Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2018

Extended Essay – fyw899

Thus, Hughes set an objective to receive New Guinea as a mandate and was successful. The

result was that the Territory of New Guinea was administered by an Australia 21 alongside the

Bismarck Archipelago and the adjoining islands (all south of the equator). 22 The island of New

Guinea, being the main strategic interest, was Australian territory from 1920 until 1975.

Notably, as shown by the map at Appendix 1, the mandate system saw the diplomatic

antagonists of Australia and Japan become neighbours through their acquisition of former

German territories. 23

In parallel to Australia’s new mandated territories, the Japanese were given the “mandated

territory of the Carolines, Marshalls and Mariannas (except Guam), all located north of the

equator.” 24 These acquisitions were great for the ever-expanding Japanese Empire controlling

the majority of the South Pacific. The expansion of Japanese interests into the South Pacific

was the overriding security concern for the worrisome Billy Hughes. For Hughes, the Paris

peace Conference presented an opportunity to strategically counter the Japanese.

Hughes’s success at Paris meant the Australian occupation of New Guinea did halt Japanese

expansion southwards. Moreover, Japanese settlers already in New Guinea at the time were

deported, as the Hughes “pushed the White Australian Policy up to the equator”. 25 As a result

Japan’s focus drew to the South-East Asia largely colonised by Britain, France and the United

States. Such actions by these colonial powers were inimical to Woodrow Wilson’s philosophy

of ‘self-determination’.

21 Refer to Appendix 1 22 George H. Blakeslee, “The Mandates of the Pacific” (September 1922 Issue) 23 Refer to Appendix 1 24 George H. Blakeslee, “The Mandates of the Pacific” (September 1922 Issue) 25 Dr Henry Frei, “Why the Japanese were in New Guinea” (Tsukuba Women's University: Text Publishing, 2010)

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