failed to Dgnise it.

Vhen Hubert Murray went to lua in 1904 as Judge, in succession C. S. Robinson who had shot iself when he was blamed for the isacre of some natives, he was :ady 43. Four years later, when was appointed first Lieutenant pernor, he was still filled with lusiasm for his task and still saw iua as a land rich in agricultural mineral promise that needed only iership and enterprise to tap the ilth. le believed that European enter e must be encouraged in order provide a model for the primitive 'uans. At the same time, that law >t be taken to the Papuans and they must be protected from d-on exploitation while being led tly along the path to civilisation, he first part of the dream scarcely ived World War I. By 1920 vas obvious that Papua was not erially rich—and, in fact, was r in comparison with the New nea territory next door. That it unlikely to attract the sort of elopmental capital that he had ed for was soon apparent; more r. he was under constant attack n those planters and traders who established themselves, on the and that he protected the natives much. tut perhaps the greatest dis ointment of the period was in nection with the first attempt to ilgamate the territories of Papua New Guinea, the latter becom an Australian Mandate in 1920. t Royal Commission had been ointed in 1918 to report on the ainistration of the new Territory, rray was one of the Com

missioners; the other two were Atlee Hunt, a lawyer and ex-head of the Australian Government Department that had dealt with Papuan affairs, who did not like Murray; and Walter Lucas, right-hand Islands man for Burns Philp & Co. Ltd. for years who, during the war, had been technical adviser to the Australian Government on Pacific Affairs. (In 1920 he formed and became head of the NG Expropriation Board that administered plantations and proper ties taken over from the Germans).

Lucas did not like Murray either —and he and Hunt were against the idea of amalgamation, especially if Murray were to become the Admini strator. Their view was accepted by Australia and Murray’s minority report urging amalgamation turned down.

This was a blow to Murray, who had seen in the proposal an oppor tunity to employ his own talents on

a bigger stage than that offered by Papua; and who saw in the Covenant of the League of Nations, which proclaimed dependent people a “sacred trust”, a reflection of what he had already been putting into practice in Papua, In the years that followed he pursued his aim of bringing peace

Sir Hubert Murray, in Papua.

and law to the people, with some of the most famous patrols in the history of the two Territories; and of building up a Public Service and especially a field staff, of devoted disciples. At the same time his own personal reputation grew in Australia and abroad.

“To the world,” said West, “he appeared the image of a successful colonial governor. With his formidable presence, the simplicity of his dress and manner of life, and his dislike of the trappings of ceremony, he seemed one of those strong and silent rulers of men whom Kipling and Marryat had made familiar. With his international reputation as a colonial ruler estab lished, Murray mellowed from the harsher appearance of the former years and enjoyed his fame. But behind this legendary mask he doubted and worried.”

He distrusted Australian politicians and probably even more, the depart ment which ran Territory affairs from Canberra and many of his fears crystallised when, in the closing years of his life, in 1938, the amalgamation of the two Territories was again proposed. Although in 1918 he has been for it—with himself in command—this time he saw it as a likely device for getting rid of him and of attaching Papua to the tail of the big kite that was New Guinea.

Fears In the event, the territories were not amalgamated but although by now frail and ill, Murray remained on in Papua for fear that some successor would ruin the work he had done by failing to keep the delicate balance between Papuan and European interests. It was thus, in February, 1940, he died in Samarai while on tour in Eastern Papua— having been 32 years virtual ruler of Papua.

The image of Sir Hubert that emerges from any account of his life is of a man isolated in great loneli ness, not only because of the proverbial “light that beats upon a throne” but by the man’s own nature. The one thing that could have softened the austerity of his existence—a happy family life in Port Moresby—always seemed to elude him.

He had married when he was 28, in Sydney, and he and his wife and three children knew much happiness until he went to Papua in 1904. He had hoped that his family could be with him there for at least half of the year and Mrs. Murray ac companied him when he took up his appointment. But she found con

ditions and climate intolerable and stayed no more than a week.

Murray’s reunions with his family thereafter became increasingly in frequent. His wife died in 1929 and he subsequently remarried but the second Lady Murray (he had been Knighted in 1925), could bear Port Moresby no better than the first and he was condemned to a life of almost perpetual grass-widowerhood.

In many respects Murray as an Administrator was ahead of his time; in many more he was very much of it. The post-war growth of nationalism, the pressures of the anti-Colonialists, the strains and stresses of political development and

the focus of uneducated wo opinion on undeveloped peoples T all in the future. His role asi Administrator was that of the : bringer; the architect of the thd of “gradualness” in advancing ; Papuans and in justice for 1 European and native.

As such he was the symbolc an era and for the Papuans, by wv he was venerated, the first and 1 of his kind. They will, sooner ras than later, achieve independence,,; they’ll never see his like again. .

(Hubert Murray. Oxford

versity Press. Great Australians Sec 5/-.)