The Wphc Now

Under

A New Control

From Our Own Correspondent SUVA, July 20.

FOR many years the Western Pacific High Commission avoided publicity like the plague. At times itinerant journalists at Suva, knowing no better, would attempt to penetrate the fastnesses of the wooden warren in the Government House grounds which is the High Commission’s headquarters, only to be rebuffed— courteously or bluntly, depending on the intruder’s manner of approach.

Inquiries about the British Solomon Islands, Gilbert and Ellice Colony, the New Hebrides, Pitcairn or Tonga were clearly unwelcome. The Commission seemed to live in a sort of inpenetrable purdah.

It has been pointed out that its apparent horror of publicity had robbed the WPHC of well-deserved praise for the success of some of its difficult projects. For example, very little has been made public about the transfer of people from overcrowded to empty islands in the Gilbert and Ellice Colony. More has been heard of the migration of the Banabans from Ocean Island, but that was only because they came to Rabi, in Fiji.

There was a brief flutter in 1950, when Suva was startled by an Act ing High Commissioner who, with the help of some New Hebridean policemen who happened to be train ing with the Fijian police, suddenly began to hoist and lower the WPHC flag with due ceremony at sunrise and sunset, and waved another (rather smaller) flag from the bonnet of his car. This surprising demonstration was never explained.

But now a new era appears to be opening. On July 11, in Suva, the new High Commissioner for the Western Pacific (Mr. R. C. S. Stan ley, CMG, OBE) officially put out the Welcome mat for the Press, and said he wanted to provide informa tion about the WPHC and its work.

He told the journalists that early in his career he was on the staff of the Brooklyn Eagle , New York, and later was in the London ofiice of Reuters.

Questioned about the transfer of WPHC headquarters from Suva to Honiara, he said that the change would not be made for several months, owing to accommodation and other difficulties at Honiara.

Mr. Stanley On First Tour

Since the separation of the posts

Photo taken daring: the ceremony at Government House, Suva, in July, when Mr. R. C. S. Stanley took the oath of office as Western Pacific High Com missioner. Shown (left to right) Mr.

B. A. Doyle, Attorney General for Fiji; Mr.

H. A. C. Dobbs, First Assistant Secretary, W.P.H.C.; the new High Commissioner. —Photo by Public Relations Office.

[of High Commissioner for the [Western Pacific and Governor of Fiji, the WPHC territories have been limited to the British Solomons, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands and the New Hebrides Condominium. The conduct of British relations with Tonga, and the administration of Pit cairn, Ducie, Oeno and Henderson Islands, have been transferred to the Governor at Suva.

Mr. Stanley, with his wife and daughter, will leave Suva about August 15 in the RCS Nareau for a tour of the WPHC territories. He expects to reach Vila about August 21, and Honiara on September 6. He will spend about 30 days in the British Solomons and will then go to pcean Island and to Tarawa, where the Nareau will arrive about October 4. returning to Suva about October 20.

Change After 75 Years

DURING an impressive ceremony at Government House in Suva on Julv 2, when the newly-arrived High Commissioner for the W. Pac ific. Mr. R. C. S. Stanley, took the baths of office, some interesting his torv of the Commission was given.

Mr. 11. C. A. Bryant, who had been acting as High Commissioner, said that the post of High Commis

sioner of Western Pacific was estab lished in 1877, and thenceforward it was held by the Governors of Fiji. Sir Arthur Gordon, being then Fiji’s Governor, became the first High Commissioner. That system had continued for 75 years; and was now changed by the decision to make the Commissionership a separate office.

Mr. Stanley, as High Commis sioner, is addressed by the courtesy title of “Your Excellency.”

The new Governor of Fiji, Sir Ronald Garvey, KCMG, who will arrive from Auckland by Tofua early in October, will be the first Governor of Fiji, for 75 years without juris diction over Solomons, Gilbert and Ellice Colony and New Hebrides.