From Travelling

Plain Speaking

New Guineans

From a Port Moresby correspondent Messrs. Paulus Arek of Papua and John Maneke of New Britain have been touring Africa after representing P-NG at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and the former has been getting into the news with some forthright utterances.

At home Paulus Arek has the reputation for being somewhat of a radical, and the conservative views he has expressed abroad have caused surprise and touched off speculation among those who know him. Both men are members of the House of Assembly.

However, on arrival back in Port Moresby, Messrs. Arek and Maneke struck rather a different note.

Criticising Mr. Barnes’ attitude on target dates, they expressed the view that target dates for, successively, home rule, self-government and independence should be set now.

They apparently still envisage, as they did in Africa, a period of 20 years or so for the attainment of inde pendence.

They pointed out that, with the changed attitude of Liberia, Russia was now the only major critic of Australian administration in P-NG, and they suggested that the best way of dealing with this situation would be to invite Russia to send a delega tion to the territory to see for itself what is going on. Russia has never been included in the membership of a visiting UN Mission.

They did some plain speaking on certain current problems, e.g., the racial segregation resulting from the creation of high-covenant and low covenant housing areas, and the tendency to create three communities in the territory—indigenous, mixed race and European. The mixed race people, they said bluntly, must make up their minds what they wanted to be, and not try to make the best of both worlds.

Altogether a welcome gust of fresh air in the current political aridity.

• See "How mixed up can you get?", p. 34, and photograph, p. 118.