Birthday Celebrations

For Tonga's Queen She will be 50 on March 13; 32 Years on Throne

PREPARATIONS are being made in Tonga to celebrate fittingly Queen Salote’s 50th birthday, which falls on Monday, March 13.

The Acting High Commissioner for the Western Pacific (Mr. G. D. Chamberlain) and the Acting Governor of Fiji (Mr.

A. F. R. Stoddart) will go to Nukualofa from March 12 to March 14 to attend the celebrations.

Queen Salote Tupou is an outstanding example of a wise and good native mon arch ruling benevolently over a native community. Apart from her position as head of the ruling house of Tonga, she has a sense of quiet natural dignity that has created in the world at large great respect, not only for Tongans and the Kingdom of Tonga, but for Polynesia as a whole.

The little Kingdom, which is constitu tionally unique in the Pacific, could very easily be regarded as a sort of comic opera state. That it is not is due largely to the fine personal qualities of Queen Salote and her sons.

Queen Salote came to the throne of Tonga in 1918 as a girl of 18. That same year she had married Prince Tungi who, as well as Queen’s Consort; was for many years Premier of Tonga. He died in 1941.

DEMOCRATIC government is main tained in Tonga on the British pat tern of an elected Parliament intro duced by her grandfather King Tapou I in 1875. But Queen Salote in no mere Royal cipher. She has the gift of good commonsense and is the dominant figure in the Privy Council, which, subject to ratification by Parliament, rules Tonga for the greater part of the year.

Queen Salote and late Prince Tungi.