Alleged

Waste of Funds

Size of SPG Party in Suva and Noumea

Letter to the Editor AS an Australian and British taxpayer, temporarily in Fiji, I was intrigued to notice that the six gentlemen re presenting the South Pacific Commission, who are visiting Suva and Noumea to inspect possible sites for headquarters, are attended by a staff of no less than four—a Secretary-General, an Interpreter (woman), a Stenographer (woman) and an Assistant Secretary. What in heaven’s name can all these four people find to do in a mission like this?

The six delegates have been assembled from Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, America, France and Holland. The'staff has been brought from Australia. Air transportation and first-class hotel accommodation and motor transport have been supplied for all of them. The tax payers in the six countries named foot the huge bill. Surely the job could have been done by two or three delegates, with one secretary.

The ordinary man (the poor old tax payer) is getting very sick of the sight of these parties of politicians and bureau crats and their complacent staffs career ing around the world, with no expense spared, engaged in “work” that is generally unnecessary.

On present indications, this South Pacific Commission is simply going to be a gorgeous Pacific Islands picnic for a lot of people of the Planner type who might otherwise have been usefully em ployed. A typical Evatt set-up!

I am, etc.,

Plain Bill.

Suva, August 30.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Our correspondent is too hasty and too severe. The Com mission may yet prove its usefulness. But whoever was responsible for sending that large staff flying around the South Pacific should be asked to justify what appears to be an unnecessary expense.