Noumea

A Casino For

With Aerial Service to Brisbane

From Our Own Correspondent

Noumea, May 12.

IT has been announced in the local news papers that a company has been suc cessfully formed to establish a Casino in Noumea.

It is also announced that a new air ser vice connecting Noumea and Brisbane is to start operations at an early date.

It is believed that these two enterprises, working in conjunction, will bring many visitors to New Caledonia from Australia.

There is no doubt that the establishment of a Casino, conducted on good lines such as are well-known in Monte Carlo and Nice, will be an attraction to the game loving Australians, and it is confidently expected that the launching of these enter prises will mark an important step in the development of the tourist industry of New Caledonia.

M. Mercier In Sydney

In anticipation of the proposed estab lishment of a Pacific Monte Carlo at Noumea, New Caledonia, by a £500,000 Sydney syndicate, M. Edouard Mercier, a member of the Legislative Council of the French colony, has been in Sydney investi gating the possibilities of tourist traffic.

The tourist resources of Sydney, the Barrier Reef, New Zealand and New Cale donia could be grouped in the common cause of attracting a stream of tourist traffic from the Continent and from America, if the Casino were established, he told the Daily Telegraph on May 1.

First applicants for permission to con duct a gambling institution in Noumea, he added, were the original promoters of Tattersall's Sweep, but when the French Minister for Colonies refused the applica tion the late Mr. George Adams went to Tasmania. Now the application of the Sydney syndicate had been granted, and it was hoped that Noumea would become one of the greatest tourist centres of the world.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Australians are gamblers; but it is to be presumed that even those who love to take a chance will not be in a hurry to under take that 700 miles flight over empty ocean be tween Queensland and New Caledonia. Most people will want to be assured about the efficiency of the proposed air service before they make any plans to visit the attractive Casino.

Another difficulty to which we hope our French friends have given consideration is that of ex change. France and her colonies still adhere in determined fashion to the gold standard, so that the Australian £ is worth less than 10/- in French territories. Gamblers are very reckless people, but even they are human enough to prefer to lose their money on roulette, or chemin de fer, or boule, rather than sacrifice 50 per cent, of it in exchange.

It has been announced quite recently that Monte Carlo has lost colossal sums in recent years.

That, of course, is due to the exchange position foreign tourists nowadays will not go to gold standard France and lose so much of their money in exchange.

Mr. Harry Buckland, a worker for the Australian Board of Missions in Papua, departed from Sydney for his station at Eroro by the May Montoro.

Brigadier-General Sir Herbert Hart, of New Zealand, who was for some years Administrator of the Mandated Territory of Samoa, has been appointed by the New Zealand Government to be a member of the Imperial War Graves Commission.

Fine specimens of young Cook Islanders. The winners (from left to right) at the recent baby show at Avarua.