Adminiistrative

Problems

In the British Pacific Territories

rE partial occupation by the Japan ese of the British Solomon Islands, and their partial occupation of the Gilbert Islands, necessitating the with drawal of European personnel, created a problem in recent months for the High Commissioner of the Western Pacific, whose headquarters are at Suva. He had to find places for a number of offi cials, some of high grade.

Some have been placed in the Fiji, New Hebrides and Tonga services; others have been transferred by the British Colonial Office to other parts of the Empire; and others are standing by, for the moment.

Gilbert And Ellice

Mr. V. Fox Strangways, who was pro moted from Nyasaland (Central Africa), to be Resident Commissioner in the Gil bert and Ellice Islands Colony, and who was well on his way to his headquarters when the Japanese war shut off com munications between Australia and Ocean Island, has taken his bad luck philsophically. He has settled down in Australia on a temporary, but useful, war job. He still is officially Resident Commissioner, and presumably will go

on to Ocean Island when the war situa tion clears.

Mr. S. G. Clarke, Treasurer of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, who is in charge of the Colony’s temporary offices in Sydney, has been appointed Acting Resident Commissioner. Mr. A.

W. Dickes, Assistant Treasurer, is with him in Sydney, and they are attending to a variety of somewhat involved affairs connected with the present “evacuated” conditions of the G. and E. Administra tion.

Solomon Islands

Mr. F. E. Johnson, Treasurer of the British Solomon Islands Administration, also is in charge of a temporary office in Sydney, carrying out duties for his Ter ritory similar in character to those being handled by Mr. Clarke and Mr. Dickes.