A. J. Gaskin Returns

North

MR. A. J. GASKIN, who. during the last year, while attached to the Eternal Territories Department, has been a friend in need to all Territories evacuees, will shortly be returning north.

He says that he will change his name to “Arthur J. Gaskin”—in other words, he will be going to Port Moresby in American uniform, and as a member of

the American Red Cross—although still retaining civilian status.

Mr. Gaskin will be remembered as an officer of the Audit Department in Rabaul, and, of more recent years, as the popular proprietor of the Cosmopolitan Hotel, Rabaul. He was one of the last civilians to get away from the town when the Japs attacked it in January, 1942.

After his arrival in Australia he be came attached to the External Territories Department—in which office he will be sorely missed by Territories folk. He has a unique non-bureaucratic slant on things, which appeals strongly to evacuees who might otherwise have spent months running their heads against the brick wall of Federal officialdom. He was one of the leading spirits in the re-constitu tion of the New Guinea Branch of the RSSAILA, and this and other organi sations will miss his activities on their behalf. However, he is returning to the land where his deepest interests lie, and it is some comfort to those who are left behind that he expresses a determination to still “fight for the cause”—that is, the cause of the evacuees at present in Aus tralia, and of New Guinea servicemen— wherever he is.

Final figures from the bazaar held recently in Labasa, Fiji, are not yet available, but it had reached the £2,000 mark, states the “Fiji Times" on January 15.