NEW GUINEA TO-DAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23703, 10 January 1939, Page 11

NEW GUINEA TO-DAY

AUSTRALIAN MANDATE NO TRANSFER TO GERMANY HISTORICAL CLAIMS Australia has been listening with growing anxiety to Germany’s renewed demands for the return of her colonies (writes Trevor Ross in the Daily Telegraph and Morning Post). She herself holds the 93,000 square miles of the former German New Guinea under a mandate from the League of Nations, and she has no doubts that Germany includes this rich group of islands when she talks about regaining lost possessions—now or in the future. Sprawling 3000 miles in a great arc across the top and to the east of Australia, the islands of New Guinea, the Solomons, and the New Hebrides form a rampart which has since the war become of immense strategic and economic importance to the Commonwealth. Events in the Far East, the Commonwealth’s Near North, have neeply perturbed the Australian people. They reajise that their isolation has gone and that their interests in this great land chain at their front door have irrevocably drawn them into the politics of the Western Pacific.

New Guinea is only a few hours from Australia by the regular air service, straddling the northern approaches and dominating the unprotected coastline of the Gulf of Carpentaria and Queensland. Japan has declared she will never give up the rich Marianne, Caroline, and Marshall Islands north of New Guinea, handed to her under mandate from the League. The tides from the north are flowing dangerously far to the south, and Australia now sees New Guinea, the British Solomons, and the New Hebrides (held jointly by Britain and France) as a vital breakwater. For this reason alone public opinion would never allow New Guinea to pass from Australia’s control. Wealth Exploited

Australia is exploiting the wealth of the mandated territory with great speed and efficiency, and at last feels she is able to do there what the shortsightedness of British colonial policy prevented her from doing towards the end of last century. Despite the German occupation, Australia has always considered that morally her ownership to New Guinea was indisputable and that she had been cheated out of it.

As early as 1885 public meetings were held in Australia in an attempt to induce the British Government to annex the country for commercial and strategic reasons. The Premier of Queensland went as far as to equip an expedition. But annexation was repudiated by the Secretary of State for the Colonies (Lord Derby) with the famous dictum, ‘‘Her Majesty already has too many black subjects.” Australia continued to impress upon Britain that some other nation would steal a march on her, but the Colonial Office remained indifferent.

Even while the British Charge d’Affaires in Berlin was being assured in so many words by Bismarck that Germany had no further intentions of expanding in the Pacific, a German expedition was being fitted out by Dr Otto Finsch at Sydney, of all places. Shortly after, Finsch raised the German flag in the territory, and Australia was shut out until her expeditionary force took possession in September. 1914.

Upon Australia’s assumption of the mandate in 1920, and the replacement of the military administration, the lethargic colonising of the Germans immediately gave way to an efficient civil administration determined to do two things—rehabilitate the natives and give them a real stake in their own country, and exploit the wealth of the country to the utmost. In both Australia has succeeded admirably, and in no way whatever .has native welfare been subordinated to commercial greed. Complaints of Whites Indeed, Australia has been so considerate to the natives that many complain New Guinea is being preserved as a "black man’s country” aad that the whites are accepted on sufferance. This, of course, is an exaggeration, but it does show that Australia, in taking something out of the country, is putting something back. The Commonwealth is taking a real pride in New Guinea and seems to be working off the sense of injustice she felt for many years. The administration is almost 100 per cent. Australian, and the field service is acknowledged to be one of the finest organisations of its kind in the world. Police patrols have been replaced by anthropologists and highly-trained field officers. Teachers are seconded from the Queensland Education Department to staff special technical and agricultural schools attended by more than 10,000 natives. Research

officers are working in laboratories .on problems surrounding the expansion of agricultural areas, and special native hospitals are part of a health programme embracing the remot&st parts of the territory. Australians have poured into New Guinea since the discovery of rich gold deposits in 1926. Millions of pounds of British, Australian, Canadian and American capital have been sunk in the mining industry. The exploitation of the gold fields is a story in itself. Modern mining machinery was transported piece by piece in aeroplanes across nightmare country. A £2,000,000 Gold Output

To-day 38 aircraft in the territory are flying 1,500,000 miles a year and carrying 22,000,0001 b of freight, mostly between the mine fields and the coast. This journey they complete in an hour; it took the early settlers 10 days’ hai'd packing through jungle. Gold production is now worth more than £2,000,000 a year, which is equal to one-fifth of the output of Australia’s own mines. It will soon be much more, for experts are convinced no more valuable field has been opened up since the discovery of the Rand. Moreover, the territory is rich in osmiridium, platinum, copper, magnesite, sulphur, and brown coal. The white population has more than doubled in 10 years, and of the 4300 whites, 3330 are British. Most of the former German plantations are in the hands of Australian ex-servicemen, and Australia controls the sea-borne trade, once the monopoly of a German firm. Trade is increasing steadily, and Australia is rapidly getting a return for the money she spent in the early days after the war. New Guinea’s imports are valued at nearly £1,500,000. and Australia provides nearly £700,000 worth. Exports are valued at £2,500,000. Australia taking nearly £2,000,000, of which all except about £300,000 is represented by gold. Under the terms of the mandate, Australia is forbidden to use New Guinea for military purposes. The native constabulary must not be regarded as even the nucleus of a standing army; it is simply a force equipped with obsolete rifles, useful for patrol work and to give the natives a proper regard for the Administration. All the former German fortifications have been removed, and the roads are used entirely for commercial purposes. The German military staff always appreciated the value of good roads (as it does in Germany to-day), and some excellent strategic highways were built in New Guinea in the early days. No Fortifications Although it is admitted that the many landing grounds and aerodromes would be useful if New Guinea were ever attacked, all aircraft in the terri-

tory are civil machines. There can be no suggestion that Australia has fortified New Guinea, as Japan is known to have fortified her mandated areas iust north of the equator. Yet, without fortifications. New Guinea and the other islands swinging away from its outlying atolls are of immense value. There are large and safe harbours, and the sweeping land masses serve as a buttress for Australia and New Zealand. Moreover, Australia is now working closely with the British Admiralty upon a plan for the fortification of Darwin, her northernmost settlement. This, with Singapore and Hongkong, will complete a vast defensive triangle. Several members of the Australian Government have recently considered it necessary to state quite clearly that the return of New Guinea to Germany could never be considered. Their strongly-worded reminders that Commonwealth opinion is unshakeable on this question have obviously been directed against German propaganda in the Western Pacific, which has become more vocal in recent years. There is still a small proportion 'of German settlers in New Guinea, and they have not been allowed by Berlin to forget where it is considered their allegiance rightly lies.

Trans-Pacific Air Link

There is a last and vital reason why Australia feels she must preserve her hold to the north. New Guinea is before long to become an important link in the trans-Pacific air route. Pan-American Airways are already prospecting, and intend to run a spur line from Guam, the American posses sion north of the Japanese-controlled Caroline Islands, down to New Guinea to connect with planes from' Australia. This will bring Australia within six days of San Francisco instead of a month as at present. Then again. Air France is said to be planning a. transpacific service by extending the Far East line to Brisbane and thence to New Caledonia. Tahiti, and South America. The new Empire flying-boats are already travelling round the top of_ Australia within a stone’s throw of New Guinea. For these reasons alone the mandated territory is certain to assume a growing importance in the life of the Pacific.