Abstract
The boundaries of the British and German possessions in New Guinea had been agreed upon in 1885 and 1886.1 The chief purpose of the New Guinea mainland boundary, as laid down in the Agreement of 1885, was merely to provide a fair and equitable territorial division— with Germany supposedly receiving a slightly larger slice. Actually, the Germans got less because Lord Granville conveniently, although probably unintentionally, underestimated the British share by some 27,000 square miles.2 Nor were the absentee boundary makers appalled by the thought that the whole of the rugged New Guinea interior was terra incognita: the agreement brazenly asserts that the territorial dividing line ‘would nearly approach the water-parting line, or natural boundary’.3 Penetration of the Highlands in the early 1930s destroyed this myth. There is a central cordillera dividing north and south, but rather than a single chain it consists of a complex system of ranges with deep intermontane valleys, several of which lie well to the north of the territorial dividing line. The headwaters of several rivers are on one side of the line, their mouths on the other. The upper tributaries of the Purari, for example, not only come from the Kubor range but even from the Sepik-Wahgi and Ramu-Purari divides—north of Mt Hagen, Minj, and Goroka. This was discovered in 1930-1 by gold prospectors M. J. Leahy and M. I. Dwyer of the Mandated Territory when the river they followed from the Ramu plateau took them, much to their surprise, to the Gulf of Papua.4
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
For the relevant documents see D. & C. (Docs. C. 1 and C. 2).
Granville gave the size of the British portion as ‘about 63,000 square miles’; the actual size is about 90,540 square miles (A.R.T.P., 1962-3, p. 13).
See D. & C. (Doc. C. 1).
K. L. Spinks, ‘Mapping the Purari Plateau, New Guinea’, G.J., vol. LXXXIV (1934), p. 413.
H. C. Brookfield, ‘An Assessment of Natural Resources’ in New Guinea on the Threshold (E. K. Fisk, ed., Canberra, 1966), p. 63.
See Territory of Papua and New Guinea, Department of Native Affairs, Village Directory; 1960 (Port Moresby, 1961) under Southern Highlands, Gulf, Central, Eastern Highlands, Western Highlands, Sepik, and Morobe Districts.
H.C.T., vol. XXI (London, 1901), pp. 1178-80. Reproduced in D. & C. (Doc. C. 4).
H.C.T., vol. XXIII (London, 1905), pp. 800-1. Reproduced in D. & C. (Doc. C. 5).
H.C.T., vol. XXIV (London, 1907), pp. 474-6. Reproduced in D. & C. (Doc. C. 6). The author wishes to thank the Hydrographer of the British Navy for supplying a copy of the 1885 and 1909 editions of British Admiralty Chart No. 329.
S. S. Mackenzie, The Australians at Rabaul; the Capture and Administration of the German Possessions in the Southern Pacific (being Vol. X of Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918) (4th ed., Sydney, 1937), pp. 82–3, 148 ff.
Ibid., p. 160. Italics added.
C.D. Rowley, The Australians in German New Guinea, 1914–1921 (Melbourne, 1958), p. 269.
C.P.D., H. of R., vol. CCI (1 Mar. 1949), p. 757.
MacGregor to Lamington, A.R.B.N.G., 1896-7, pp. 39–40. Reproduced in D. & C. (Doc. C. 3).
F. H. Villiers to Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, 31 Jan. 1898. C.A.O., A 1, 14/4329.
H. H. Lewis in Department of External Affairs Minute Paper, 12 June 1906, ibid. Reproduced in D. & C. (Doc. C. 7).
Elgin to Lord Northcote, 31 Jan. 1907, ibid. In the intervening period, Acting Administrator A. Musgrave made one general recommendation regarding border control in his despatch of 24 March 1903. Although strongly in favour of demarcating the border—a matter which hardly could be left unattended much longer without ‘imminent danger’ of ‘international claims and complications’—Musgrave doubted that this could be accomplished soon and suggested that in the interim ‘an Officer duly qualified to communicate, as necessity may arise, with the German Official in authority on the other side of the border’ be appointed (Musgrave to Governor-General, 24 March 1903, C.A.O., A 1, 03/3921). The suggestion was brushed aside by Atlee Hunt on grounds of expense and the absence of proof of any immediate necessity for such an officer (Minute Paper, Dept. of External Affairs, 30 July 1903, ibid.).
Barton to Deakin, ibid.
In Memorandum from Governor-General’s Office to Prime Minister Deakin, 2 Nov. 1906, ibid.
Memorandum by Atlee Hunt, 14 Nov. 1906, ibid.
Department of External Affairs Minute Paper (second section, 2 Nov. 1908), ibid. Reproduced in D. & C. (Doc. C. 7).
Ibid.
Elgin to Lord Northcote, 21 Oct. 1907, ibid.
Hunt to Le Hunte, 25 May 1908, ibid.
Le Hunte to Hunt, 27 May 1908, ibid. Reproduced in D. & C. (Doc. C. 8). ‘Winter’ is Sir Francis Winter, Acting Administrator, Nov. 1898–Mar. 1899.
C.P.D., H. of R., vol. XLVI (7 May 1908), p. 10,965.
‘Arrest of a Village Constable on the Waria by German Officials’, Department of External Affairs Minute Paper, 29 Oct. 1908 (referring to a request to the Governor-General to inform the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 7 May 1908). C.A.O., A 1, 14/4329.
F. Lascelles to Sir Edward Grey, 10 Sept. 1908 (ibid.).
W. E. Freiherr von Schoen to J. Salis, 28 Oct. 1908 (translation, forwarded by Salis to Grey), ibid.
Sabine to Minister for External Affairs, 10 Dec. 1909 (hereafter referred to as Sabine Report), pp. 1-2 (ibid.). Partly reproduced in D. & C. (Doc. C. 9).
Sabine Report, p. 10.
Ibid., p. 11.
Deutsche Kolonialzeitung, Jahrgang 27, No. 20 (14 May 1910), p. 330.
P. A. Graf Wolff Metternich to Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (translation), 21 June 1910. C.A.O., A 1, 14/4329.
Sabine Report, pp. 17-18. The section containing Sabine’s recommendations were omitted from the report when it was transmitted to the German government.
Staniforth Smith to J. H. P. Murray, n.d., ibid. Reproduced in D. & C. (Doc. C. 10).
Murray to Minister of State for External Affairs, 9 Dec. 1909, ibid.
F. A. Campbell to Count Metternich, 25 July 1910, ibid.
Letter of Count Metternich, 14 June 1911. C.A.O., A 1, 24/4558.
Lichnowsky to Sir Edward Grey, 22 July 1913, ibid.
P.R. of S. A. Greenland (Apr.–May 1913). C.A.O., CP 1 (Territory), series 35/229.
P.R. of C. T. Wuth (July–Aug. 1914). Ibid., series 35/240.
P.R. of W. Beaver (Oct.–Nov. 1914), ibid.
Hermann Detzner, Vier Jahre unter Kannibalen… (Berlin, 1921), pp. 15, 55.
H. C. Brookfield, ‘The Highland Peoples of New Guinea; A Study of Distribution and Localization’, G.J., vol. CXXVII (1961), p. 436.
J. G. Hides, Papuan Wonderland (London and Glasgow, 1936), passim.
W. R. Humphries, Patrolling in Papua (London, 1923), p. 28.
E. W. P. Chinnery, ‘The Central Ranges of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea from Mount Chapman to Mount Hagen’, G.J., vol. LXXXIV (1934), p. 399.
A.R.T.N.G., 1933-4, p. 96
A.R.T.N.G., 1935-6, p. 90.
L.N.PM.C. Minutes, xxxI (1937), p. 149.
See Rowley, op. cit., pp. 14, 284.
Ibid., pp. 14-15.
C.P.P., vol. III, 1920-1. Interim and Final Reports of Royal Commission on Late German New Guinea (hereafter Murray Report).
Ibid. See also Rowley, op. cit., pp. 286-8, 302-8.
Murray Report, pp. 27-8, 52.
C.P.D., H. of R., vol. cxxxIV (28 Apr. 1932), p. 73. In answer to a question in the Permanent Mandates Commission about the meaning of the term ‘co-ordinate’, the accredited representative of the Mandatory Power, Sir Donald C. Cameron, answered (rather ambiguously) that ‘he felt sure this referred to the co-ordination of the services within the Commonwealth and that it had nothing to do with the merging of the territories in question’. L.N.P.M.C. Minutes, XXII (1932), p. 59.
Those interested in pursuing the issue of a combined administration further should request access to AD 800/1/3, O 800/1/1, and Z 800/1/3 of CP 141 in C.A.O.
C.P.P., vol. III, 1937–40. Report of Committee Appointed to survey the Possibility of Establishing a Combined Administration of the Territories of Papua and New Guinea, and to make a Recommendation as to a Capital Site … No. 230.-F. 5621 (hereafter Eggleston Report).
Ibid., p. 19.
Ibid., p. 7.
Ibid., pp. 26-7.
Ibid., p. 34.
Ibid., pp. 35-6. The case in which Mr Justice Evatt gave his opinion is Ffrost v. Stevenson, 58 Commonwealth Law Reports (1937), pp. 528-617.
Eggleston Report, p. 28.
Ibid., p. 29. Italics added.
Note of the Australian Representative on the Trusteeship Council, 3 July 1948. U.N.T.C.O.R., Third Session, Suppl. Doc. T/138/Add. 1, p. 25.
Ibid., p. 26.
U.N.T.S., vol. VIII (1947), I, No. 122, p. 184.
U.N.T.C.O.R., Third Session, Suppl. Doc. T/138/ Add. 1, pp. 24, 27.
Ibid., Annex A, pp. 27-48.
Ibid., Doc. T/202, p. 210.
Ibid., p. 211. For the specific clauses referred to see the above-cited Doc. T/138/Add. 1, pp. 31, 45.
Relevant sections of the Papua-New Guinea Bill 1949 are reproduced in D. & C. (Doc. C. 11). For the debate in the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament, see C.P.D., 1948-9, vol. CCI, pp. 250-7, 735-77, 842-920, 968-88. Leading spokesmen for the Liberal-Country Party opposition maintained that the Bill could not be considered ‘apart from strategic considerations and the foreign policy of this country’ and that the main point at issue was whether the government’ should ever have permitted the placing of New Guinea under international trusteeship’ (Percy C. Spender, H. of R., 2 Mar. 1949, p. 853). In the Senate, the Leader of the Opposition maintained that Australia should have secured for New Guinea the position of a’ strategic trust territory’: ‘Because of the tremendous sacrifice made by Australia in two World Wars to defend New Guinea we should regard the territory as our own. The territory should have been declared a strategic area so that we could defend it as an integral part of Australia, and could collaborate with the Dutch in improving its defences’ (W. J. Cooper, Senate, 9 Mar. 1949, p. 1109).
U.N.G.A.O.R., Fourth Session, Suppl. No. 4 (A/933), p. 101 (Report of the Trusteeship Council, 1948-9).
U.N.G.A.O.R., Fourth Session, Resolutions (20 Sept.–10 Dec. 1949), A/1251, p. 40.
U.N.G.A.O.R., Fifth Session, Suppl. No. 4 (A/1306), p. 183 (Report of the Trusteeship Council, 1949-50).
U.N.T.C.O.R., Twenty-Sixth Session, Annexes (XXVI, 6), Doc. T/L. 983 (7 June 1960), p. 4.
Yearbook of the United Nations 1960 (New York, 1961 ), pp. 44-50.
U.N.G.A.O.R., Sixteenth Session, Plenary Meetings, vol. I (1035th meeting, 13 Oct. 1961), p. 433. Plimsoll’s statement is preceded more than a decade before by a similar comment made by the Australian Representative in the Trusteeship Council: ‘He [the Australian Representative] also stated that the Australian Government had repeatedly pointed out that, when the inhabitants of the two territories had attained a certain degree of development, they would be free to choose the form of government which suited them and, in particular, would be free to decide whether they wished the Administrative Union to continue or whether they wanted to become independent.’ U.N.G.A.O.R., Fifth Session, Suppl. No. 4 (A/1306), p. 195 (Report of the Trusteeship Council, 1949–50). Italics added. The discussion in C. D. Rowley, ‘The Debate that wasn’t; White Australia Got in the Way’, New Guinea, vol. I (Mar–Apr. 1965), pp. 15, 17, creates, therefore, a slightly erroneous impression. Rowley is right, however, when he notes (p. 17) that Australia was on the defensive at the time and at pains to point out that administrative union did not mean absorption and loss of the separate identity of the Trust Territory. The question by United States member, Francis B. Sayre, ‘What features were possessed by political unions which this administrative union did not possess?’ is identical with the one raised by H. L. Murray in 1939 (cited by Rowley in ‘Administrative Union’ (I), South Pacific, vol. V (June 1952), p. 335.
Rowley, ‘The Debate that wasn’t…’, p. 17.
Territory of Papua and New Guinea. Electoral (Open Electorates) Ordinance 1963, No. 42 of 1963 (Port Moresby, 1964), pp. 6-7, 9-10. In the case of Ialibu, there are about 900 square miles and 21,000 people on the Papuan side and about 500 square miles and 32,000 people on the Trust Territory side. The location of the electoral boundaries and the respective populations involved can be pieced together from the above electoral legislation; Polling Places 1964 (Preliminary Guide only), sheets 24, 29, 33, and 35; and the Department of Native Affairs, Village Directory; 1960 (Port Moresby, 1961), pp. 58-9, 66; 43-5, 74, 80-1. A Question was raised by the Member for the West Papua Special Electorate, R. T. D. Neville, as to whether or not a change of administrative boundaries was contemplated for the Southern Highlands District. The Assistant Administrator (Services), Dr J. T. Gunther, replied that the District Boundaries Committee was ‘at present examining proposals to change administrative boundaries in the Highlands’ and would report to the Administrator when the examination had been completed. H A.D., vol. I, No. 5 (21 May 1965), pp. 709-10.
The rather anti-German Brunsdon Fletcher commented:’ soon British planters realised how thoroughly Germany had spied out the land when in the rearrangements of 1900 over Samoa she agreed to take only the islands of Bougainville and Buka with their teeming population, and left to Great Britain the islands denuded of people by head-hunting and massacres—except that Malaita, with a specially bad name for cannibalism and bestiality, was still good recruiting ground [for native labour].’ C. Brunsdon Fletcher, Stevenson’s Germany; the Case against Germany in the Pacific (London, 1920), p. 79. It may be noted that the Anglo-German Convention of 1904 (see D. & C. Doc. C. 6) defines the boundary between Bougainville and Shortland and Fauro islands with points [B-F] which are intersections of meridians and parallels; the Papua-New Guinea Bill 1949 (see Second Schedule in Doc. C. 11, D. & C.) takes advantage of provision II (alternative) of the 1904 Convention by employing points [B1-F1] fixed by rays from known features along the coast (see Fig. 7). For a comment on the boundary line see also above, p. 39.
Fletcher, The New Pacific: British Policy and German Aims (London, 1917), p. 199.
Ibid., p. 231.
Ibid., pp. 207-8.
Murray Report, pp. 48-9.
Ibid., p. 60.
Sir Charles Jeffries, Transfer of Power: Problems of the Passage to Self-Government (New York, 1961), p. 134.
British Solomon Islands Protectorate. Proposals for the Election of Members to the British Solomon Islands Legislative Council (Honiara, 1963).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1966 Springer Science + Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
van der Veur, P.W. (1966). The Former Anglo-German Boundary. In: Search for New Guinea’s Boundaries. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-3620-2_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-3620-2_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-015-2371-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-3620-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive