Tours Are Out

For Fiji

Rugby Footballers

i USTRALIAN newspapers re- V cently credited the Fijian Rugby Union management committee ith saying that trips to Australia ere “money-making sideshow urs,” from which little of the irth while fundamentals of Rugby ;re learned.

Reaction to the announcement nong football circles in Sydney is immediate and generally un mplimentary.

Later, however, the NSW Rugby lion secretary, Mr. J. O’Neill, said at he had been assured by the ji committee that no responsible icial had made any such state snt. Relationships between the o Associations were as friendly as ey ever had been, he added.

Dur Fiji correspondent reported, September 15, that nobody out le Fiji Rugby Union circles has t been told officially why the lion has closed down on overseas irs for representative teams from ii.

Ml that was known was that on ptember 3, the Union announced it its management committee had nded, “in the interests of Fijian igby and the players concerned,” drop overseas tours “in the im diate future.” rhe term “immediate future” pears to be elastic, he commented,

as the ban Involves the cancellation of a proposed visit to British Columbia and California in 1955.

II Dr. Peter Gibson, a house surgeon at Wellington hospital, NZ, and a son of Mr. H. B. Gibson of Labasa, Fiji, is to marry Dr. Adrienne Croucher, another house surgeon, at Wellington on December 18 next.

Dr. Gibson was brought up in Fiji.

Departures from Sydney for New Guinea recently included, from left to right: Qantas passenger, Mrs. N. F. Crozier, who left on August 26 to visit her daughter Miss Pat Crozier at Boroka. Mr. W. P. White, who works for Bulolo Gold Dredging, returned by Qantas on September 2, after four months' leave in Sydney; Mr. White has been in the Islands for 20 years. Mr. and Mrs. K. L. Baker and daughter Margaret Ann, returned to Port Moresby on the "Sinkiang" on September 7; Mr. Baker is an architect with the Department of Works and has been on leave.