Fiji News In Brief

From Our Own Correspondent

Suva, Dec. 29.

rE executive of the New Zealand Rugby Union is to arrange for a representative Fiji team to play 10 matches in New Zealand next season.

The Fijians, who performed well on their last visit in 1939, are expected to prove an attraction to NZ Rugby fans.

The New Zealand Rugby Union will meet all the expenses of the tour, includ ing transport both ways, but will not allow Fiji to share in the gates.

THE charm and variety of Fiji’s tropical scenery was admirably portrayed and 'recaptured by Messrs. Russell Fore man and Alfred Stone, whose exhibition of oil paintings was on view in the Grand Pacific Hotel early in December. More than 150 persons attended the official opening.

THE Roman Catholic Congregation of the Sisters of Compassion, which was founded in New Zealand last cent ury by the late Mother Aubert to care for destitutes and incurables, is to extend its activities to Fiji. The Order has ac quired the home and property of Sir Hugh and Lady Ragg at Tamavua for its head quarters.

DR. and MRS. CATALA arrived at Suva on December 6, from Noumea, for consultations with officers of the Western Pacific High Commission and Fiji Department of Agriculture before going on to Tarawa, later in the month, Dr. Catala, who is chief of the Labora tory of Ecology at the French Oceanic Institute, Noumea, has been selected by the South Pacific Commission to carry out a pilot investigation involving a “study of atoll and low island economy designed to improve cash and subsistence crops and handicrafts, to widen commer cial opportunity and provide greatei security for island people.”

Mrs. Catala is also a scientific worker The project will occupy between six and nine months and, it is hoped, will provide basic information of great value to all administrations concerned with the economic and practical problems of lo"w islands.

THREE members of the Indian delega tion to the Commonwealth Parlia mentary Conference which was held recently in New Zealand, arrived at Suva from Auckland on December 5, for a three-day visit on their way back to India. They were Seth Govind Das, Shr: R. Venkataraman and Shri D. K. Borooah Receptions and entertainments wen arranged for them by Indian organisa tions on Viti Levu.

RATU SIR* LALa’sUKUNA, who left

Fiji last September to attend the General Assembly of the Unitec Nations in New York as a member of the United Kingdom delegation, returned tc Fiji on December 16. He came back via the UK and Australia.

Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna was granted a private audience with the King, in London, on December 7, and earlier, m his capacity of Honorary Colonel of the Fiji Military Forces, presented a tabua tc the King’s Royal Rifles to which volun teers from Fiji were attached in the 1914- 18 war, and which recently entered intc an alliance with the Fiji Military Forces Interviewed in Sydney, on his way back to Fiji, Ratu Sir Lala said that small powers at the United Nations spent a lot of time criticising conditions in territories administered by the big powers, but deeply resented unfavourable comparisions be

tween conditions in non-self-governing territories and their own lands.

Peru, for instance, criticised native con ditions in some places strongly, while it neglected its own large Indian population.

BECAUSE of the interruption of ship ping caused by Australian water siders’ strike at the end of last year, stocks of flour in Fiji were low in Decem ber. Many bakeries in Suva and Lautoka baked reduced quantities of bread to con serve stocks until fresh supplies arrived at the end of December.

TO help with the large quantity of par cels that are coming into Fiji, par ticularly over the Christmas season, a new building of a temporary nature has been erected behind the Suva Post Office.

This will be a help to the staff of the Parcels Office, who have had to work overtime night after night in an endeav our to clear the parcels before the next ship arrived.

RADIO receiving and public address equipment has been installed at Tamavua tuberculosis hospital by the radio section of the Posts and Tele graph Department. Loud speakers have been provided in all the wards and pro vision has been made for the use of a microphone to make announcements to patients, and to call members of the staff.

Programmes are received on a central re ceiver and relayed to the patients.

The cost of the equipment was met partly from Medical Department funds and partly from the War Memorial Anti- Tuberculosis Fund. 11 11/ ;i SIR CHRISTOPHER COX, educational adviser to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, is visiting Fiji.

During his stay he will discuss educa tional matters and visit a number of schools and other educational institutions.

LAUTOKA police have received a report that a party of five Europeans— three men and two women—were assaulted by a number of Indians at Saweni Beach in the early hours of December 27. The party of five had been

swimming and on returning to their car noticed six or eight Indians talking at the rear of the vehicle. Without warning, several of the Indians hit the European men with sticks, and while trying to enter the car one of the women also received a blow, The Indians then chased the party along the road for several hundred yards.

Police are investigating.