Nauru’s Future

Press, Volume C, Issue 29557, 5 July 1961, Page 14

Nauru’s Future

As last year’s report of the I External Affairs Department observed, with the reduction in the number of territories still under United Nations trusteeship, Nauru, in spite of its small size, is beginning to attract greater attention in the Trusteeship Council. Unfortunately, objective consideration of a problem that grows in interest and urgency with the years is hampered by malicious criticism of the sort that marred discussion in the Trusteeship Council last week. Though jointly responsible with Britain and Australia to the United Nations for Nauru, New Zealand takes no part in the day-to-day administration of the phosphate island, which is controlled and administered by Australia under an agreement among the three Powers. As a result, it has been Australia which has taken the lead in meeting the problem of Nauru’s future. In the next 40 years the phosphate deposits will be exhausted. The island is too poorly endowed agriculturally to provide a living for Nauru’s population, which has grown substantially under the best living conditions of Polynesian communities. Resettlement is the obvious solution, and a suitable island home has been sought Unfortunately,

! none that would support the Nauruans at anywhere near their present living standards has been found. The alternative is to join them to some larger community. They have been offered permanent citizenship by each of the three trustee Powers. Australia has gone so far as to make specific proposals. They include payment of the Nauruans’ passages, provision of a house and furniture for each family, jobs, and help with children’s education for five years after arrival. So far, this generous offer (which, it should be noticed, is a breach of the White Australia policy) has not found favour among Nauruans, who believe they could accept it only at the expense of their national identity. They are now pressing for resettlement on an island off the Australian coast Apparently no decision can be expected until the Nauruans find that no island exists that would support them at a reasonably high standard of living. There is some time yet before resettlement must be firmly decided—probably 10 to 15 years. But the longer the decision is put off, the more difficult it will become. Nauru should be not a plaything of cold-war politics but an object of sympathetic consideration.