News Notes From Tonga

From Our Own Correspondent

June 15, 1953.

MR. M. L. (“BEN”) APON is now in charge of the Government stores in Nukualofa. He re places Mr. V. Guerin who, with his wife and children, has left Tonga and gone to New Zealand.

Capt. Noel Fordham is now in charge of the Banana Board in Nukualofa. Captain and Mrs. Ford ham, who came to Tonga some years ago and established a candlenut oil extraction factory, are well known throughout the Islands.

The Rev. Mr. Harkness with Mrs.

Harkness and their baby have arrived in Ha’apai from Australia.

Mr. Harkness will be in charge of the Wesleyan churches in the group.

He will also supervise the activities and studies at Pilolevu College, the large Wesleyan institution for girls in Lifuka, and occupy the Lifuka pulpit.

A new hall has been opened in Neiafu, Vava’u by Mr. Paul Schaunkell, local business man and store owner. A concrete-floored, wooden structure, the hall is in great demand for dances, movies, concert parties and boxing matches.

The romantic looking cutters which used to fill Vava’u harbour are fast giving way to motorised boats which, if they are less attrac tive are infinitely more reliable as transportation. The villages of Kapa, Hunga, Taunga, and Ovaka have re cently had engines installed in their cutters and there is a constant in crease in new launches, in-board, and out-board motor boats. These new boats are concrete evidence that the Tongans. in spite of all criticisms to the contrary, are learn ing to spend wisely the money which the current high price of copra brings them.

Tongans are gratified with the overwhelming reception which the British public has given Queen Salote during her stay in London as a Coronation guest. Following the Coronation celebrations, Queen Salote and the members of her party (the Princess Mata’aho, Mrs.

J. Windrum, wife of the British Consul to Tonga, and Miss Susana Helu, nurse-attendant) will tour Scotland and the continent before returning to Tonga in late August.

If Reverend Brother Lambert, Direc tor of St. Francis Xavier High School, Suva, since it was founded in 1937, left Fiji in June to become Director of Sacred Heart College, Auckland. He will be replaced by Reverend Brother Cassian, who has been on the staff of Sacred Heart College, Auckland, for seven years.

Brother Lambert leaves, as a monu ment to his energy and zeal, the splendid 200-pupil school in Suva, which he conceived and built.