Tropicalities

Magazine Section

Fright In The Nlgh'l

DURING the military manoeuvres during the last weeks of May, at least one group of Indian residents of Suva must have believed that the Night of the Long Knives—or some thing equally Phillips Oppenheim— had arrived.

Fijian troops in practice at Suva Point used searchlights, tracer-bullets, anti-aircraft fire and jungle-scouting methods. In the course of this shindig they occasionally headed off a passing car and gave the occupants the once over. Most motorists took it in good part, but one taxi-load of Indians at their first sight, in eerie darkness, of* the group of silent Fijians, armed with rifles with fixed bayonets, howled loudly, flung open the dev rs of the cab and were about to take to the mangrove swamp. The military “assassins” dissolved into howls of laughter and waved the taxi on—the occupants only somewhat reassured and explaining volubly that at no time had they ever had sympathy with Communists, Malayan or other wise.

Most European residents of Fiji will, on occasion, mutter darkly of what the Fijians will do to the Indians —if and when. Apparently the Indians have heard the stories, too, and believe them.

Book By Woodrow

(Wrecker) Wyatt

YOU will be forgiven if you have never heard of Mr. Woodrow Wyatt; but for the record, he was Under-Secretary for War in the Attlee Cabinet.

Just recently he added a book to this already over-booked world, and in it gives his opinion of how things should be conducted in this part of the world.

The Dutch, he says, should get out fast from their part of New Guinea and leave it to the Indo nesians. This, he thinks, would re move the last obstacle to good re lations between Indonesia and the West—which, he apparently feels, is much more important than maintain ing good relations with the Dutch.

He thinks that it is “unfortunate”

that Australia backs Dutch claims to Dutch New Guinea, and very correctly attributes the existence of the Republic of Indonesia to the fact that the British Army permitted the consolidation of Indonesian rule be fore the Dutch got back after World War 11, and to the “constant pressure” exercised by Britain on the Dutch Foreign Office.

It would probably surprise Mr.

Wyatt to know that there are a num ber of people in the South West Pacific who failed utterly to ap preciate the British government’s efforts on behalf of the Indonesians, and that while they squirmed when Attlee and company were carving up our own Empire, they occasionally spared a thought for the Dutch and wondered what they felt when the same wreckers of empires performed the same noble service for Holland.

Mr, Wyatt also has a thought or two to spare for Malaya. He thinks the British should set a time limit and then get out, leaving it to be sorted out by the Chinese and Malays.

Suva’S Tenpenny Eggs

in a Chinese fruiterer’s win dow in Suva—eggs of superb quality, that even in pre-hurricane days were kept strictly under Suva counters— are priced at ten shillings a dozen. With them goes the shop keeper’s assurance that the eggs are fresh from New Zealand.

Local eggs (if obtainable, and usually they’re not) are about 7/-, so the imported line does not involve extravagant local profits.

In the cafes one egg (cooked) costs 1/-.

As a result of January’s hurricane the same Chinese fruit shop, normally one of the best-stocked in Suva, is nowadays a pathetic sight. Small mandarines are 2d each; there is a scattering of unattractive vegetables, and that is all.

Stocks of fruit and vegetables at the general market are better, but they are quickly cleared out at in flated—and sometimes outrageous—•

prices.

The virtual wiping out of the ban ana exports by the hurricane is well illustrated by the fact that on May 18 the Tofua took 145 cases to the Auckland market. Last year, banana exports were worth £136,956. This year the return would have been very much larger because the Fijian grow ers had brought large new areas into production. Thanks to January 28, the 1952 return will be merely a token sum.—J.K.

More Opposition For

Tahiti

A SYDNEY Sunday paper reported lately that a gentleman describ ing himself as “the Prime Minister of Paradise” arrived in London to btiy

(Continued on Page 70)

SEPIK ROBBIE is one of the best known and best loved men in the Territory of New Guinea. He is modest, generous, and surprising. He is full of philosophy; he has had a life of adventure without becoming a bore; and he is happy though married. At the end of the 1914-18 war he was discharged as Sergeant E. D. Robinson, and, keen to see more of the world, became Medical Assistant at Bougainville. Robbie later became Patrol Officer on the Sepik River, and finally District Officer of that district, with headquarters at Aitape.

By 1935 Robbie had decided that he deserved a long break after his arduous duties, so he resigned and bought an hotel in Australia. The Second World War drew him back into the Army, and he saw action against the Japanese in the Milne Bay area. While on leave from that campaign he met Eric Feldt and be came one of the famous Coastwatchers. He was awarded the Military Cross for his work with them, and was promoted to the rank of Major.

After the war he went back to the Sepik River where he bought a property and has been trading and recruiting there in company with his wife Marge, who is a pioneer girl true.

—Brett Hilder.

4 ship, and to see a Harley Street specialist about his diabetes.

“Paradise,” has now shifted from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, if 42-year-old Prime Minister Amir Abdul Amin Didi, of the Maidive Islands, is to be believed. But then the Prime Minister is not exactly a modest man: his luggage included a large supply of booklets which, after describing the Maldives in poetic language, end with the follow ing: “Admiration to our dynamic leader, the Hon’able Am Amin Didi, who has made the Maldives more jomantic than ever before.”

Wanted—A National Park

W r HAT more fitting—what more noble—memorial to King George VI could Australia establish than a great National Park preserving for ever the majesty of the primordial forests of New Guinea as they were during the late King's lifetime?”

So writes Crosbie Morrison, editor of the Australian magazine Wild Life.

He goes on to compare his project with the Albert National Park that covers 2,500,000 acres of the Belgian Congo, and points out that practi cally the only virgin country now remaining to the world exists in Australia’s New Guinea territories.

He says that the fauna are second only to those of Australia in bio logical interest; that there are the only haunts of the birds of paradise and other bird species; that there are towering mountains, great rivers, giant trees, rare orchids and butter flies—that it would all cost nothing.

Well, what about it, New Gui nea? The idea has merits and the time to pick the spot is now—before someone finds gold or oil on it, or grows a coffee plantation or starts any of those other enterprises which politicians are fond of telling us “can fulfil Australia’s every tropical need.”

Frangipani Blooms Again

ABOUT 200 residents of Rabaul attended the annual Frangipani Ball at the end of May despite a night of soaking rain. A goodly pro portion were Behinds, who no doubt, have been properly instructed as to the whys and wherefores of this annual event.

The Befores who attended shed a nostalgic tear when Messrs. Dudley Jones, O’Reilly, Fishwick and Wil liams rendered this year’s version of the traditional Frangipani Blooms Again, and thought sadly of those days when Bill Heinicke (where is he now?) and his friends sang their version of the ditty and other tunes about Drs. Woolnough and Stehn

(vulcanologists).

For the still uninitiated, the first Frangipani Ball was to mark the fact that a frangipani bush had emerg ed from the ashes of the eruption of 1937 and had sent forth a flower.

It became an annual event and was a practical demonstration of the belief that Rabaul would always rise above

he troubles that beset her—as she las done A song, sung to the tune of Happy Jays Are Here Again, was devised ach year by local Bards and though he sentiments expressed were much uperior to the lyrics as such, no one •othered about that.

This year’s version, as might be magined, is more concerned with •resent conditions than with pre war events. Here are some verses rom it:

Chorus

rangipani blooms again, 'he skies above are blue again, nd Rabaul is free from gloom again, rangipani blooms again, 'here’ll be no blues from now on, nd that’s the theme of this song.

Verses

ice is ninety pounds a ton, nd other prices are one the run, his darned inflation ain’t no fun, ut Frangipani blooms again. fter the eruption there came the .Taps, hose awfully jolly little chaps, ow we buy their iron and pay like saps, et Frangipani blooms again. till we’re going forward up the track, Ithough there’s lots of things we lack, nd we are carrying Moresby on our backs, rangipani blooms again. hey’ve cut our imports down severe, ut down our whisky and our beer, > shall we shed a silent tear o; Why? here’ll be no blues from now on, nd that’s the theme of this song.

Ijians Have No Word For It

coloured, silk-screen posters depicting the rhinoceros eetle will soon appear throughout le ports and copra districts of Fiji, his follows the alarming statement y the Director of Agriculture (Mr. . Harvey) that this coconut-destroy ig pest may already have reached iji from Tonga and be quietly breed ig near one of the ports.

It is rumoured that the posters ould have appeared earlier if there ad not been a difficulty in getting hinoceros-beetle” into Fijian. Natu illy enough, there is no Fijian word >r rhinoceros, and the descriptive :ntence used for the animal goes on )r quite a long time.

A suggestion that, as a good many nglish words are already used as lort-cuts in colloquial Fijian, the ord “rhinoceros” could be retained )r the beetle on the poster has not ;en encouraged in official quarters— ut they may come to it.

Tongan “Gangsters”

VHEN Mr. D. McCorkill, recently Superintendent of Police in onga, arrived in Sydney in late May ; said that Tongans were too law

abiding and that there was not much for the police to do there.

After two years in the Kingdom, he is off to a new appointment in Malaya where he expects things to be a little different. He thinks Tonga must be the most law-abiding place in the world.

Evidently there are other schools of thought in Tonga, however. At

almost the same time that Mr.

McCorkill arrived in Sydney, we re ceived a letter from a resident of Nukualofa who said that the police force had recently been increased to deal with increased law-breaking, es pecially among young village boys who had been seeing too many mov ies. They had formed themselves into gangs for thieving, assault and for making—and drinking—home brew.

One gang operating in the Mu’a district calls itself the Skull gang, after a gangster-movie recently shown in Tonga.

Two old and respected members of the Suva community, Mr. and Mrs. Ted Eves at their home, Doone Cottage, Lami, Suva. Mr. Eves first went to Fiji in the brigantine Meg Merriles in 1886, her master being John Meredith who was later lost at sea in Torres Strait about 1900. An old photograph of Meg Merriles is shown also—with a full load of re cruited Melanesian labourers on board.

When the photograph was taken, the brigantine was at anchor in Somosoma Strait near Taveuni, Fiji. These were the times some people refer to as “the good old days”. Others hold up horrified hands and mutter “blackbirding”, —Photos by Fiji Public Relations Office.