IX - New Guinea and Papua

Summary

Australian interest in New Guinea, which first became significant in the 1870’s, was abundantly justified from the point of view of national security by the events of the war against Japan. New Guinea became plainly the last rampart protecting the Australian mainland from invasion and the recognition of this, heightened by the personal experience of the island gained by thousands of servicemen, persisted in Australian minds after the war. There is now a very much wider awareness of New Guinea as an element in the national situation and some New Guinea matters have unprecedently become national political issues in the postwar period: the question of the use of Manus as an American base, the Bulolo timber inquiry, the retirement by the Commonwealth Government of the first post-war Administrator, and the proposed use by the United States Navy of Japanese technicians in a survey of New Guinea waters.