April Fools’ Day

How a London Newspaper Did It

A DELIGHTED friend in London sent along a copy of the “Daily Express," of Monday, April 1, 1935. There, on the main news page, was this, under double column headings:

“Fairy Isles Await Rush Of

Settlers.”

“Air Lines Over The Pacific”

“Queen Salote Aids Empire

Plan.”

The article was “By Daily Express Air Correspondent,” and it was as follows: Hundreds of the fairy islands in the Western Pacific may be colonised soon by British settlers.

A conference to discuss a system of trans-ocean airlines which would make this colonisation possible is to take place in New Guinea this month.

The conference will meet under the direction of Guinea Airways, Ltd., a British air transport firm operating on the island with German Junker freight ’planes.

Representatives of the Australian and New Zealand Governments will attend. Queen Salote, of the Tongan Islands, is also supporting the proposal.

Rich In Possibilities

The plan is to operate a regular air freight service starting from New Guinea and linking up Norfolk Island with the Gilbert, Ellice, Solomon, Fiji, and Tonga Islands.

All these islands are rich in vegetable and mineral possibilities. Many have gold deposits.

Only the lack of rapid communication between the islands and the markets of civilisation has prevented their extensive colonisation.

The main islands are visited by steamers sailing only once every five weeks from Sydney. Other islands are even less frequently visited.

It has been estimated that, with the opening of air services, between 200,000 and 300,000 white settlers could at once make their homes in the archipelagos off Australian and the East Indies.

Perishable produce from the islands could be rushed quickly to Australia by air. There it would connect with the air services to Western Australia, Burma and India.

It was, presumably, simply an “April Fools’ Day” spoof, for no-one could be expected to accept seriously anything so

palpably ridiculous.

Still, the “Air Correspondent” made quite a good job of it. That bit about “the fairy islands of the western Pacific”; and the plan for linking up New Guinea by air with Norfolk Island, and Gilbert and Ellice with Tonga, deserve special applause.

The idea of putting “between 200,000 and 300,000 white settlers” into the Archipelagoes off Australia and the East Indies is priceless.

But we cannot understand why the dignified Queen Salote, of Tonga, should have been dragged into the fanciful picture. Probably, that was to maintain “human interest,” which is the God before which all sensation-writers prostrate themselves.