Tropicalities

STERLING VARNISH CO., Alexandria, New South Wales TROPICAUTITIES WANDERING in the Mediterranean, American journalist Marc T. Greene met Alexander Hume Ford, the G.O.M. of Honolulu and the Pan-Pacific Union. Mr.

Greene says that Ford, although 69, has been prowling around in out-of-the-way places for the last five or six years. He went to Kabul by bus, from Peshawar, using a vise from the Afghan Minister in Tokio as a set-off to an interdict by the British in India. Ford later spent some time in Greece and then, quite recently, made for Palma, in Majorca. The Spanish war has chased all the tourist traffic out of the Balearic Islands, and the thoyght of it attracted Ford, so he settled down for a time in Majorca. • ♦ • ERROL FLYNN, who has become one of the star actors of filmdom, has told friends in Hollywood that he intends to visit his copra plantation in New Guinea on his pending trip to the South Seas. The trees, which are eight years old now, will be in full bearing in two more years. Then he expects to settle down on the plantation, never to return to picture making. Mr. Flynn made an outstanding success of the name part in the 1936 fllry, “Captain Blood.” * * • WE have taken a mean advantage of a Rosicrucian who lives in the Lower Watut, New Guinea. Rosicrucians specialise in prediction; and this gentleman kindly wrote us at the beginning of 1936, giving a forecast of the leading events of the year. The P.I.M. does not believe in prophecies—although the Rosicrucians claim nothing supernatural, but only “a scientific tabulation of human and economic tendencies.”

We kept our friend’s letter until the end of 1936; and now look back on his predictions, in the light of 1936 events. He predicted: “Gold will begin its final bow as the traditional medium of exchange, giving way to a predecessor that will be decided upon by the major nations.”—No sign of it yet.

“Real estate will boom in U.S.A,”—We have not heard of anything startling.

“War will rage throughout the Far East.” —Sorry; a complete miss. * * * TPHE British Solomon Islands Protectorate is in a happy financial position.

It has an excess of assets over liabilities of £68,000, and it has most of the excess in cash. According to a recent statement, £2475 was in the Treasury, £9325 in the bank, £3636’ in the hands of the High Commissioner, £3759 in the hands of Sydney agents, and just on £40,000 in fixed deposits. ♦ * * A BOUT a dozen residents of New Guinea have written to us about the article we published in November, “Journalistic Ethics, Judge Wanliss, and Mr. Mullaly.” Most of the writers are eager to “have a go” at Mr. Mullaly; so we hope they will forgive us if we do not publish their statements. We do not wish to carry on a campaign against Judge Wanliss or Mr. Mullaly. In attacking the judicial system in New Guinea, and the grave weaknesses which are apparent in it under Judge Wanliss, we believe we have expressed the opinion of 90 per cent, of the non-official residents of New Guinea, We can do no more. Reform in New Guinea can come only through a change at Canberra —and we can expect nothing from the present flabby control.

But the Federal general election this year will almost certainly bring about a change of Government, and out of that there may come some new policies and sound realignments in regard to Australia’s tropical territories.

A Kavieng resident, writing under a worn de plume, makes statements typical of all the letters we refer to: “I think that the administration of justice in this Territory is a menace to peace and good government. I am not going to sign my name to this. I am not game to do so. I think the majority will agree with me that if one is not a M.L.C. or something of the sort one is foolish to take chances. Trivial offences in this Territory have become dastardly crimes, without any reason that one can see. As for the Judge not being able to defend himself, I can say that some of the unfortunate prisoners whom he has bullied have been in the same plight.” ♦ * * THAT American “will o’ the wisp” newspaper man, Marc T. Greene, of whom we heard recently in South America and in Roumania, is now in Central Africa.

He wrote in November from “an oasis somewhere in the Sahara,” and he says he is glad to get away from the horrors of European civilisation —“wars, suffering and semi-starvation everywhere with nobody trying to do anything about it.”

“True, the desert has certain disadvantages,” he goes on. “The sun is hot, the nights are cold, flies are thick, and the habits of the Arabs leave something to be desired. But they are friendly enough, here in southern Algeria, where the French have ruled for 80 or 90 years. The dancing-girls, called the Ouled Noels, are not devoid of charm, having a certain resemblance to the Tahitiennes both in appearance and characteristics; and you can have all the dates you want for the asking (I mean, of course, dates of the fruit sort—in this oasis alone there are several hundred thousand bearing trees).

But it rains here about once a year and then only a spatter. The water from the springs and wells is so thick with magnesia that it tastes like a blend of the Dead Sea and the American Great Salt Lake. So maybe a European would get tired of it in time.”

Mr. Greene thought he would continue by camel—though, as he points out, the French now run motor-buses right through to Timbuctoo, and thence along the Niger 1800 miles to Fort Lamy, on the southern shore of Lake Tchad.

The Prehistoric Pacific

well-known archaelogical friend, Mr. Arthur J. Vogan, on January 12, addressed a crowded meeting under the auspices of “John o’ London’s Literary Circle,” Sydney, and described some of his discoveries in the Pacific Islands.

“I have never yet visited a new island,” he said, “without discovering something new to science. Thousands of these exquisite gems that stud the royal-purple of the Pacific are quite unknown beyond their immediate coastal-parts. I have found great figure-groups, cave-temples, ' carved human-heads and figures, ciselures of note, including a Buddha’s foot and several vastly ancient sun-dials; and inscriptions at least a thousand years old.”

The lecturer explained how the New Zealand Ma-oris (not “Mowry,” which means in their language: “Faint-hearted”) had, for ancestors, the great Ma-uria communities of Bengal, whose leader, Chandragupta, sent Buddhist missionaries into part of the Pacific about 300 8.C.; and how the Fijians came originally from Tanganyika, on the east coast of Africa, being employed by Arab traders, who were trading through the Pacific over a thousand years ago.

The well-known Boer War veteran, Colonel Jones, C.M.G., presided, and moved a vote of thanks to the lecturer. Mr.

Vogan, although nearly 78 years of age,