Meat or a Menace?

Proposed Introduction of Rabbits to BSI

From Our Own Correspondent

Honiara, Feb. 10.

ONE recent topic of conversation in Honiara is a proposal to import rabbits into the BSIP to provide fresh food and lower the ever-rising cost of living. Honiara residents, English, New Zealanders and Australians, stand by their respective backgrounds of home ex perience.

The English cannot understand how a few rabbits, imported for food and kept in hutches, could ever become a pest; the New Zealanders combine neutrality with a leaning towards the English viewpoint.

Most Australians are with difficulty re strained from tubthumping and arguing (occasionally with more force than good manners) that if as the opposition claims rabbits will not do well in the tropics it would be of little value to import them, whereas if they flourished they might prove a dangerous threat to native food supplies, plantation cover-crops and pos sible future coffee and cocoa ventures.

Some Queenslanders, however, believe that rabbits could safely be introduced and would be kept in check by the tropical climate and conditions.

None have as yet been imported. (Ed. Note. —The introduction of rabbits into Pacific Islands has been discussed, pro and con, many times. The general opinion is that they would not become a menace, but few have been tempted to deliberately try the experiment. A small island off Norfolk Island has been com pletely devastated by rabbits.)

Mr. B. H. Marks, prominent resident of Suva, Fiji, has retired and, with his wife, in future will make his home in Mel bourne, Victoria. He is the son of the late Sir Henry Marks, who went to Suva from Melbourne in 1881. and soon after established the firm of Henry Marks & Co., Ltd., which years later amalgamated with Morris Hedstrom Ltd. Sir Henry (knighted in 1933) and his son both gave long public service to Suva —at one time

they were Mayor and Deputy Mayor re spectively. Mr. Marks was also Danish Consul in Fiji in succession to his father and after his recent resignation the King of Denmark created him a Knight of the Royal Order of Dannebrog.

In Launceston, Tas., on February 22, Miss Rae Marion Winspear was married to Mr. Eric Beattie. They will make their home in Wau, New Guinea.