SOUTH PACIFIC COMMISSION A SOCIAL REVOLUTION IN THE SOUTH SEAS

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27633, 14 April 1955, Page 12

SOUTH PACIFIC COMMISSION A SOCIAL REVOLUTION IN THE SOUTH SEAS

[By a Staff Correspondent of the "Sydney Morning Herald"] (Reprinted by Arrangement)

With the arrival in Sydney last week of the new Secretary-General of the South Pacific Commission, Dr. Ralph Clairon Bedell, one.of the world’s most successful and least-publicised experiments in international co-opera-tion comes for the first time under the direction of an American. This is a significant indication of the importance the United States currently attaches to the South Seas, despite her relatively small territorial interests in the area, and an assurance, which should be very welcome to Australia, that South Pacific development can count on sus ~ tained practical American support and encouragement. For Australia has responsibilities and opportunities m the South Pacific which extend far beyond her actual island territories there. , , As the Pacific colonies move forward to self-government—a process which, although still slow by Asian and even African standards, has been enormously accelerated during the postwar years—Australia will assume a dominant role in the eyes of their emergent native leaders. They will naturally regard Australia as a pivotal point—as the country to which they can look for the development of trade, for techniques and skills, and for friendly guidance. By virtue of her geographical position and her advanced cultural and technical development, Australia could become the natural and accepted senior partner of a group of independent native States of no small strategic and economic importance—a development which would certainly strengthen her hand in her dealings with her northern neighbours. That still lies a long way ahead, but it was with recognition of her special responsibilities in the South Seas that Australia took the lead in pressing for the bold .and imaginative experiment in regional integration which, was launched seven years ago as the South Pacific Commission. A Transformation In those seven years a remarkable transformation has been wrought in the South Pacific. A practical demonstration of international teamwork in very difficult conditions—geographical, political, and economic—has not only justified Australia’s vision, but made an experiment at first dubiously regarded even by many of the participants into a world model for co-operation. The change, although greater events in Asia have overshadowed it, has been dramatic.

In 1948, when the agreement setting up the commission was ratified by the Governments of Australia, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the 18 colonial dependencies in the South Pacific were the Cinderellas of empire. Nobody cared very much about them; nobody worried very much about their problems; nobody really believed in their economic, let alone their political, development. .The Pacific races, it was said, were dying out fast. They were unable to adjust themselves to the twentieth century. All they wanted was to be allowed to sit in shade and idleness, waiting for the bananas to ripen and the coconuts to drop. Eacb of the six administering Powers cultivated its own little Pacific backyard in a dilatory way, cut off from its neighbours, indifferent to the broad problems of the area. There was no attempt at co-ordination of colonial action, and indeed virtually no communication between the governments dr the local administrations concerned. Questions of health, of economy, of social welfare, although obviously common to many territories, were tackled —if they were tackled at all—in the context not of a region, but of a flag. Gross Waste Sixteen different administrative systems meant marked discrepancies be tween the territories in the handling of native problems. There was gross waste in such matters as duplicated research, inefficient use of specialist services, and failure to share expensive facilities. Worst of all, perhaps, as an augury for the future, there was a total lack of any forum where the island races could express their own views, and the shadow of African unrest, 4n such embryo but dangerous forms as the Cargo Cult, was beginning to lengthen across the Pacific. The task facing the South Pacific Commission was as delicate as it was formidable. The commission was left in no doubt that it existed on sufferance so far as some of the governments involved were concerned, and that its first condition of existence was to avoid interference with local colonial administration. Its terms of reference made it perfectly clear that all it could do was “recommend” measures to the various governments. It was empowered to: Recommend measures for the development of the economic and social rights and welfare of the inhabitants of the South Seas, without regard for international boundaries, particularly in respect of agriculture, communications, transport, fisheries, forestry, labour, marketing, production, trade and finance, public works education, health, and housing. Provide and facilitate technical scientific, economic and social research. CO < lines ate lOCal pro^ects alon « these Provide technical assistance and advice for the participating governments.

Promote co-operation with nonparticipating governments.

The area with which it was concerned was v<st. It stretched ultimately between Netherlands New Guinea in the west, the Marianas in the north. Pitcairn in the east, and Norfolk Island in the south—a region some 7000 miles from west to cast, and 3500 miles from north to south. Within it live more than 3,000,000 Pacific islanders, ranging from the Stone Age Melanesians of the New Guinea interior to , the relatively sophisticated Polynesians of Samoa, the Cook Islands, and Tahiti. The commission’s first step was to constitute its two auxiliary bodies, whose work has had a profound effect in the Pacific—the Research Council and the South Pacific Conference. Advisory Body The Research Council is a standing advisory body comprising scientific and technical experts of the six administering Powers. The South Pacific Conference, which has been referred to, rather inaccurately, as the “Parliament of the Pacific,” is a friendly forum in which native delegates from all over the area meet and discuss their problems, and express their desires and aspirations to the commission. The commission has worked slowly and cautiously, careful, sometimes perhaps over-careful, to dispel any idea that it was a super-government, painfully aware always that it had powerful critics who would not miss the opportunity if it stepped outside its brief. As a result, its achievements have been gradual and its methods far from spectacular. But the achievements themselves are spectacular enough. In seven years the commission has brought about nothing less than a social revolution in the South Seas. For the first time, the South Pacific islander has emerged from his taro patch and found himself a man of a wider world than that confined within the boundaries of his island home. Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian leaders have met and mingled and exchanged views in the South Pacific conference. They have learned that they have common problems and common aspirations, and have ex- • pressed for the first time a sense of their own share of responsibility for solving the problems and realising the aspirations. Unmistakably evident at the conference have been the first stirrings of a wider social and economic consciousness in native leaders. Pacific Partners Returning to his island, each sees himself no longer as a member of a small isolated group, but as a partner in a wide Pacific community. He has been shown what others have done or are attempting, and is determined to attempt it for himself. He has discovered, to his own and the world’s surprise, that, far from being a dying, race, his people are vigorous and increasing, tq the extent, indeed, that over-population is becoming a serious problem. It is one of the commission's most important achievements for the future that, thanks to the mingling of white, black, and brown on entirely equalitarian terms in the South Pacific Conference, and to the sense of a unity of purpose thereby engendered, this native awakening has been founded on close and friendly relations between the European and the coloured races. “We have dropped a large pebble into the pool of the Pacific,” said the Governor of Fiji, who presided at the first conference, “and no-one can tell how far the ripples will extend.” On the administrative level, thanks to the work of the Research Council, the problems of one territory have become the problems of all, and the officials, the scientists, and the technical experts of six Western nations work as a team to solve them. Nothing Wasted By means of touring experts, of regular inter-island gatherings of those concerned with particular problems, and of participation in local projects of all kinds, the research council works to ensure that no useful work is done in isolation and that no useful result is wasted. The smallest island territory now has on call the services and the experience of highly qualified specialists from six nations. For projects whose results are to be of general interest and application, it can at need be granted financial assistance by the commission, which nevertheless manages on a modest' annual budget of less than £200,000 (Australian) (of • which Australia contributes 30 per cent.).

Problems of disease, of nutrition, of soil fertility, of new cash crops, of vocational training, of community development, of co-operative societies, of literature promotion, audio-visual aid s and literacy have been tackled for the first time on an international scale.

As a result, research into tropical diseases such as malaria and filiariasis, long the scourge of the islands, has been substantially advanced; island economics will have the chance of diversifying their cash crops instead of being at the mercy of the copra market; standards of living will benefit, and an increased literacy has been given material to feed on. In short, the South Seas have sloughed the long years of stagnation and stepped all at once into the’ 20th c €*nfo r y- It is an achievement of which all the six colonial Powers taking part in can be justly proud. This is colonialism for which no-one need apologise.