About Islands People

Messrs. W. H. B. Buckhurst and C. Har vey have been appointed official members of the Legislative Council of Fiji; and Mr. I. E. Lucchinelli and Dr. H. S. Evans have been appointed provisionally as offi cial members.

Lieut.-Col. D. Junor, of the AIF, has recently been promoted to the rank of Colonel. Col. Junor left Fiji in July, 1940, to join the AIF as a Major in the Signal Corps. He served in the Middle East and North Africa and, after return ing to Australia, went to New Guinea to commence a school of signals of the AIF forces in New Guinea. He is now on the headquarters staff at the Central Signals Training Depot in Victoria.

Mr. H. J. Moorhouse, who has been the manager of the Queensland Insurance Co., Ltd., for Fiji for the past 10 years, has been transferred as manager* for India and Burma. He expects to leave Fiji about next May. In his place, Mr. I. B. Chalm ers has been appointed acting manager for Fiji. Mr. Chalmers is a son of Mr. Nat, Chalmers, solicitor, of Ba, and was born in Fiji. He was serving with the Fiji Military Forces until his recent discharge.

Good work has been done in Canberra during recent weeks, in framing the new Native Labour Ordinance for the Austra lian Pacific Territories, by Mr. Robert Melrose (former Director of the New Guinea. Department of Native Affairs)' and Mr. N. Penglase (former District Officer), The new Ordinance probably will come into operation simultaneously with the new Provisional Government; and it is anticipated that Messrs. Melrose and Penglase will hold important posi tions in that Government.

Mrs. Wikitoria Byron, hon. secretary of the Polynesian dub of Sydney, recently sustained the loss of her mother, Peepi Mokena, relict of the late Tamaiharoa te Tauri Mokena, of Awahou, Rotorua, NZ.

Mrs. Mokena was a chieftainess both of the Ngati Rangiwewehi, sub-tribe of the

Arawa, and of the Ngati Ruanui of Tara naki, NZ.

Mr. C. W. Seton, well known in pre war days as a planter in the British Solomon Islands, has been awarded a DCM. He now is in the Australian Forces; but it is believed the decoration has been given for good wdrk done by him under the Americans, some two years ago, when the Japs were being cleared out of the Solomons.

Mr. Albert C. English, Papua’s oldest and most highly esteemed resident, has received official permission to return to the Territory and is now in Sydney await ing transport. Mr. English was a youth of 20, when on June 23. 1883 —over 61 years ago—he landed at Kerapuna to collect natural history specimens. He spent the rest of his life in New Guinea, first as Government official, and latterly as planter. He enjoys magnificent health, and he is in better shape physically than many men thirty years his junior—but he is quite determined that he will not spend another winter in the chilly westerly winds of New South Wales.

Mr. E. Taylor, formerly Assistant Dir ector of District Services in New Guinea, is now recovered after a very long illness, contracted in the service of ANGAU (where he held the rank of Colonel) and has been discharged from the Australian Forces. It is presumed that he will have a place in the new Provisional Adminis tration.

A Fijian, Alipate Dovirata, who a few months ago was fined £5 and bound over for 12 months for assaulting a woman in Toorak Road, Suva, recently assaulted another European woman and was imprisoned for six weeks. The woman and her husband were walking along the street when the Fijian, in a state of intoxication, came along and used inde cent language to the couple. The hus band remonstrated with him, whereupon the Fijian knocked the woman down.