Correction

Mr. Humphries on Departure of Mr. Elliott Smith

WIHEN Mr. Elliott-Smith left Papua- New Guinea Administration lately, and the Port Moresby people gave him a public farewell, one of the speakers was Mr. W. R. Humphries, Director of Native Labour. Mr Humphries was re ported in this journal to have expressed regret “to see men of the calibre a*nd ex nerience of Elliott-Smith and his con temporaries leaving the country for raw and inexperienced University students to take their places.”

Mr. Humphries has protested that his remarks were so condensed that an en tirely wrong meaning was conveyed by our report (page 70 of June), and a per usal of the full text justifies the protest.

Long after Mr. Humphries had passed on from the subject of Mr. Elliott-Smith’s departure, and when he was making ref erence, in feeling terms, to the fine ser vice rendered bv the officials of a former generation—he especially mentioned MacGregor, Murray, Hennelly, Champion, Beaver, Ryan, O’Malley, Strong, Wurth, Higginson, Brammell —he made this re mark: “It was painful for me, who knew these men and saw their work, to hear during the war, and especially towards the end of the war. newly-fledged hatchlings from Universities, middle-aged place seekers, and doubtful scientists belittling the work of these pioneers, and laying down rules for the future.”

“Some of them have gone before me,” said Mr. Humphries later, “and now Elliott-Smith is going. We cannot afford to lose men any more; for I am old fashioned enough to believe that there is no real substitute for experience.”

Advice has been received in Fiji from the United Kingdom that Ratu Edward Cakobau and Ratu Penaia Ganilau both gained good passes in the Colonial Ad ministrative Officers’ Course which they have been attending at Oxford Univer sity. Both have gone to London for the remainder of the course.