Controlled Prices In

Fiji

Prom Our Own Correspondent SUVA, July 2. rKING it all round, Government con trol of selling prices in Fiji has been very successful. Mistakes have been made and there have been irritat ing delays, but with comparatively little friction the control has managed to avoid any serious increase in the cost of commodities.

As far as imported goods are con cerned, the control’s task is relatively easy, but with the few articles of local production, where an attempt has been made to fix maximum selling prices, the task is more difficult. It has tried, for example, to fix the maximum price at which locally-grown paddy rice should be sold, but the attempt seems to have failed, in that rice is passing direct from grower to consumer at figures much higher than the controlled ones. This, of course, has been helped by the seri ous shortage in the local rice harvest, resulting from the hurricane, and from a subsequent long period of dry weather, followed by a month with a 52 in. rain fall.

Rev. and Mrs. R. Bartlett, who have been in Samoa during the past two years in charge of the London Missionary Society’s Malua College, recently left Apia for New Zealand and Australia to do deputation work, prior to returning to England. They hope to return to Lon don via Africa, where they will stay for a time with their daughter, who is mar ried to a missionary at Natal. Rev. Bart lett is an OBE and previously was in Samoa between 1929 and 1931.

Mrs. L. Murray, wife of the Ad ministrator of Papua, has been ill recently, suffering from a severe form of arthritis.

Rev. and Mrs. W. G. Weidemann, have retired from the Melanesian Mission, after eight years’ service in Melanesia, mostly on New Britain, TNG.