Conferences and Navy

Visits Enliven Honiara Life

From Our Own Correspondent

Honiara, Oct. 16

A CONFERENCE of BSI Protectorate headsmen opened in Honiara by the Resident Commissioner (Mr. H. G.

Gregory-Smith) on September 28, was attended by more that 50 Government headmen from all over the Group.

The conference is an annual event during which headmen are given an opportunity to see the various activities of Government Departments in the capital, to hear addresses on adminis trative matters and to confer with District Commissioners, who were holding a con ference of their own.

HMAS Culgoa visited the Protectorate at the same time, arriving at Gizo on September 23 and arriving at Honiara on the 27th with some of the Western head men as passengers.

On September 29, Father de Klerk of the Roman Catholic Mission at Tangarare, on the weather coast of Guadalcanal, entertained officers and men from the Culgoa, other European visitors, headmen, and local natives at a great feast which had taken four months’ organisation and at which traditional native dancing in the proper style, now rarely seen, was one of the entertainments.

European visitors and headmen re turned to Honiara on September 30, the Culgoa sailing for Rabaul on the same day.

Advisory Council Meets

HEADMEN and District Commissioners left for their various Districts on October 6, allowing harassed Govern

ment officers only a few days before the opening of the 1950 meeting of the Pro tectorate Advisory Council on October 9 The Council has not met since 1948.

An innovation this year is the nomi nation of four Native Members, in addition to the five non-official and four official members. The Resident Com missioner opened the Advisory Council on the morning of October 9 with an address in which he summarised progress made during the last 18 months and touched on proposed future plans and development in the Group. The Council then adjourned till October 12, while non-official members prepared their Address-in-Reply and con sidered the Protectorate’s 1951 Estimates.

Many questions were asked during the session, native members being mainly preoccupied with the need for more schools in the Group. Non-official mem bers sought information regarding prob lems of copra producers and traders, Income Tax and other taxation, Govern ment expenditure, and general policy. The Advisory Council meeting ended on October 12.

NON-OFFICIAL members for 1950 are the Rt. Rev. S. G. Caulton. Bishop of Melanesia, Mr. L. C. Thomas, General Manager of Lever’s Pacific Plan tations Pty., Ltd., Mr. R. C. Symes, Mr.

L. F. Gill, and Mr. G. H. Kuper.

Crown Prince Tungi, of Tonga, and his wife, Princess Mata’aho, visited Canberra in mid-October. They were entertained at dinner by the Governor General. Prince Tungi later discussed agricultural prob lems with departmental experts.

About 40 European and Asiatic children are now in regular attendance at the Lutheran Mission Sunday School in Madang, New Guinea.