“Pompous Rule"

Teacher’S Attack

Alleged in G and E Colony

A CHANGE in the system of gov ernment in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony is to be sought in London by Captain W. H.

Hughes, director of missionary education and of the teachers’ train ng college in the colony.

Captain Hughes, who was sent to he islands by the London Missionary Society, told the New Zealand Herald, Auckland, that the Gilbert md Ellice Islanders are the most lighly taxed people of any British colony.

He said that if a man owns land le is taxed on his land. If he grows coconuts—which are the basic pro luct in the Islands’ economy—he is axed on what he picks. His £1 is vorth about 6/-.

“We have no right to force the h-itish way of life on the Islanders,” aid Captain Hughes. “Our duty is o help them, not impose on them.

“Until five years ago they were ery happy under the rule of a ouple of Englishmen and a native lerk. Now the Solomons, the New lebndes and the Gilbert and Ellice slands are under the pompous rule f a High Commissioner.”

Captain Hughes said that.under be new set-up there were more facials than he could count, and ach official had “one or more ecretaries.”

Captain Hughes left Auckland for Ingland on July 7. His wife, a octor, had gone previously.

June travellers by "Wlalaifa"

Travellers in "Malaita" in June included (left to right): Mr. and Mrs. H. R. Hors burgh, who returned to Vila after furlough in Sydney. Mr. Horsburgh is attached to Burns Philp's Vila Branch Office. Miss 0. Y. Reeve, of BSIP Government staff, who was returning to Honiara after vacation in Sydney, was fare welled by Mrs. K. C. Jackson, who is well known in the Solomons.