Strait Island
pp. 69-70 · Read in the full issue
Lonely ‘Yanks’ On A Torres
Letter to the Editor AS I come from Thursday Island, I was interested to read in October PIM an article in reference to Deliverance Island. I know it well. Deliverance is somewhat like Green Island, off Cairns only much larger; and if my memory serves rightly, it is about 75 miles north west of TI.
There used to live there, some years ago, two half-bred Yanks whose staple diet consisted of fowls and turtles The fowls were the progeny of some fowls left there by a pearler who had made his base there.
The Yanks had a lugger there, but they let it rot, as they were quite content to live an “idyllic” life, not being interested in any angle of civilisation or its ameni ties.
Deliverance is not far from Dutch New Guinea, where there are natives of a ferocious character, who would like the chance of looting the Torres Strait Islands. If war came between us and the Indonesians, they might have the chance they want.
There is no land visible from De liverance, which stands alone in a wide sea. I do not know whether anyone is there now. The last time I was on TI, in 1949, no one knew. We often used to call there, years ago.
I am. etc.,
A. V. Minshull.
Cairns.
Mr. L. M. Cook, Assistant Treasurer in Western Samoa, with Mrs. Cook, left from Apia in November for leave in New Zeal and.
Of the 4,200 students who took the Queensland University examinations this month, 400 students were overseas or in other Australian States. There were two students in New Guinea, one in New Britain, one in Fiji, one in Singapore and several in the United Kingdom, Papers were flown to overseas centres well in advance of the Queensland exam time table, and, under supervision, were done at the same time as the Queensland exam.
In the opinion of the Anglican Bishop of New Guinea, the Rt. Rev. P. N. W.
Strong, who visited Brisbane recently, the Commonwealth Government is trying hard to develop New Guinea, He said that co-operatives had been started in the native villages, for plantations, rice growing, copra making and sawmilling.
He could see no solid grounds for the Indonesian Republic’s claims to Dutch New Guinea, because the Papuans were not akin to the Indonesians.