NEW GUINEA’S AUTONOMY

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29368, 22 November 1960, Page 6

NEW GUINEA’S AUTONOMY

Australian Policy Stated (Now Zealand Praia Aaaociaticn) WELLINGTON. N<w. 21. "The United Nations Trusteeship Council continues to demand tlvat Australia should set dates tor granting self-government for New Guinea. Our policy is to work towards eventual selfgovernment of the territory, but it would be an unkindness, as our Government has stated, to force a man to walk over a cliff blindfolded.” said the Australian High Commissioner (Vice-Admiral Sir Joi.v-i Collins) in an address today to members of the Upper Hutt Rotary Club. Australians believed, said Sir John Collins, that political advancement must be accompanied

by measures for social, educational, and economic advancement.

“We are prepared to give immediate and realistic target dates for advancement in those fields, but at the present moment the preservation of law and order, health, education, and how to earn a living, are the more urgent tasks. We cannot yet give realistic dates for political advancement to complete independence. "We are not going out of the territory in a hurry. In our judgment of the situation as it exists today, the territory will need our help for many years to come. "The advanced leaders of the indigenous people say plainly that they need us for a long time ahead. We are not going to abandon them, or our own. people who are working with them.”