Strong Reaction To Reports

Of New Hebrides Plan

Newsagency reports from London and Paris in July sug gested that Britain might be proposing to hand over its half interest in the New Hebrides Condominium to the other partner, France. The reports said that British and French officials intended to discuss such a proposal at forthcoming talks in London.

BY the end of July there had been no confirmation or denial of the report. In Canberra, Australian Government officials said they knew nothing of any such moves and didn’t believe the reports were accurate Nevertheless there was an immediate Press and radio reaction in Australia against any move to hand over British interests in the New Hebrides to the French, and Britain was left in no doubt as to how such a decision would be accepted.

The Australian Broadcasting Commission in Sydney gave top position in its nationally-broadcast news review session to the following radio commentary by Mr. Ten Usher, editor and publisher of The Fiji Times Suva*

I would like to preface what I have to say with a pretty big “if”, If Britain were to hand over con trol of the New Hebrides entirely to the French without first finding out the wishes of the people of the ter ritory, and without consulting the various non-French interests in advance, it would cause serious worry indeed here, and among various other British dependent ter ritories in the Pacific because it would be a sellout of a disgraceful and shocking type.

But our experience in Fiji, and the experience of the people in the Solomons and Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, makes us look with a good deal of suspicion on this sug gestion that Britain is intending to sellout in this way. In our case

there has been full consultation before any constitutional changes have been made, and the wishes of the peoples of the territories concerned of all races have been sought and have been listened to.

I don’t think there is much doubt that Britain would like to withdraw from the New Hebrides, and it is entirely conceivable that there is a good deal of fire behind the smoke.

"Clumsy System"

This condominium idea is a pretty clumsy system of government, with different sets of laws, different languages, different courts, different police forces, costly duplication of officials—all standing on their dignity and wanting to preserve their own status —all in a very small area of land.

It is not an efficient system of government. I had an experience of this just after the war when an RNZAF Catalina in which I was travelling ran on to a reef in Vila Harbour.

We ran on to the reef because there was no beacon marking it.

There was no beacon because the one that had been there a year or so before had been destroyed in a storm and the British and French

officials hadn’t been able to decide who should put it back again! It’s this sort of thing that leads to facetious comments about pando monium in the condominium.

But once a government is involved in a. combined show like this, it can’t just withdraw overnight without causing a lot of complications. Some trading companies, for instance, are on a British register and some on a French. The British companies are not going to spend money on capital works (and one of them, I know, is just now planning a new store at Vila) if their legal system is sud denly to be thrown into the melting pot.

They will want to know about overseas staff. If the French are in complete control they may want to put restrictions on the entry of staff from non-French countries, because they have done so elsewhere in the Pacific. Would there be special taxation and special licensing restric tions imposed on non-French enter prises? This has happened elsewhere.

Not Easy To Work With

Would tariff barriers be raised against goods from non-French sources? A number of Pacific regional air services call at the New Hebrides airport. Would landing rights be preserved? These are some of the many questions that would be posed.

I think it is fair to say that South Pacific governments and peoples have often found the French not particularly easy to work with. In the South Pacific Commission, for instance, France has fairly often found itself the odd man out. Their disregard of protests from a good many parts of the pacific about the Mururoa Atoll atomic tests hasn’t exactly been reassuring.

So I would hope very much that if Britain should find it necessary to withdraw from the New Hebrides she will not do so without some solid safeguards for the welfare and the preservation of the legitimate interests of the non-French people involved.

Helicopter Crashes

A Sikorsky helicopter on charter to the Conzinc Riotinto organisation for mineral research crashed into a building during take-off near Kieta, Bougainville, NG, on July 28. The pilot was only slightly injured. The loss of the Sikorsky is a serious blow to the exploration programme, as it carried heavy equipment and supplies to the mountain teams.