All Praise For Moresby

Lae Is Not Complaining, But— !

Prom Our Own Correspondent LAE, Feb. 3.

REPETITION of the praise given to Administration Officials from Port Moresby for their work in the Mount Lamington disaster is not regarded by Lae residents as in good taste. There has been an almost complete lack of reference to the early and solended work of Adminis tration and Public Health officials from Lae.

The Lae District Commissioner (Mr.

Niall) and a medical staff, were in the devastated area on the day after the eruption.

Without official request, the Qantas organisation at Lae transported to Popen detta the Native Labour Officials from Lae, and jeeps supplied from the Lae Transport Pool, and by private taxi com pany operating in Lae.

Until the Tuesday after the eruption, it was Lae, and Lae only, that took the initiative.

When Port Moresby officials arrived, and some enterprising newspaper scribe discovered that Mount Lamington was in Papua—and not, as earlier described, in New Guinea —the good work of the Port Moresby officials was publicised.

No one wishes to decry what those officials did; but it would have been ap preciated here if the early initiative shown in Lae had beeen referred to in the welter of blah-blah that went on the air. re ferring to this and that official from the Port Moresby regime.

Mr. and Mrs. C. F. Corbett left Suva by air in February for a visit to New Zealand and Australia. Mrs. Corbett then Intends to fly to London to join her daughter, Barbara, who is on holiday in the UK.

Inspector F. C. Moore, of the British Solomon Islands Armed Constabulary, left Honiara by Qantas aircraft on March 6. He served in the BSIP Defence Force during the war and afterwards under took the reorganisation and peacetime training of the Constabulary in the post war period, his enthusiasm and hard work establishing it on a firm footing in spite of supply difficulties and an acute shortage of trained staff. He has been transferred to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony.

Mr. S. Elliott Smith, who, in 1949, left Papua to take on the Deputy Commis sionership of Native Affairs in Western Australia, is now back in Papua as Acting District Commissioner, Higaturu. He re signed from the Western Australian post soon after the Mt. Lamington disaster and sought permission to help in the re habilitation of the area, where two of his friends, District Commissioner C. F.

Cowley and Director of Native Labour W.

R. Humphries, had lost their lives. Mr.

Elliott-Smith was CO of the Ist Papuan Infantry Battalion in World War 11.

Mr. and Mrs. J. Trotter, of Suva, Fiji, and their daughter Barbara were among the official guests at the Treaty of Friend ship celebrations in Nukualofa, Tonga in mid-February. Mr. Trotter is Managing Director of Burns Philp (S.S.) Ltd.

A team of Australian and British Military experts visited Manus Island (NG), in February to inspect areas which might be suitable for testing Centurian tanks under tropical conditions. (The Centurian is a heavily armed tank of about 50 tons.)