Solomons News

Visit of High Commissioner for Western Pacific

From Our Own Correspondent

Tulagi, June 18.

Oir Arthur Richards, K.C.M.G.,

High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, will visit the Solomon Islands in H.M.S. Leith in July. Present arrange ments are that the Leith will remain at Tulagi while His Excellency visits the various parts of the group, including the goldfields, aboard the Kurimarau.

Such visits afford an opportunity for people to indicate thqir loyalty to the Empire; but in the past, visits of High Commissioners have not resulted in the office in Suva showing much interest, understanding, or concern for the welfare of the Solomons. We hope that in this new reign, with a new Commissioner, the future will show some improvement in the treatment we get from Fiji.

A new facility, much appreciated by residents, is an arrangement for trans mission of letters by air-mail. Of course, there is no direct air service from the Solomons, but letters can now be sent to Australia or elsewhere to catch the first available air service on to the des tination. Hitherto it was necessary to enclose letters for transmission by air to be reposted in Sydney or some other centre, and this has not always been convenient. The slight extra charge for this service is nothing as against the convenience of it.

Those interested in local shipping, par ticularly owners and “masters” of the mosquito fleet, are all on end over a draft navigation regulation, which is as serious as it is funny. Sandwiched in among a lot of more or less useless clauses, are some rather helpful ones, evidently overlooked by the sponsors of the new regulation.

Since the bad “Nor-west season,” a plague of sandflies has infested plapes that hitherto were free from them, and places previously bad are now infinitely worse. One can cope with mosquitoes, but the insidious sandfly is almost be yond human treatment!