Thursday Island Topics

From Our Own Correspondent Demand for Trochus Shell Missionary Trading Company May Discontinue Can Our Turtles Be Canned? Wedding in the Jardine Family

Thursday Is., Sept. 2.

COINCIDENT with the lessened de mand for pearl shell comes a drop in trochus and beche de mer prices.

The former is quoted at £50 per ton, and finds its sole market in Japan.

Trochus sales depend largely on the eastern exchange, Japanese buyers be ing very cautious and rarely venturing unless the exchange is in their favour.

Button-making from the trochus is largely a home industry in Japan, and the shell is sold in small lots to indi vidual makers.

So far, this year, the trochus catch has been disappointing. This is said to be due to the unusually cold weather, which prevents the trochus from mov ing about for surface feeding, and in clines it to bury itself in the coral.

By the time that the diver, who can only stop down for less than two min utes, has found his quarry and broken into its hiding place, he is often forced to the surface for air.

Trochus is generally fished for at low water, and at this time of the year, when high tides are nocturnal, the divers can work all day. The trochus lugger carries about four dinghies, each manned by a Japanese, who supervises the work of the Malay or native skin diver.

The latest price quoted for chalk fish is somewhere about £30 per ton, which does not allow much profit for the firms who deal in it. In fact, it looks as if some of the boats will be laid up and more unemployment will result.

Some relief has been afforded by permission having been granted to con tinue working these subsidiary indus tries with the old Japanese crews for another twelve months. The present is a bad time to try exoeriments, which can only result in lessened efficiency and greater costs of production, and evidently the Commonwealth authori ties have awakened to this fact.

A New Enterprise

A new boat-building and repairing company, financed by three well-known firms here, has been formed with a capital of £10,000 and operations will probably commence in October, under the management of Mr. Newman.

The new enterprise expects to carry out repairs at a lower cost than that of existing boat slips, run by Asiatics.

Public opinion is strongly in favour of this innovation, and a good measure of support wall doubtless be given the new firm.

Papuan Industries Ltd.

Papuan Industries Ltd., an organisa tion formed in London in conjunction with the L.M.S., with a distinct philanthropic aim to help the natives, seems to be gradually lessening its activities, and may eventually disappear.

The big store at Badu, the head quarters of the Pacific Islands in Tor res Straits, has been sold to the Queensland Aboriginal Department, but the late manager, Mr. Harmon, will continue in office under the new own ers. Two of the firm’s plantations, both situated on the Fly River, are, I understand, up for sale, and both, in the words of a neighbouring Papuan planter, offer good livings in the way of copra and trade to an energetic man.

Papuan Industries will not cease operations without regret on the part of those who know them. Though their objects have been misunderstood by a few, there is no doubt that they were worthy ones, and that the company has lived up to them. The organisation has been helpful to its white neigh bours, and has conferred many bene fits on the natives of Torres Straits and Western Papua.

Turtle Soup

Word has been received on the Island that a company has been formed in Sydney and Melbourne for the purpose of turning our vast resources of turtle into soup, in association with the well known American firm of Heinz.

Definite particulars are lacking, but a representative of the new company is said to be shortly visiting Thursday Island with a view to starting opera tions.

With this new enterprise at least proposed, if not actually in existence we may believe that our marine re sources are not to be entirely neglected.

There is room for hope, and T. I., like many other small communities, has a wonderful vitality of its own.

Personal Items

We have to record with regret the death of a very old identity, Mrs.

Marion Thomas, who was the first matron of the local hospital. Mrs.

Thomas, who was a personal friend of John Douglas, and well known to all the early residents, carried on her work in the institution for three years single-handed. She received her pro fessional education in the well-known Edinburgh Infirmary, whence so many famous medical men have come, and had a fund of interesting stories

about the old-time doctors under whom she trained.

Mr. A. E. Harvey, manager for the Papuan Industries Fly River planta tions, had to return to Victoria for health reasons, after a dangerous at tack of blackwater fever. He was a well trained tropical agriculturist, with ex perience in Borneo and the New Heb rides. He will be missed by many people in Western Papua.

Mr. C. G. Vidgen, a grandson of Frank Jardine, the pioneer of Northernmost Australia, was recently mar ried to Miss Lynch, of Innisfail, in Brisbane, and returned with his bride by the Changte. A very pleasant wel come home, which took the form of a song evening, was given by the bride groom’s parents in honour of the young couple, at which nearly fifty guests at tended. It is noteworthy that most members of the Jardine family have made their homes round Torres Straits or in the not far distant Aroe group, where Mr. Chum Jardine is engaged in pearling and copra ventures.

The old Jardine homestead at Som erset is still in the hands of the fam ily. Coconuts have been extensively planted there, on an area of red “beach” sand, a hundred feet or so above the sea, on an underlying gran ite formation. The palms bear very freely, and Somerset may claim to be the most productive coconut planta tion on the mainland of Australia.

Vessels passing through Albany Pas sage, in sight of Somerset, still salute the old home in memory of its founder, as a tribute to Mr. Jardine’s successful efforts in saving many lives at the time of the Quetta disaster.

Vale, Jack Bruce

The remains of the late Mr. Jack Bruce, who died in Sydney last year, were interred at Murray Island during August. No more fitting resting place for faithful Jack Bruce could be found,

for his name is inseparably connected with that remote and picturesque is land lying out on the Barrier Reef.

For over 35 years Mr. Bruce laboured among the Murray Island people, as government representative and teacher, and his work there remains as one of the finest examples of devotion to duty in the annals of Torres Straits. The party that went out to Murray Island in the Government vessel Melbidir included a brother and nephew of the deceased, the mayor of Thursday Island, and a few old friends.

The grave of Jack Bruce on Murray Island. The ashes are in a brass urn of great antiquity.