More Power for Cook Is.

r[E Cook Islands Legislative Council held its eleventh and last annual session at Rarotonga during October.

Just prior to the session, legisla tion was introduced in Wellington tvhereby the Council will be re placed by a more representative Legislative Assembly with a majority of elected members and i good deal of financial re sponsibility in local affairs.

The administrative changes are in ine with recommendations made Dy Professor C. C. Aikman last year, allowing a visit to the Group at ;he request of the government to nvestigate and make recommenda ;ions regarding constitutional re orms.

Under the new arrangement there yill be an Executive Committee of ilected and official members to idvise the Resident Commissioner.

Island Councils will be given greater authority in the handling ►f local affairs. These will have he power to establish Village Committees with limited police and

udicial authority.

Maori Justices of the Peace will

be appointed and will have power to deal with certain offenders who are at present dealt with by the Resident Agent of the respective islands.

Another Mission Forecast

YET another “Mission to investi gate” Cook Islands affairs is forecast as the result of a de bate in the House of Representa tives at Wellington early in Oc tober.

Following charges by a Labour MP (Mr. Fox, Miramar Electorate) that industrial working . conditions in the Cooks required “thorough investigation”, the acting Minister of Island Territories, Mr. Algie, in dicated that the Government would consider any proposal to send such an investigating mission.

Mr. Fox, vice-president of the Federation of Labour, had evidently just discovered that “goods being produced with cheap labour are being exported to Auckland”.

He apparently did not know or did not mention, that the Islanders employed in these industries are in

some cases receiving wages well above those of other sections of the Cook Islands community.

He was quoted as saying that the Cook Islanders, “a very stable type ... are not looking for the moon, but want conditions a bit better than now”. (Over)

He noted that the NZ Factories Act and the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, as well as worker’s compensation, do not apply in the Cook Islands. The workers were given some protec tion under legislation passed in 1947, but it is high time, Mr. Fox considers, that they are fully pro tected, as their position relative to New Zealand workers had not been maintained.

The present excitement ap parently stems from a visit by a Garment Workers’ Union executive about a year ago.

Allowing that it is insufficient that the workers in these industries are perfectly happy at present, and in fact compete for entry into these particular industries as workers, whatever needs to be known about the situation is readily available from the Cook Islands Adminis tration, from the employees, and from the factory owners—without the necessity of wasting public funds on another Mission which seems bent on killing what little industrial enterprise does exist in the Cooks. if Mr. R. P. Little has retired, after 37 years’ service with the pastoral enterprises of Messrs. Morris Hed strom Ltd., in Fiji, and has gone with his family to live at Dandenong, near Melbourne. The late Sir Maynard Hedstrom took a keen in

terest in the establishment and de velopment of the pastoral industry in Fiji, and he was fortunate in get ting the help of Mr. Little, who had just come out of World War I with decorations and distinctions.

Mr. Little was successively manager of the Valavala, Vunilagi and Kanacea Estates; gave further useful

service in World War II; and in recent years has been manager of the Fiji Pastoral Company atNavua.

He contributed much to the success cf cattle-farming and dairying in Fiji. t Natives twice attacked patrols in the NG Southern Highlands in Oc tober. Three natives were killed.