Mr. H. E. Maude

, a high official of the High Commission of the Western Pacific, was in London in July, according to a statement in a Sydney newspaper (which reported a reference by him to Pitcairn Island affairs).

Mr. Maude, officially, is Native Lands Commissioner in the Gilbert and Ellice Colony; but, in recent years, he has been all over the Pacific, on special duty. In 1937-8, he was in the Phoenix Islands, supervising the migration of natives from the overcrowded Gilberts to Syd ney, Gardner and Hull Islands, in the Phoenix group; in 1940, he was acting assistant-secretary of the Western Paci fic Commission, in Suva; then he was away on special duty in Pitcairn Island; next he was on special duty in Tonga; and he acted, for a time, as British Con sul in Tonga.

R. H. Garvey (lately acting Resident Commissioner in Gilbert and Ellice, and now en route to Nyasaland) and H. E Maude have been regarded, for years, as the two “handiest” men on the Western Pacific Commission staff.

Mr. G. W. Jenner and Mr. T. L. Clark, manager and accountant respectively of the Burns Philp (SS) Co. Ltd. establish ment in the Gilbert Islands—both of whom escaped from Tarawa after the Japanese invasion—left Sydney in Aug ust for Apia, Western Samoa. Both will join the Burns Philp (SS) Co.’s staff in the Central Pacific—probably at Pago Pago (American Samoa), for the present. Among old friends who recently entertained them in Sydney were Air craftsman John Stewart, Private George Beckett and Mr. L. G. Lee—all former members of the Burns Philp staff in Suva.