of the colonial Pacific

New Hebrides: Last bastion of the colonial Pacific

The British and French Resident Commissioners of the New Hebrides and members of the New Hebrides Advisory Council in December heard the most tren chant criticism of the condo minium system. Two New Hebridean members, Father G.

Leymang and lolu Abbil, attacked the “antiquated colonialism” of the New Hebrides constitution— the Protocol of 1914—and asked for its immediate revision.

Father Leymang, of Malekula, is the first and only New Hebri dean priest of the Roman Catholic Church. Mr. Abbil, from Tanna, is a co-operatives inspector with the British administration.

They made their criticism in a motion reading: “In view of the development of the New Hebrides, which creates a need for a new legal structure and orientation; and in view of the fundamentally colonialistic character of the Protocol of 1914; the aspirations of the young generation of New Hebrideans towards greater re sponsibilities; and the uncertain political future of the New Hebrides Condominium, we re quest the two governments to undertake an immediate revision of the Protocol of 1914.”

The motion was passed, and undoubtedly it must be regarded as a political landmark in the New Hebrides; the beginning of pressure by more vocal New Hebrideans for real political de velopment in the condominium.

Father Leymang, who spoke to the motion tabled in both their names, made it clear that it was not intended to ignore the humani tarian contribution of France and Britain in the New Hebrides, but simply “to bring a suffocating situation into relief’ and to “initiate a quest for the New Hebrideans’ identity”. He was aware, he said, that the motion was “Utopian”.

Father Leymang said that despite all the official flowery phrases about entente cordiale, the protocol “oozes from every pore the stench of an antiquated colonial policy which inevitably bears no relation to the aspirations

of the younger generation of New Hebrideans”.

It maintained a “precarious balance between Europeans and Pacific Islanders, where the vertical bonds of superior force are more in evidence than the amicable re lationship among the different racial groups comprising the popu lation of the New Hebrides.

“Whilst the Melanesian New Hebrideans are numerically in the majority, being dominated, they form a silent, not to say apathetic majority.

“This is a situation which westerners have a great deal of difficulty in imagining in the New Hebrides; what it is to be ‘beyond the pale’, to be excluded from society, to be ‘goods left on hand’.

The condominium is unity founded on apathy.”

Father Leymang said the British and French administrations each had their own way of looking at things, and increasingly the two national administrations were being consolidated instead of being inte grated with the joint services.

He said France and Britain had never changed their “fundament ally divergent policies by one iota; this being to annex the New Hebrides to some territory or other which already belongs to them”.

He condemned Article 8 (2) of the Protocol as the “best example of colonial anachronism in the middle of the 20th century, when so much is spoken of the cult of the individual”. [This article says that “no native shall acquire in the group the status of subject or citizen or be under the protection of either of the two signatory powers.”] Millions had been invested by both powers in the New Hebrides, but Father Leymang queried whether at the local level the money was enough, or distributed fairly. He said it was spent in setting up administrative struc tures in the image of the great powers and duplicating them in every district to support “a host of redundant administrators.”

He asked, “With its more highly developed hind quarters,

aren’t the New Hebrides like a monster? Isn’t the condominium a den of intrigue and disorder?

Should we not rather talk about the ‘Pandemonium’ of the New Hebrides whose motto would be ‘divide and rule’?”

The Protocol acted as a stock response to every argument. For British and French administration it was a source document for their work, but it also served as a loop hole, and this was becoming “ludicrous, exasperating and some times even insolent in the eyes of the New Hebridean people”.

He asked whether the prospect of British or French annexation had really disappeared now that Gilbertese, Fijians or other Pacific Islanders were coming from British and French territories into the New Hebrides.

“Let us add to this prospect of annexation, the educational systems in the New Hebrides, which have as their corollary a new genera tion of New Hebrideans divided by two European languages and the formation of an intellectual proletariat, giving a second rate, not to say cut price, education without any openings, and ready for the first chance to revolt and claim their rights?”

The joint powers had both de clared their intention to stay, but he would believe that when they integrated the education systems with the joint services in an attempt “to adapt curricula to the Pacific environment and not with the idea of cultural domination”.

He continued: “What is more, the recent arrival of American capital has set the joint authorities on the alert and it is whispered that a third power is moving into the New Hebrides.”

To require that all decisions should come from the two metro politan governments was colonial infantilism. Changes should not necessarily stem from a decision made in London and Paris, but from “a bilateral confrontation of the two metropolitan governments with all the radical groups of the New Hebridean population”.

Would the New Hebrides go for ward with the rest of the Pacific or would it, he added “be sucked down into the quagmire of the condominium as it was set up by the 1906 convention?”

For a detailed report on the Hebrides, see p. 38.