Pastor Pleads for Ships

Isolation in BSI

Pastor A. G. Stewart, Of The

Seventh Day Adventist Mission, re cently returned from a tour of Papua, New Britain, Bougainville and the British Solomon Islands.

On his arrival in Sydney he was in terviewed, over the air, by a local broad casting roundsman and gave a word pic ture of rehabilitation progress in the islands.

He found the majority of natives were planting up their gardens and, with the natural prolific tropical growth, the native food supplies were getting back to normal.

The greatest sufferers, said Pastor Stewart, were the old European residents, who were handicapped in their rehabilita tion work by the absence of shipping. This was particularly noticeable in the British Solomon Islands, where there was now no regular shipping service, and the resi dents were sitting down on the beaches waiting for supplies to arrive, and with out supplies they were unable to employ native labourers.

This shipping lag was stressed by BSI government officials who had asked Mr Stewart to do anything he could to bring the facts before the proper authorities in Australia.

There should be no shortage of labour, said the Pastor, if European planters were able to obtain supplies of food-stuffs foi native employees.

Mr. Stewart also referred to the whole sale destruction of Army stores and material, which were found uneconomical to transport away from Army dumps in the Solomons. Hundreds of thousands of pounds possibly millions of pounds worth of material had been deliberately dumped into the sea or buried by bull dozers. The goods, he added, had been originally classified as “expendable stores ”

Mrs. Lionel Armitt (formerly Miss Peg Christensen) has been an inmate of the Port Moresby Hospital for several months.

After returning from a trip to Rabaul she developed an infection which she had apparently picked up in New Brit ain and shortly after recovering from this ailment she contracted a severe form of malaria. She is now making good progress. s