French Argentinian of Santo

MIGUEL J. LEROY, dynamic planter and trader of Santo in the New Hebrides, was born in Normandy in 1903. His formal education ended at the University of Caen in 1922. He spent 1924-25 dealing in tobacco, coffee and cacao at Santiago in the Dominican Republic, and then set up in busi ness at Buenos Aires.

Ten years later he returned to France for a short visit before setting out on a voyage to the Pacific, railing at Tahiti, Port Vila, Santo, Pentecost and Lamap on Malekula. He married there in September, 1938, and returned to France with his wife, Mimi.

On the first day of the war in 1939 Miguel was mobilised into a Pioneer battalion, and after the disastrous retreat of 1940 was demobilised in July that year. He decided to return to the New Hebrides, with his wife, but owing to the events in the Pacific they were able to get only as far as South America.

They settled at Buenos Aires, where Miguel became a naturalised Argentine citizen in 1948.

The following year they were able to con tinue that delayed voyage to the New Hebrides, where they settled on Pentecost for two years before taking over Surunda Plantation on Santo.

Here they were next-door neighbours to Alfred Laborde, whose plantation at Turtle Bay became famous in the play "South Pacific".

In the Hebrides, Miguel is a "resortissant Francais", but most of his commercial interests are registered as a British company, including some small vessels used for recruiting and trading around the islands.

Miguel Leroy was a keen supporter of the Santo Aero Club, which has now dwindled into a small syndicate; and he has also supported the Japanese fishing and canning establishment cn Santo, which promises, together with mining developments, to start a new era of commercial progress in the northern part of the New

Hebrides.-

Brett Hilder.

Because there is no longer any space available in the Methodist sections of Suva cemeteries all future burials of those of the Methodist faith will be at Nasinu General Cemetery.