Honiara

Absence of Port Resented by BSI People

THERE are indications that commer cial, shipping and planting interests may refuse to accept the British Solomon Islands Government’s choice of Honiara (north coast of Guadalcanal) as the future administrative centre of the Protectorate: and that they will try to make Tulagi (20 milds away, on the coast of Gela) the commercial “capital.”

The argument, of course, turns on the relative merits of the two places as ports.

Honiara has nothing but an ooen beach, where there always is something of a surge, coming in from the Central Solo mons Sea, and where conditions can be dangerous during the three months’ north-west season. Tulagi is a delight fully sheltered haven, and one of the best harbours in that nart of the Pacific.

A man who recently returned to the Solomons, and who usually maintains communications between his home and the capital by means of his own cutter, expressed himself auite definitely latelv: “After a man has been tossing about in a small boat for a few days, he looks forward to a quiet snell in a sheltered nort. where he can load and unload com fortablv. and lie safelv alongside a wharf when reouired. Honiara is no good to me. If there is any kind of a store at Tiilael. and arrangements can b* 1 mad* 1 for shinping our produce there. T shall certainly not go to Honiaira, except when I’ve got official business to do.”

The Commissioner of the American Lutheran Church Missionary Society, the Rev. Fricke, recently returned from an Inspection tour of New Guinea.