Do You Remember?

From PIM of 20 Years ago

TUST like now, VlP’s were in ti dined to make mid-winter tours of the tropics in 1937—but these events were still something of a

novelty and decently spaced. Time

was, of course, when any visitor of

even minor tonnage was given royal

treatment in the Islands. To-day, alas, visiting firemen are as numerous as residents, and you have to be WIP to get any attention.

No statistician as yet has given an estimate of what official visitors col lectively represent in wasted man hours, but it must be considerable. 1937’s most important visitors to P-NG were the then Governor-

General of Australia and his Lady—

Lord and Lady Gowrie.

Here are some other items from our issue of just 20 years ago:

This Item Appeared In Tropicalities

IN THAT ISSUE: "From a Tongan correspondent: During recent years there have been among the Chief Justices of Tonga an ex-sailor and ex-schoolteacher. How about a sound ex lawyer, one day?" * ❖ * Enterprise of New Guinea Gold and Petroleum Development Co. shares fell with a crash on Australian stock exchanges when a permit to prospect for oil was turned down. (Enterprise actually did not get its permit for almost 20 years). The £5 shares (paid up to £2) had been £lO before the rejection—and after it, £l.

Shares to-day are one or two shillings—but a lot of water has rolled under the company's bridge since 1937. * * * There were indications that there were more Mau troubles ahead in Western Samoa. Our Apia correspondent said that a small coterie led by Mr. 0. F. Nelson was agitating against the NZ Labour Government. (Mr. Nelson had been twice banished from Samoa by the con servative NZ governments that had preceded Labour's accession to power in the 1935

elections. With the election safely won, one of Labour's first moves was to give Mr. Nelson permission to return to Samoa. This marked the beginning of the end of the Mau troubles —in spite of what our correspondent had to say in August, 1937). * * * "HMS Achilles" called at Christmas Island to drop another radio officer there to maintain Britain's claim to the big atoll. Then as to day, ownership of Christmas was disputed by America—and Britain maintained a radio officer for some years to keep in daily touch with Suva. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Americans had landed in force and one radio officer had tried to repel the invasion. * * * Tahiti (latitude 17£ degrees S) had a patient in the local hospital with frost-bite. He had looked on the orange-beer when it was what ever colour orange-beer is, then stumbled into the refrigeration chamber on a local ship.

Someone had closed the door; result frost bite. ❖ ❖ s*c i , ; A patrol investigating native trade routes from Central Papua to Western Papua, and led by Mr. Claude Champion, had reached Lake Kutubu. ❖ ❖ ❖ Hats, said our fashion expert, were "quaint and amusing and worn at all angles . . . thrust forward, pushed backward or stuck on the side of the head . . . and banked with flowers". (This seems to be one department where 20 years has not made much difference). ❖ ❖ ❖ The death had occurred in Sydney of one of the almost legendary figures in Papua and New Guinea gold prospecting—Mr. Frank Pryke, veteran of numerous gold-rushes from Western Australia to Morobe. He went to Papua in 1896 when Samara! was still called Dinner Island. In the mid-20's he and his partner Les Joubert, did very well with leases on the Merri and Koranga. Pryke was 66 when he died.