Administrator

Report About The Nauru

AN Adelaide newspaper publishes the unofficial report that Mr.

R. S. Richards may soon retire from

the post of Administrator of Nauru, and that Mr. J. K. Lawrence, of the Commonwealth Audit Depart ment, who has just gone to Nauru, is a possible appointee.

Canberra, however, says that Mr.

Lawrence’s mission is concerned solely with audit business, and the report about Mr. Richards is not confirmed.

Mr. Richards was appointed to Nauru, for five years, in 1949, by Mr, E. J. Ward, when he was Territories Minister. This was re garded at the time as a “political appointment”. Mr. Richards, who is now 67, had been Labour Premier of South Australia, and was Leader of the Labour Party. He had had no experience whatever of tropical territory administration. Apart from that, minor Administration ships, like Nauru and Norfolk Island, should be reserved for the best of the trained men of the Papua-New Guinea administrative services, and not given to job seeking ex-politicians.

Mr. Richards, in Nauru, and Mr.

Wilson, in Norfolk Island, are both men of outstanding personality, and have made many friends since tak ing up their appointments. It is argued, however, that that in no way justifies what were regarded as “political appointments”.