Won Goodwill Of All

Racial Groups In Fiji

Prom Our Own Correspondent SUVA, October 14.

ONE of the few people to leave Fiji (after a two years’ stayL with the unalloyed goodwill of< all racial groups is Mr. H. T. Law rence, who has gone to London era route to Burma.

As the first British Council rep-' resentative in the Colony, his first? major job after the establishment] of a British Council Centre at Suva! was the formation of the Viti Clutt for young Fijian men and women. .

In the middle of a probably un precedented round of European!

Fijian and Indian gatherings in hisj honour, Mr. Lawrence told a fare-' well meeting of the Viti Club that “Fiji is the kindest country I have known in my life.”

After urging his hearers to main tain the best Fijian traditions, he said; “The time has gone when anjj racial community can keep itseltJ entirely to itself in a small In Fiji each community can learn a great deal from the others, and) this means a degree of give-and take. . . . The Fijians in particular have a very great deal which can teach others.”

Mr. Lawrence’s success, both per sonally and on behalf of the British!

Council, has been a notable achieve ment won in the face of early in difference and prejudiced ignorance of the aims of his organisation.

At one time he was accused of “putting wrong ideas into the headsJ of non-Europeans.” Within a yean however, he had demonstrated thatj such widely-separated groups as thej Fiji Arts Club, the Teachers’ Train ing College and the British Council] Viti Club had many cultural in terests in common.

Mr. F. T. Goedicke, who has been a resident of Tonga for 67 years— he is now over 90 years old —recently left his old residence in Haapair and is now living at Vaini, neaij Nukualofa. He expects to leave 1 Tonga, about the end of this yean to reside with his son in DevonporU Auckland. Mr. Goedicke, who be-] came a naturalised British subject: in 1884, is closely connected wittl the German aristocracy, and a few years ago, through the deaths oft certain people in Holland, he in-, herited the title of Count van Asten.

The Rev. A. W. Silvester, who has been in charge of Methodist Missiom activities on Vella Lavella, 8.5.1., fora nearly 20 years, is due to return to NZ towards the end of next yearn He remained on Vella Lavella dur-' ing the Jap occupation, and wasj decorated for his services to the); Allied forces whom his missiom natives aided on many occasions.