News From Norfolk Island

Chamber of Commerce Formed —More Settlers Arrive

From Our Own Correspondent.

Norfolk Island, Sept. 15.

IN addition to the reconstitution and reconstruction of our hospital, with a very able board in control, a very fine programme laid down for the coming year, and the fullest con fidence of the public, who will be asked to support them with voluntary subscriptions, the business men of the island have also formed a Chamber of Commerce, to be affiliated, we hope, with the Associated Chambers of Com merce of Australia.

These bodies would, one supposes, confer more benefits than they re ceive; but, after all, the Big Brother movement originated in Australia and really Little Brother Norfolk is a very attractive dependent and well deserv ing of support and assistance.

The longer established Planters’

Association also is growing and forg ing ahead and arousing more interest locally than ever before. A fine ex ecutive is in office and a militant cam paign of progress under way, one specific aim engaging its attention at the moment. For years past, shelter sheds, both at Kingston and Cascades, for the protection of incoming and outgoing cargo, have been an urgent necessity and it appears that, under pressure from the Planters’ Associ ation, who have now grown strong enough to obtain recognition and consideration, permission will be granted and assistance given by the higher powers concerned. The atten tion of all local readers is herewith drawn to the benefits to be obtained by paying in the incredibly small en trance fee of one shilling and the annual subscription of half-a-crown, enrolling as a member and thereby fairly earning their share of the im provements that the planters will undoubtedly bring about.

Need For Shelter At Post

Office

While on the subject of improve ments, may we pray to the Adminis tration or the Executive Council, or whatever gods there be, for some form of shelter to be raised at that side of the post office where, at present, we stand patiently for hours each mail day, grilled by the summer sun or drenched by the winter rains while waiting for the deliberate delivery of papers through a guarded doorway and parcels from a ticket window.

The issue of a few sheets of the picturesque corrugated iron so fami liar to tropical dwellers and the labour of two men for a day—or it might be rated as “public work” and wages saved —would call forth grati tude out of all proportion to the expense incurred. One of these fine days, we know, there are to be pri vate boxes installed, but they will be merely for the relief of the wealthy, and the proletariat will still rush the post office for their letters and emerge to stand in a weary queue along that heartless wall, waiting for the heavier mail that takes so much longer to sort and deliver.

To those who have only read of our quaint little two by four island, it would seem the easiest matter for us to stroll in any odd quarter of an hour down to the solitary post office situ ated in Kingston on our southern shore; but in the first place the office is only open for certain hours on cer tain days and, in the second, travel ling as we must do, up along and down along, by winding roads that negotiate hills and circumvent val leys, the collection of mail from out lying parts may consume the best part of a whole day.

Disappointing as the passenger lists of the Morinda have so far been since the inauguration of her service to Auckland from Norfolk, she has still brought us a certain number of sett lers and investors, and those residents seeking a long holiday oversea or weary of working with their hands as they never worked before, are busy snatching potential buyers from one another. Even if one has hith erto had no particular desire to sell out and would only re-invest the money in another property on the island, it is difficult not to be bitten by the craze to land a buyer—torn from the clutches of a neighbour, for choice—and dispose of one’s own highly desirable acreage. And this, in spite of the reports of new arrivals as to the lamentable state of affairs elsewhere and their deep envy of our happy ease and freedom from real anxiety in our island paradise.

Fine Dramatic Performance

On the night of September 1, all the roads converging upon the Rawson Hall were bright with the lights of lorries and cars carrying a record audience to the “Trial of Mary Dugan” produced and directed, as everybody is now prepared to hear, by young Mr. Bobbie Jarvis, who was for years with Alan Wilkie and Leon Gordon.

This writer has so many times com mented upon the remarkable perform ances presented by Mr. Jarvis before as sophisticated an audience as could he imagined in the cosmopolitan is lands, that it is difficult to convey, actually, what a supreme triumph this last offering was.

With weeks of faithful rehearsing, it really ’’cached professional stan dard: indeed, “professional” was the

adjective heard over and over again during the course of the play and for weeks after, when it was still a staple topic of conversation. Mr. Jarvis, him self, played Galwey, the District Attorney, bent upon the conviction of Mary Dugan, the unhappy young mis tress of the murdered man; and he played it with a cold, restrained venom that contrasted most effectively with the boyish simplicity and sin cerity of the clever youngster who, as Mary s brother, Jimmy, defended her and brought the real murderer to justice. The whole cast was admir ably chosen and each part extraord inarily well played within a court room scene that was a marvel of ac curacy and realism; while members of the audience, chosen at random and seated in breathless rows upon the stage, followed with real intensity of interest the unravelling of the plot.

From the first word to the last, the audience, which included His Honor the Administrator, Mrs. Bennett and the Private Secretary, Mr. Leonard — well known in Papua—was held en chanted and wherever applause was in order it broke out again and again.

A new standard of theatrical achieve ment was really and truly set on that night and while future productions are assured of capacity houses, the performers will have to do their very best if they are to rival the perform ance put up by the cast of “Mary Dugan.”