[?]th Session in April

[?]Uth Pacific Commission

Commission’s Ninth Session ill open at its headquarters i Noumea on April 28.

E. M. Ojala, M.Agr. Sc., BA, Oxon), has arrived at Com i headquarters from New d to take up the post of r Chairman of the Research 1. He will co-ordinate the ission’s work programme in Ids of economic development, and social development, de ’ to promote better living rds among peoples of the Pacific.

Emile Massal (Health) will in March for Bangkok to at i symposium on yaws control. ;ed by the World Health isation. He will present a on “The Extent and Nature Yaws Problem in the South k ”

Vocational Training jcational training authority of repute, Dr, F. J. Harlow, PhD, has arrived in Sydney London en route to Suva to detailed plans for the estab ;nt there by the SPC, as a ype, of a central vocational ig institution for Islands

peoples. Initially, it will embrace departments of technology, agricul ture and social studies.

Dr. Harlow, before going to Suva, will confer with technical education authorities in Australia. Papua-New Guinea, and New Zealand.

Cocoa and Copra Surveys In pursuance of its investigations into cash crops of economic impor tance in the South Pacific, the Commission has engaged two ex perts to carry out surveys of the cocoa and copra industries.

Mr. D. H. Urquhart, BAgrSc. is coming from England to undertake

(Continued on Page 129)

»coa survey. He recently com for the Australian Govern a survey of cocoa industry sets in Papua-New Guinea.

W. V. D. Pieris will under i similar survey of the copra ,ry. He is at present doing re l work at Kew Gardens. He lad long and extensive ex ,ce with the Ceylon Coconut rch Scheme, where he was cist and Deputy Director of rch from 1930 to 1946. i surveys, practical in nature xtensive in scope, will include [eration of plantation manage production methods, market jrocedures, by-products, cost >es and related problems.