Tropicalities

ONE dismal result of World War II and its aftermath in the isolated Cook Islands, is the increasing scar city of charcoal-irons, used by the native women for pressing clothes. These irons are hollow, and the palm-bark fuel is slowly consumed inside, the smoke es caping through a curved chimney tube.

The “toko” soon rusts; and at the end of its usefulness the bottom falls out.

In normal times, one then buys anew one, for 15/-. But Birmingham has, for the’ last five years, been making goods of a sterner sort; so no new irons can be obtained at all. In consequence, the surviving “toko” are much borrowed, just as our wedding rings used to be. The difference is, though, that they are longer at loan, and do not always return in working order.

Pity the lender who, “issuing, ’ at urgent plea, a reasonably good, and irre nlaceable, iron, gets it back (six months later) with no bottom. War and near war is hell! —E. G. * * * THE wax impression of a signet ring, taken from a grave in Gasmata, New Britain, was recently accepted in England as evidence of the death of Mr John Levien. John Levien was a well-known plantation manager in New Guinea before the war, and no word had been heard of him from the time of the Jap invasion in early 1942. He was un married. and his next of kin was his sister, Miss Elizabeth Levien, Oxford, England. . , Natives say that Levien was murdered by the Japs about September or October, 1942, and, later, his grave was shown to investigating Australian officers. In the grave thev found a ring set with a milkish-wliite stone engraved in the form of an eye and inscribed with the words: “May it watch over you.”

A wax imnression was taken for Burns Philp Trust ’ Company and this was sent to the dead man’s sister in England. She identified it as coming from a ring given her brother by their mother many years ago. * * * ONLY privately-owned plane in Fiji at present was purchased recently by a resident, Mr. T. F. French. It is a two-seater cabin monoplane, and was offered for sale at Nadi (Fiji) air base.

Its new owner —a pre-war owner-pilot who holds a commercial licence— promptly flew round the coast of Viti Levu from Ba to Nausori in 70 minutes.

Mr. French joined the RAAF after the outbreak of World War 11, instructed for 18 months and then went north on opera tions. He has now returned to Fiji, and believes that there is a good future for commercial aviation within the Colony.

“Passenger and tourist services could be operated and fragile and perishable goods transported cheaply to provide the people of the entire group with a much needed service,” he says.

Mr. French’s own plans are not cer tain; but it is probable that he will use his new plane as a nucleus of such a service as he describes. * * * SO New Zealand manufacturers are to make a bid for Pacific trade? (“PIM” November). My opinion is that New Zealand manufacturers and the New Zealand workman will have to hustle themselves about quite a lot before the Dominion will get very far in this.

It is interesting to note that the first issue of the Fiji Public Relations Office

pamphlet, “Fiji Information,'’ quotes the fixed orice of a certain brand of tea packed* in Australia at 4/- per lb.; and the same brand of tea, but packed in New Zealand, at 4/6 per lb. Perhaps the Aus tralian-packed tea contains more twigs and dust—not being a housewife I wouldn’t know about that—but it is far more likely that the 6d. per lb. dif ference in price represents nothing more than the difference between the manu facturing methods of Australia and New Zealand.

Australia, and particularly NSW, to-day is a mad industrial wilderness, where jungle law prevails, but the traveller who comes here via New Zealand cannot help but notice that both in methods and costs the Commonwealth still has the Dominion licked. Manufactured goods are at least 12 per cent, dearer in New Zealand.

New Zealand is a 40-hours-a-week para dise carried to the point of fantasy; in this respect it is one election ahead of Australia. All retail shoos in Auckland, except food shoos, close on Saturday mornings. No work is done on the docks on race davs, and should an overseas ship be unfortunate enough to arrive after sundown it must wait until the next day to be cleared. The antics of the Auck land wharfies are now notorious all over the Pacific. Recently, Samoan wharf labourers in Apia unloaded, into lighters, in three what it had taken Auck land wharfies ten days to load with the most modern of equipment.

The idea of Auckland manufacturers competing in the open market with Aus tralia, England. India and the United States is unadulterated wishful-thinking, under the present set-up. New Zealand was a first-rate primary-producing coun try until the nresent Government’s, theorists began to .imagine they could turn it into a manufacturing country with the artificial aid of subsidies, bounties and tariffs. —“ISLANDER.” * * * mHE native of original mind is a fear- X some creature, and the bane of traders. One of my neighbours, known as “Banana,” once came to me with a note, and stood solemnly “at attention” while I read it.

The screed was from “Banana” him self; in surrealist English; and was in fact a request for “the lend of a loan of 2/6.” I disbursed and wrapped the coin in a return note, of polite reminder that loaner was not donor, which I handed to “Banana” to “deliver” to him self.

He went off with all the dignity in the world, as willing as a telegraph boy.

I presume the note was delivered. But I never saw my half-crown again! And “Banana” was artist enough not to vulgarise the strategy by trying it twice. —E. G. * * * IN the new book, “Australian Sketches,” by Stefan Kotze, the author tells again the story about the blackfellow who, when addressed in Pidgin, retorted in high-flown English, and adds an im provement on it. in this form.

“There was a blackfellow down in Vic toria. He had been caught by the mis sionaries and sent home to England. He was educated in Scotland and finally studied at the University of Aberdeen.

Then he returned to Australia to bestow on his tribal brethren the Presbyterian label. But once a nigger, always a nig ger. So. one bright day, he discarded his black clothes and his white neck

choker and went, armed with spears and boomerang, back to the bush. An old Scotch squatter, returning late at night in high spirits, met this blackfellow and thought it fun to address him in Gaelic.

The blackfellow listened attentively, got up, and replied in perfect Gaelic. The squatter believed himself to be in the presence oi the devil himself. He gave his horse the spurs and returned in record time to the station.” —AGS. * * ♦ A CORRESPONDENT, Mr. Davison, challenges a statement made by Mr.

Hettig in the December “PIM.” Mr.

Hettig, in his article on the early history of Tonga, says that it is believed that William Mariner was the sole survivor of the company of the “Port au Prince.”

Mr. Davison says there were 34 survivors —25 British, 1 Negro and 8 Hawaiians.

He states also that Mariner himself did not write the book. He supplied the material to a Dr. Martin, who did the actual writing.