The Editors' Mailbag

NZ Orange Market

We were a little severe on growers of Australian oranges and the NZ importing authorities, thinks Mr.

F. H. E. King, of Wellington, NZ, referring to our September item, “Oranges from Half the World Away.”

Mr. King goes on to say that MV Matua makes a special trip to Melbourne each Spring to lift oranges for New Zealand and that they sell cheaper than local apples.

That is probably so—but one ship load of oranges is still a drop in the ocean of total Australian orange production. Local prices for Aus tralian oranges have been high for several years—in fact there have been no gluts since certain people concerned with these pages got out of the orange-growing business at a stage when good quality Valencias were selling wholesale in Sydney for 4/- per case!

Is This a Rare Old Book?

Does anyone with an interest in South Pacific history know any thing about a 2-volume book en titled Rovings in the Pacific , from 1837 to 1849, by ‘a Merchant long resident at Tahiti’? It was printed in London in 1851, by Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans.

Captain G. O. Gatehouse, a well known mariner in the Pacific, has loaned us a copy, which he found in a battered condition in a port in China, and had re-bound. He says he believes the book is the work of a Mr. E. Lucett, who went to live in Papeete between 1840 and 1850, in the days when the Pomares ruled. There is a great deal of interesting data about the then only partly-known islands of Polynesia and the Central Pacific; and a full description of events in Tahiti before and after the seizure by the French, and in Samoa before the European Powers settled in.

Another WRC Memory

.. “Wally Maidment’s letter reminds me of my first meeting with the late Sir Walter Carpenter,” writes Captain James Duncan, formerly of Rabaul.

“In 1897, I went to Thursday Island to join the pearling fleet owned bv Clark, Munro and Out ridge. At that time, Walter Carpenter worked in Burns Phllp’s store as shipping clerk; Bill Luff was in charge of the drapery; and Joe Mitchell was manager.

“A year or two later, Walter left Burns Philp to launch out for him self with a few luggers and a small store; the name over it was ‘J. B.

Carpenter and Son’ in large letters.

He and brother Bill served in the store.

“On one memorable occasion, I went in to pay an account and pro duced two invoices, both under £l.

Walter shouted, ‘Sign them both, Bill, and save stamps.’ They both laughed heartily, as they always did.

W. R. Carpenter & Co. has expanded a lot since those days.”

Tahiti and Americans

Mr. Seymour Pond writes from the Explorers’ Club (10 West 72nd Street, New York) to ask if we can give him a clue as to why the French Government in Tahiti is un friendly to American tourist adventurers who wander in there. (He is referring to yachtsmen and wanderers with irresponsible feet but solid bank accounts —not hoboes and beachcombers).

“Many more Americans would like to visit Tahiti,” he says. “But when the news comes from various people that officials there are not so friendly as they might be, a large proportion of them change their itineraries and go instead to such places as Hawaii, or Virgin Islands or Cuba —where prices are low, the liquor good, and where the people seem really glad to have a rest seeking painter, or writer, or plain tourist foreigner, to stay a while with them, “Why don’t these French like the Americans? We always are very happy to see French folk in the United States.”

Sorry—we do not know the answer. All we know is that Tahiti’s reputation for “making things tough for casual visitors” has turned away from Tahiti a great many dollars that otherwise would have found a pleasant resting place in one of the Pacific’s most charming archi pelagoes.

Comparative Values

In Auckland, having an old wound repaired, Captain J. D. Campbell, of Turoa, Rarotonga, writes in terestingly about the training of young men for administrative work: “Here in NZ it is surprising to find that Cook Islands natives who could not get a living wage in the Administration there are holding positions of responsibility in trade and farming, and paid the same wage as their European opposite numbers.

“The other evening I was at Auckland Town Hall and had the pleasure of seeing Cl native girls receive awards in nursing, and one the special prize for outstanding work in the wards.

“I often wonder if the Australian School of Pacific Administration is a success in training men for NG and Papua, because there is not any doubt that unless trained men are sent into the Pacific, to hold the

positions of responsibility, and s an example, it is only a matter ■ time before some of the Con munists or Fellow Travellyers get : and turn the natives to their m of thinking.”

Words According

To Needs

Through PIM, Top-Sergeai Robert T. Smith, formerly in Sol mons and New Guinea, and now Korea, and Professor Robert J. Ha now in Australia, entered into correspondence about Pidgin En; lish. Professor Hall was interest! in the way in which Gl’s us< Pidgin in Korea, and the Sergea; did his best to supply a list.

“I got about 80 words and phras he tells us. “But when looked over the list I sent him, I a not proud of it—most of the won either represent profanity, or th have something to do with sex— fact, half of my collection deals wii the latter subject. *1 guess our troops haver changed much. How was it y< used to describe them in Austral —‘Overpaid, over-sexed and ov here’?”

Well, Where Did

They Originate?

Gratefully acknowledged, a lead from Bishop Museum, Honolulu, d scribing a new exhibit there bu: around the question of “Where D the Peoples of the Pacific Origii ate?” The exhibit is an immen mural map, representing a coi sensus of expert opinion concernii the migrations of prehistoric nu into the Pacific.

But the leaflet does not answ the question which all of us, qui naturally, ask: Whence came the: What were the chief sources of tl Pacific migrations? Does the ne map support the Southeast Asia i the Kon Tiki (South Americi theory?

Plenty for All!

I see that it is proposed to brir certain New Guinea natives, wt achieve the required educationi standard, into the P-NG publ service, “at the same pay and wort ing conditions as European! (writes a Queenslander).

Australia now gives P-NG aboi £6,000,000 per annum; and, Au£ tralia’s population is now aroun the 9 million mark. Why not mab round figures of it —£1 per hes from every man, woman and chil in Australia making £9 million pc annum to be given to Papua-Ne Guinea. The extra £3 million woul serve nicely to pay all the native at European rates. It would a come back into the trade store and enrich the Europeans an Chinese traders, who are quit

[serving cases. Australia has tenty for all—why be stingy about Ithing like that!

Fifty years ago, the P & O Dmpany were under contract with |e Government of India to deliver |e English mail (via Brindisi) at bmbay a fortnight after leaving agland; and this was done with tch regularity that if they were i hour or two ahead of schedule ,ey got a pat on the back, and if i hour or two late they published lologies and explanations.

I am led to this recollection writes Mr. R. F. Vaughan, of indakan, North Borneo) by the ct that the PIM of March and ay arrived here together on June That is typical of surface mail liveries, which have become dis acefully slow and unreliable.

hen the Union Jack

eant Something

From a Pacific Islands pioneer io, although he served with the nnaught Rangers in England, •.land, the South African War, d India, is still an active and :xessful plantation manager: rhe pioneers I found here in the rly days were built in heroic »uld. They were more mighty ;h their hands than their pens— jy did things, and didn’t waste le talking about them, fo-day, we sit in comfortable airs, and do our pioneering with r tongues. We haven’t the in tinal fortitude to hold on to, and fern, the lands conquered by our ebears. rhe result is that there now are ae so low as will do us homage, s have forgotten the days when foreign vessels passing a British rship lowered their topsails in pectful salute. (And woe betide if they didn’t!)

nour of Being First

f ack Thornton, itinerant Pacific ands writer, quarrels gently with s correspondent who challenged ornton’s claim that a certain ice Islander was the first to ilify in dentistry—she said that main man of Tarawa had done ital jobs long before Thornton’s ninee got busy with forceps and ffiornton says that AMP Teleke, ice Islander, is in sole charge of nafuti Hospital, where he per ms all sorts of surgical opera tes, some almost major in iracter. "If some Ellice Islander a diploma in surgery at Guy’s, nld he be called the first Ellice mder to become a surgeon, or >uld the honour and the credit held by AMP Teleke?” asks ornton.