Marine Insurance

WAR marine insurance rates between New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands have been increased by 50 per cent, as a result of the pre sence of raiders in the Pacific.

New Zealand advices state that the rate between NZ and Australia remained at 2/6 per £lOO for some time after the outbreak of war, but more recent increases have raised it to 30/-, the last advance being one of 10/-. Rates between NZ, Fiji, Samoa and Hawaii have gone from 30/- to 40/-, but there has been no increase in the 40/- charge between NZ and the west coasts of Canada and the United States.

Australian shipping companies report that on January 30 the rate between Australia and the Western Pacific Islands (New Guinea, Papua, Solomon Islands, etc.) rose from 30/- to 40/- per cent.

Mr. Ivan Palmer, who was bom in Fiji and spent his boyhood there, left the staff of Sydney “Sun” in February to train as a pilot with the Royal Aus tralian Air Force. An old boy of King’s College, Auckland, Mr. Palmer was for some years on the staff of “The Straits Times” in Singapore, and specialised in aerial developments in the East. On one occasion he flew from Singapore to Bankok, and he was also one of the first newspaper correspondents to cross the Tasman Sea by air. His first trip across that ocean, incidentally, was with Dwight Long in the “Idle Hour”, whom he ac companied to Singapore.

Mr. and Mrs. K. B. Gross arrived back in Wau, New Guinea, in March, after a holiday in Australia. Mr. Gross is gen eral manager of New Guinea Goldfields Ltd.