Exploitation

For, says Colonel Powles, if the country is to be made self-supporting, Big Business, with all its bad effects, must move in to develop it. On the other hand, the natives will only become "museum pieces" if we keep on paying out to them for ever. Another side of this question is the labour problem. Whence the labour? Indentured labour was inefficient and was stopped by its originators. There are thus only two ways of solving this problem—either the native work's for himself or as a servant of the white man. Farming (in Fiji) and copra production (in Samoa) have solved themselves in the former way, but the industrial problem remains to be solved. New Caledonia with its silver and nickel industries, is a blot on French colonial rule.

However, concluded the speaker, if, as was promised in the Canberra Pact, a South Seas Advisory Commission is set up, the immediate problems of the next ten years, which are health and education, may be handled with some hope of success. England, New Zealand, and Australia, if' they co-operated, would have control of 90 per cent, of the native population, and that would be an excellent start.

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College Personalities

Eric Palmer—M.M.C. Secretary