Good-bye

Rabaul Residents Say Good-bye to Popular Official

From Our Own Correspondent

Rabaul, Sept. 8.

RESIDENTS of Rabaul, New Guinea, met at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, on September 7, to bid farewell to Mr. C.

D. Bates, District Officer. He has been transferred to Madang, as DO of that district and will depart from Rabaul on September 9 —first going to Port Moresby where he will attend a District Officers’ conference.

Mr. Bates is probably the best known and most respected District Officer that Rabaul has ever had. Before the war, when Rabaul was the capital of the Man dated Territory, the local District Officer was somewhat eclipsed by a galaxy of other officials, including the Administra tor. Since the war, Rabaul has been bereft of its past glory and as it was completely devastated between 1942-45, the calibre of its District Officer was of the utmost importance in getting the township and the district back into some sort of order. Mr. Bates brought to the lob the greatest competence and en thusiasm and it is a blow to local resi dents that he now must go on to another district.

Mr. B. B. Perriman, managing-director of the New Guinea Company Ltd., speak ing on behalf of Rabaul residents who had gone along to say goodbye to their popu lar official, said that he could appreciate the changes made under Mr. Bates’ direc tion in Rabaul in the past four years as he had returned to the town at the same time, in October, 1945, and at that stage he could not even locate his old home site such had been the complete devastation of once beautiful Rabaul.

Mr. Perriman was supported by Mr. B.

Gaskin who said that Mr. Bates’ sym pathetic approach to the problems of residents had won him the many friends he had in New Britain to-dav; and Mr.

E. Hill, of the Rabaul Branch of the Bank of New South Wales.

Presentations were made to Mr. Bates by Mr Perriman, on behalf of citizens of Rabaul: and by Mr. D. McEvoy, on behalf of the Rabaul sub-branch of the

Rssaila.