New Year

Honours

rE names of a few Pacific Islands residents appeared in the list of New Year Honours, announced by the King on January 1:

Order Of British Empire

Commander (CBE)

Mr. W. H. B. Buckhurst,

Director of Lands in Fiji. Mr. Buck hurst went to the Colony in 1928 as a Native Lands Commission sur veyor; became Assistant Director of Surveys in the Lands Department in 1942, and Director of the Depart ment in 1944. He has been very prominent in the encouragement of amateur athletics in the Colony.

Officer (OBE)

Mr. C. R. Harley Nott, Dis

trict Commissioner Western, Lau toka, Fiji. Mr. Nott joined the Fiji administrative service in 1926, and had a distinguished record at head quarters, where he was Assistant Colonial Secretary from 1933 to 1941.

Members (MBE) Mr. M. J. LEAHY, of Zenag, New Guinea. Mr. Leahy is the oldest of the famous Leahy family who, as gold prospectors, explorers, soldiers and farmers, have achieved a re markable record as pioneers of New Guinea. After the war, Mr. Leahy took up some 600 acres oh the high country near Mumeng, alongside the new military road between Lae and Bulolo and has devoted all his time and a great deal of money to prov ing his belief that it is possible to establish European cattle produc tion as a sound industry, on these cool, open plateaus. (See editorial comment on Mr. Leahy’s MBE.)

Miss Grace Morrison, Of

Suva, Fiji. Miss Morrison estab lished her famous nursing-home in Suva 27 years ago. She was a trainee at the Old Colonial Hospital in Suva, and completed training in Sydney at the Crown Street

Women’s Hospital.

ELIKI SERU, of Moturiki, Fiji.

He is the leader of the team which is carrying out the Moturiki Com munity Development project, and was formerly an Organising Teacher in the service of the Fiji Govern ment.

Miss Dorothy Lilly Beale,

of New Ireland. She has performed notable service as Sister in Charge

of the Methodist Hospital at Kimi dau, New Ireland.

Miss Sybilla Schmitz, Of

New Ireland. Miss Schmitz, better known as Sister Marie Clementa, nas given a lifetime of devoted service to the nursing of lepers, and she now is the Sister-in-Charge of the Roman Catholic Leprosarium, Anelaua, New Ireland.

British Empire Medal MR. G. H. MORRIS, of Nagavu Fiii, who has been a member of the Public Works Department for 25 years.