Japs to Pay Compensation

to NG Widows

WIDOWS of men who were civilian internees of the Japs in Rabaul and elsewhere in New Guinea, will be entitled to compen sation under the recently announced prisoner-of-war reparations payable by Japan. Each serviceman who was a POW of the Japs will receive some thing like £35 by way of compen sation—apparently to be paid from Japanese funds “frozen” during 1941-1945—but at the time of the original announcement no specific mention was made of widows of civilian internees. The POW and Relatives Association and the New Guinea Women’s Club of Sydney have now ascertained direct from Prime Minister Menzies that payment will be made to them, in due course.

As civilian internees are distinct from POWs, a special regulation has to be passed by the Commonwealth Government to cover them. It is presumed that an announcement will be made later telling widows when and how they are to apply for the payment. The NG Women’s Club is watching the situation.

There has been no information forthcoming on the position of the handful of civilian internees who were kept in New Guinea by the Japs and who were subsequently liberated by the Allies.

Mr. T. P. Makea, secretary of the Cook Islands Industrial Workers’

Union, arrived in Auckland by the October Maui Pomare on a busi ness visit.