"Pacific Islands Monthly"

Will Carry On

THE ‘PIM’ is eagerly looked forward to each month by this exile. It is the principal remaining link with the life I loved, and which now seems ‘so fur and far away’. I hope you will be able to keep going, despite the hard knocks the war must have given you.”

That is an extract from a letter that is typical of many received lately by the editor of the “PIM”. It is characteristic of Islands folk that, in spite of the dis asters that have befallen them, they think of others’ troubles.

The “PIM” is taking knocks. Although its circulation in Polynesia is undis turbed, all its readers from New Guinea, Papua and Solomons are scattered far and wide, and we have had great diffi culty in regaining contact with our sub scribers. Many are in the New Guinea jungles, and others, we fear, are prison ers in the hands of the Japanese.

Our important advertising service has been dislocated, of course. But many advertisers, while recognising that the Australian territories’ buying power is temporarily crippled, prefer to retain their advertisements and their old good will connection with the thousands of people who, although now marking time in Australia, presently will return to the Islands, to rebuild their homes and their fortunes.

So long as we are permitted to func tion, as an independent publishing enter prise, the “Pacific Islands Monthly” will be published, despite thin revenues.

Mr. William Spiers, who spent 17 years in Fiji—l 4 in the service of BP (SS) Co. —died recently in NZ, aged 63.