Honoured By King

Islands People in New Year's Awards

Pacific Islands residents prominent in their communities for out standing and loyal service received awards in the New Year’s Honour an nounced on February 1, They are: 0.8. E.: Dr. V. W. T. McGusty, Secre tary for Indian Affairs in Fiji.

M.8.E.: Rev. Mother Mary Agnes, Sister-in-Charge of the Makogai Leper Station, Fiji.

M.8.E.: Edward Taylor, District Offi cer in charge of Morobe, New Guinea.

M.8.E.: J. M. Wilson, Comptroller of Customs at Suva, Fiji.

Senior-Sergeant Gaiberi, who for over 40 years has been a member of the Papuan Armed Constabulary, has been awarded the King’s Police Medal.

Gaiberi is a native of Kiwai Island, whence many good police are recruited, and is at present stationed at Cape Nel son,

Doyen Of N.G.’S Officers

New Guinea residents will appreciate the compliment to the N.G. Service by the inclusion of D.O. Taylor in the Hon ours List. He is the first officer of the Civil Administration to be honoured by the King.

Now regarded as the doyen of New Guinea’s executive officers, Mr. Taylor went to Rabaul in 1914 as a soldier in the Australian Expeditionary Force; and he was attached to the Military Admini stration until May, 1921, when it was absorbed by the Civil Administration.

It was Mr. Taylor who subdued the wild Baining tribe, inhabiting the moun tains outside Rabaul. He was the first white man to discover the Mokolkols, the mysterious people living on the opposite side of New Britain. This tribe is still not under control. He was appointed District Officer in the Morobe District in 1933, in which area, intermittently since 1920, he had carried out notable exploratory patrols. Now installed at Salamaua, he is head of an administrat ive staff of 17 officers, and his control extends into the heart of New Guinea.