Commission

South Pacific

Transfer To Noumea Complete in March

Transportation difficulties some what slowed up the South Pacific Commission’s plans for removal of its headquarters frfom St. Georges Heights, Sydney, to the Pentagon Build ing, Noumea. Practically all the material required has been sent away to New Caledonia, however, and the Secretary- General, Mr. W. D. Forsyth, and his immediate assistants, who were obliged to spend February in Sydney, will de part for Noumea in March.

The Deputy Secretary-General (Mr.

H. E. Maude) and three of the chief officers of the Research Council (Dr. L.

G. M. Baas Becking, Dr. E. Massal, and Dr. H. G. MacMillan—the latter of whom went direct from United States) pro ceeded in January to New Zealand, to attend the sessions of the Pacific Science Congress in February. It is their in tention-transportation conditions per mitting—to visit the chief centres of the South Pacific Islands before proceeding to Noumea, to prepare there for a meet ing of the Research Council, early in May, and of the Commission, late in May.

The French authorities, in preparing the Pentagon Building for occupation are reported to have done a splendid job and displayed a spirit of real co-operation.

An enormous amount of organisational work is involved in (a) transferring the records and staff from Sydney to Noumea, (b) assembling in Noumea the Commission’s high officials from all over the world, (c) providing in Noumea the office and residential and transport ac commodation required by the officials and their families and staffs, and (d) in arranging the smooth functioning of a completely new body, the purpose and activities of which are, as yet, only vaguely understood by the public.