Do You Remember ?

20 Years ago.

WITH the August issue, 1933, PIM

had completed three years of life and was, we felt, no longer a puling infant but some thing of an established institution.

In the Pacific, in that month, economic affairs were certainly no worse than they had been for the past several years, but they were no better either. There was, how ever, no mention of any other new ways of making money. Residents seemed (that month, anyway) to be just digging in and bearing it.

Here are some extracts from our issue of August, 1933: We had the first first-hand account of Mr. Fred Deckert’s Bitza—the first motor lorry to essay the 4,000 ft., 14 mile climb along the bush track between Wau and Edie Creek, NG. The Bitza had been made to Deckert’s own specifications and had a three-ft. wheel base, but even then it just fitted the narrow track that formerly had been negotiated only by men and donkeys. The surface of the road was red mud, there was a sheer rock wall on one side and a sheer drop down hundreds of feet on the other. .Some of the bends were so sharp that the lorry had to be backed and filled several times before they could be negotiated. Chains for the wheels were regular equipment, but in those days before jeeps and vehicles with 4-wheel drives, Deckert’s Bitza filled the bill. ♦ <5 C We reported that the proposed con ference between the Western Samoan Administration (the Administrator was then General Hart) and leaders of the Mau was likely to result in a stalemate.

The Administration would not agree to the inclusion in the delegation of Mr.

O. F. Nelson (lately returned from five years’ exile in New Zealand) and the Mau leaders as stubbornly refused to exclude him. * * • In a Tropicality we suggested that all the Pacific Island names beginning with “New” (New Ireland, New Britain, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, etc.) should be thrown overboard for native names that did not suggest cold, bleak Northern Europe. They had not the music of such names as Samoa, Rarotonga, Tahiti, Hawaii, etc., we said. Tonga, Hawaii and Samoa had just escaped the clutches of the unimaginative cartographers—until quite recent times they were known as Friendly, Sandwich and Navigator Islands respectively. * * *

Sulphur deposits on Vanua Lata in the New Hebrides were being investigated, and it was said that several syndicates including Australian, British and French were interested in exploiting them. The deposits were 97 per cent, pure and 15,000 tons were reported to be lying on the surface. (These deposits have been worked at various times but without much financial reward for the people involved). • * • In a seven-day wonder case at Rabaul, a solicitor, F. L. Flannery, was convicted of stealing £BC(C(, the property of Guinea Airways, Ltd., and sentenced to four years’ hard labour.

Before his trial at Rabaul Central Court he was out on bail provided by a war time comrade, Mr. Charles Booth. How ever, on the day he was to stand trial, Flannery bush, somewhere in the Toma District and was discovered in a native house by the police after they had searched for him for a week, • * * In a list of appointments as Cadets to the New Guinea District Services Depart ment were these names: K. W. Bilson, H. E. Hamilton, K. J. Hickey, J. R.

Black, T. G. Aitchison, M. S. Edwards, D.

McCarthy, H. G. Verey, G. Greathead, L. G. Vial. * * * From Fiji came an article called “The Indian Problem”—the first time we had called it that— that concerned the then new Indian demand for a “common roll,” that iSr equal status with Europeans in government of the Colony. Indian mem bers of the Fij Legislative Council had at that time walked out in a huff over the issue and our correspondent saw only one solution —for Fiji to revert to the old Crown Colony type of government which gave equality to all but taxation without

representation.

♦ * * Cook Islands orange growers were de manding a better deal from New Zealand —where fruit was alleged to be landed in rotten condition, where the market was glutted and where they suspected mer chants rigged the market. Better market facilities, cool stores, and better shipping were demanded. The editor of PIM pointed out that, when he first visited the Cooks 19 years before, growers had much the same complaints and that he had written articles about the disabilities of fruit growing in the Pacific for the NZ market. It was high time something was done, he said.

Another 30 years have passed—and In 1953 Cook Island orange growers are still asking for cool stores, better shipping, etc. There are now no orange gluts in NZ but what has the Dominion done to improve matters for the long-suffering Cl fruit growers?