Norfolk Island Eager For Tourists.

From Our Own Correspondent.

Norfolk Is., Aug. 18.

IF we may believe each other in the course of daily gossip, the whole mercantile register has reconstructed its itinerary for the remainder of the year, to allow of excursions to Norfolk.

Everyone you meet has heard for certain of a magnificent liner —hitherto unmentioned —which, packed to the gunwales with excited tourists, is shortly to be sighted upon our lonely horizon and to drop anchor off our romantic shore. Boiled down to hard fact, is seems certain that we may count upon three; one in November, one in December, the third sometime early in the New Year.

And, in addition —en passant, you might say—two warships which, while bringing no business to the island, in troduce a note of gaiety and colour into our sober existence.

In view of our increasing popularity an official tourist bureau has been formed, with Mr. Colman Burke as sec retary. In a very businesslike manner he is tabulating our resources and pre paring a definite programme for the entertainment of visitors and everybody with anything to offer or suggest should get into touch with him.

Economic Conditions Improve.

Economic conditions on the island are also improving - and our bananas are fetching a very fair price in the Sydney markets, while other produce, such as early potatoes, tomatoes and so on are being asked for by merchants overseas.

There are all sorts of interesting little businesses being established here and there about the island, in anticipation of better times coming.

The Book Club, with seven hundred up-to-date volumes, added to by every mail, is housed in new and self-con tained quarters adhering like a swal low’s nest to the long outer wall of A. H. Martin’s comprehensive store, in the commercial and geographic centre of Burnt Pine.

Across the road, picturesquely situ ated beneath the shadow of a grove of trees, is The Little Shop, specialising in imported lingerie and household linens, together with all sorts of charm ing and uncommon articles for gifts and prizes, and the prettiest china ever seen on Norfolk. Under the same roof, but in other hands, is a hairdressing and beauty parlour, into which you may enter, feeling sore dissatisfied with your appearance, and emerge a new being.

Mr. Ray Nobbs, too —of the well known C. C. R. Nobbs family, of Long ridge—has just returned from Sydney with a talkie plant which will develop our very first talkie on the evening of Saturday, July 29. People who never patronise the movies, as rather pain fully presented at the Rawson Hall in weekly flickers, are announcing on every hand, their determination to at tend on this occasion, and entertain ment is certain, whether the venture is a complete success in such an old fashioned building or not.

Praise For Hospital.

A new nurse, qualified in every respect to take responsibility in the pos sible absence of our most competent matron, has been added to the hospital staff and arrived by last steamer. The institution has been crowded and over crowded of late and Matron Hawkes, whose devotion to her patients is the subject of admiring comment whenever her name comes up, had reached the stage when she was starting up from sleep at night in answer to the sum mons of imaginary bells. The doctor and Hospital Board decided that the financial condition of affairs warranted the engagement of a second fully qualified nurse from overseas in addi

tion to local probationers. The popu larity of the hospital and the readi ness of all classes of patient to enter is a striking tribute to the doctor, the nursing staff and the Board.

This seems a suitable moment in which to mention that there are short sighted persons on the island who would have your correspondent pour out, month by month, an unvarying paean of praise of every aspect of life here; to represent existence as sheerly per fect and without a flaw.

But this would be very poor policy from any point of view. If Norfolk Island or any other Pacific island were continuously presented in the “P.I.M.” as a veritable Garden of Eden, before the Serpent entered and the apples ripened, it would not be long before disappointed visitors or misinformed investors were voicing criticism and disillusionment in some other publica tion. Norfolk Island is set within the boundaries of this imperfect world, not upon some dream planet, and it it not only honest but politic to acknowledge its inconspicuous imperfections as well as to boast of its manifold attractions.