Tropicalities

[?]Agazine Section

T Are They Going To Do

For The Workers?

NEY’S Communist Tribune as having more than its sual rush of Red blood to the in its issue of October 3. The >s of New Guinea, Fiji and islands were being exploited :here was the danger of the nination of the natives by the ialists and colonisers, said rib. tralia was urged to extend tific and cultural aid.” ■ Guinea, said the paper, ig like mad and pounding its :y chest, is being run by the ,es Government as a paradise xploiters. Natives get only quivalent of the weekly NSW wage for a full year’s work. dIo Gold Dredging came in for ticular hate-session —probably se “it is the specially-favoured , of the Menzies government which took BGD into srship with it in the recently d Commonwealth New Guinea *s whose first year’s exploita of Bulolo forests brought a rofit of £169,000.” we remember correctly, lonwealth New Guinea irs was formed during the last iment of Labour PM Chifley that would probably be led as a mere quibble, iw. The article ends □hantly with a quotation that well-known prophet, Marx: Labour in a white '.an never be free while in a skin it is branded. :en ern angered the

Penguins

ES McAULEY, whose latest Election of verse is reviewed sewhere in this issue, is half Crn Malley” who, in 1944, sfully pulled off Australia’s successful literary debunking, the time there existed in ide, SA, a very-literary ;ine called Angry Penguins. day the co-editors received a Miss Ethel Malley, a j of MS—she said that it was roduct of her brother, Ern r, a garage mechanic and nee salesman, who had met :ic end at the age of 25. She tit they were poems; what ngry Penguins think? ry Penguins thought they had merit; they published them special Ern Malley com rative issue which described :)et as one of the two giants

of contemporary Australian literature (the second giant unspecified). The lecturer in Australian Literature at the Adelaide University spoke well of the poems, and one or two of them were published in an Anthology in the United States.

A sample, from a poem called Sybilline : That rabbit’s foot I carried in my left pocket Has worn a haemorrhage in the lining.

The bunch of keys I carry with it Jingles like fate in my omophagic ear.

Then came the pay-off. When the prestige of Ern was at its

zenith amongst Australia’s literary impressionists, two Sydneysiders, James McAuley and another young man named Stewart, confessed that they had produced the whole of Ern Malley’s tragic life’s-work in one afternoon by opening books at random, choosing a word, phrase or sentence haphazardly and com bining them into nonsensical sentences.

The hoax was a deliberate protest against what they claimed was “a gradual decay in meaning and craftsmanship in poetry.”

They made their point: Circula tion of the Ern Malley issue of Angry Penguins scare d—over-night it became a collector’s piece—then the publication submerged once more beneath the murky waters of Australian “culture.” We do not know if it is still in publication.

Coals To Newcastle Deft.

ANYONE who said that the copra-producing Territory of French Oceania was an importer of copra would probably not be believed—yet this is a fact, as shown in the trade statistics for 1955 just to hand. (Over)

The explanation is that a Tahiti business man leases the British islands of Flint and Caroline, selling the copra in Papeete. It thus becomes a foreign import.

Last year 131 metric tons, worth 932,000 Pacific francs (£5tg.5,260 approximately) was so imported.

The statistics show this as all coming from Flint and none from Caroline, but that may be only a statistical arrangement.

Leader In His Community

WONG YOU is one of the most popular, prosperous and hard working men on Bougainville, TNG. He was born in 1891 in the Toi San district of China, up country from Canton, and went to New Guinea in 1912, during the Ger man era.

Wong worked first in the hotel at Rabaul and later at Kavieng, which may account for the almost pro fessional ease of his hospitality.

After the Australian occupation of New Guinea, in 1914, he went to work on Inus plantation, and in 1921 set up in business as a gen eral trader.

He had a large store at Kieta when the Japanese arrived in 1942.

After a taste of Japanese imprison ment, Wong escaped into the bush and lived off the land for the rest of the war. After the war was over he received War Compensation for the loss of his store, and has since rebuilt his trading business and other commercial interests.

His headquarters are at China town, Buka Passage, with a branch store at Kieta. He has one planta tion property and two small vessels, Anna and Chehu, which trade around Bougainville and the neigh bouring islands.

Wong married in 1934, and has 4 sons and 3 daughters. The eldest is now 19, while the three youngest are at school at Toowoomba.

Although Wong is not a Catholic himself, his children are, and he

is a very old friend of Bishop Thomas Wade, of the Marist Mission. In 1953, Wong You was honoured by being chosen to go to Cairns with other representatives of New Guinea to meet Her Majesty the Queen during her Australian

tour.-

Brett Milder.

News Of The Frisbie

Cowboys

NEWS of three of the late Robert Dean Frisbie’s “coyboys” comes to us from our favourite news-sheet, Cook Islands News —or as it now calls itself, in a brand new masthead in Gothic type. Cook Islands Daily Press.

The Frisbie girls, Johnny, Elaine and Nga, have travelled some distance since they played on the beaches of Pukapuka and weathered the hurricane that swept Suwarrow in 1942. The Frisbies—Papa, the three girls and Jakey—had been marooned on the latter atoll waiting for a schooner and saved themselves by lashing themselves to the tops of the tallest trees.

People who read the Frisbie stories and felt they knew the whole family intimately will be glad to know that the three girls have carved their own niche in far-away Hawaii.

Johnny was married in July radio and television entertait Carl Hebenstreit; she is star dar at Don Beachcomber night clulf Honolulu, where she had been S 7 she returned from two years’ sen with the US forces in Jajj Elaine and Nga are also Honcr night-club entertainers—Nga tour the United States and Euu with a team of Hawaiian danr early next year.

Papa Frisbie would be pies; with the enterprise of his cowl who have put to good use tl knowledge of dancing, absott from babyhood on Pukapuka Manihiki. t The monthly newspaper, C Islands Review will in futures purely educational in character, will be distributed free to C Islanders through their sch«j Formerly, although Governmu run, it was sold at 6d and was i signed for public appeal. It is : in the care of a newly-formed partment of Social Developm Former editor, Mr. Gordon Rus has resigned owing to the els of his other duties, and this spa time, honorary job has been tas over by Mr. W. H. Percival.