[?] Times Purchased By Pacific Publications

ST February 29, the Company known as Fiji Times and Herald Limited, owners of The Fiji les (daily newspaper), Shanti Dut dian weekly newspaper) and the jest printing factory in Fiji, was I by Sir Alport Barker to Mr.

W. Robson. bout two-thirds of the shares e transferred immediately to ific Publications Pty. Ltd., of ney (owners of Pacific Islands ithly and several associated lications) and the remainder to nail group of private investors, [r. Robson, then in Suva, im liatedy assumed control of the Times Company, as Managing sctor, and since has been en ed there in the work of re alisation. This is a large and ving and profitable business; but is often characteristic of old blished concerns—it has been many years conducted according ;he rules and ideas of an older eration. r. Alan Moyle continues in the ice of the Company as Manag- Editor. Mr. Robson proposes to oint a business manager and

iting-house manager.

is probable that The Fiji

Times, hitherto issued as an evening paper, will become a morning news paper as soon as the necessary alterations can be made in plant, staff, news service, etc. Fiji, owing to its community structure and transport organisation, can best be served by morning publication.

The Fiji Times was first published in Levuka in 1869 by Mr. G. L.

Griffiths. In 1887, he moved its publishing office to Suva, and merged it with his Suva Times. About 1901, Mr. Thomas Alport Barker estab lished the Western Pacific Herald in Suva. He bought The Fiji Times in 1918; and he has carried on the combined newspaper, as Fiji Times and Herald, until now, without any serious opposition.

The newspaper will be known in the future as The Fiji Times.

In a prominent article in The Fiji Times, and in a broadcast, Mr.

Robson paid a tribute to the services given to the Colony over many years by Sir Alport Barker (who retired last year from active direction and now is living in Auckland).

In explaining the newspaper ser vices which his Company proposes to provide in Fiji, Mr. Robson made

a strong point of his belief that the large and prosperous Colony now is merging into young nationhood, and that the future of Fiji belongs to the Fiji-born—Europeans, part- Europeans, Fijians, Indians, Chinese, Polynesians—and that it will be the duty of the newspapers ( The Fiji Times, Shanti Dut, and a weekly journal in Fijian which it is planned to establish soon) to assist the younger people of all races to work together as one community and to prepare themselves to exercise a growing measure of self-government. fl Taesali of Ululei, 68, American Samoa, World War I veteran and leader of the former Fita Fita Guard, died February 7. He once escorted several German prisoners of war to Hawaii, also was com mended for being a member of the boarding party that helped ex tinguish the flames on the burning ex-RMS Tahiti that came into Pago Pago Harbour in 1930. He is sur vived by his wife, Puni, 4 sons and 3 daughters.