Pitcairn

To Have a New Constitution and Legal System

A PROPER constitution and legal system will be instituted at Pitcairn Island by Mr. H. E. Maude, of the British Colonial Service, who, with Mrs.

Maude and their young son, visited Auckland on July 21 on his journey from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, where he has been stationed, to Pitcairn Island. Mr. Maude has been previously stationed at Fiji and Zanzibar.

“There has, of course, been a legal system at the Island, but it has not yet been properly drawn up,” said Mr.

Maude to the “N.Z. Herald”. He will also prepare accommodation at the Island for an official from the Fiji Post Office, who will inaugurate an issue of Pitcairn Island stamps under the con trol of the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific. Mr. Maude expects to stay at the Island for about three months.

The issue of Pitcairn stamps on October 15 to replace the New Zealand stamps hitherto sold would build up a capital fund to benefit the Islanders, said Mr. Maude.

EDITORIAL NOTE: For one hundred years, since the descendants of the “Bounty” mutineers were discovered by an American ship, the Pitcairn Islanders practically have governed themselves, through their own elected Council, and according to a code of laws which they themselves more or less evolved and accepted. In the course of time, Pit cairn came under the charge of the British High Commission for the West ern Pacific; but the Colonial Office did not interfere with the isolated little community. But, nowadays, owing to rapid air and naval changes, these lonely dots of land in the Pacific are assuming a new political and strategical import ance.