People

rd Cobham, Governor-General ew Zealand, and Lady Cobham. pay an official visit to Western ca on board the NZ cruiser list on August 8 to 10. They will go to the Tokelau Group, 270 > north of Apia, and spend three there. ♦ * ♦ ■ Alan Burns, who will preside the Burns Commission of In r in Fiji, will arrive in Sydney me by the Oronsay, on his way iji, with Lady Burns. The two • members of the Commission, T. Y. Watson and Professor '. Peacock will reach Suva by 1, in time for the formal open >f the Commission in the Legis b Council on July 3.

. Alexander R. Bruce, OBE, :lpal United Kingdom Trade missioner in Australia, returned ydney from Papua and New ea centres on June 1, after ng a personal investigation of jrospects for increasing British ; with the Territory.

[?]tment of Dr. Jacques Barrau as Director [?] Economic Development Section of the [?] Pacific Commission, announced in May, [?] seven years of service to the SPC for [?]rrau. He has been best known for his introduction work in the Pacific. Dr. is a New Caledonian. He has a degree [?]icultural Engineering from the Toulouse [?]sity, and is also a Doctor of Natural Sciences.

Dr. Lindsay Verrier, of the Fiji Medical Department, will shortly go overseas on leave, during which he will attend an International Tuber culosis Conference in Turkey in mid-September. An Englishman with a passion for medical statistics, he has been engaged for many years in the compilation of a health index of the Fijians. While he is away, Suva residents will particularly miss the familiar sight of the erudite doctor put-putting around the city streets on his little motor scooter. * * * Mr. and Mrs. Bill Matthew, late of Kinjibi coffee plantation, in the Western Highlands, P-NG, sailed from Adelaide, SA, on the Oceanic in mid-May on an extended tour of Europe. They disembarked at Genoa on June 12, and in their own car which was aboard the ship with them, they set off to travel north through Europe to Scotland.

Mr. Herbert E. Faddy, one time of New Guinea and now on the staff of the Tailevu Hotel, Fiji, collected the first prize in an Australian lottery in May, making him £15,000 richer. * * * Dr. E. Wright, of the P-NG De partment of Health, has a formid able task ahead of him—as the medical officer in charge of the Ad ministration’s training scheme, he has this year started nine native students on the long road to becom ing the Territory’s first locally trained medical practitioners. Five are boys and four girls, and they all are doing their initial training in Pt. Moresby. Eventually a large medical centre will be set up at Taurama to accommodate, at first, 300 students, then later 600. The P-NG Administration will not send students to the Central Medical School, Suva, Fiji, in future.

This fine character study by an official KVR photographer in Netherlands New Guinea, is of Father P. Drabbe, one of NNG's outstanding linguists.

Ir. L. F. Handley, who was mty Shire Clerk at Guyra, NSW, <■ up duties as Lautoka Town rk, Fiji, early this month. * * * astor Lester Hawkes, of the \ Mission, has returned to Aus ia after three years on Pitcairn nd, with Mrs. Hawkes, to send r three children (Lyndon, 12; meth, 8; and Robyn, 3) to )ol in Sydney. The Hawkes have it all their 14 years of married in medical mission work in the [fie Islands, their previous ion being in the Eastern High l District of Papua-New Guinea.

Robert Narruhn arrived in Francisco from Fiji on June 7 the Orsova to meet his brother, erick—they had not seen each r for 58 years, since Fred uhn left the Caroline Islands. )01, and finally settled in USA. jrt Narruhn is on long leave . Burns Philp (SS) Co. Ltd., in >e employ he has been for »st 40 years. In the Carolines, fas under three flags: Spanish il 1899), (German (till 1918), Japanese. He moved south vards into the Gilberts when Japanese made it plain that their nationals could remain le Carolines, and for years he aged BP’s store on Makin id. The Japs over-ran Makin rorld War 11, but Mr. Narruhn ved precariously: at war’s end, rent to Fiji to recuperate and lived there ever since. * * ♦ '. Fred Pritchard, who has [led TEAL airline business at , Western Samoa, since the in-

happy smile belongs to Miss Annie Enosa [?]otonga, who passed through Suva in May [?]e way to seek a job in New Zealand— [?]ected with an agricultural school", she hoped.

Islands in April-May.

Mr. Hynd was engaged through the South Pacific Commission tt study and report on propagation: problems associated with the MOK industry in the Cooks. He wem north to Manihiki with the Coot Islands fishery officer, Mr. Ronald Powell, where it was planned to colt lect the spat of oysters for transs planting to new areas of the Cook: Islands lagoons. * * * Satisfying the demands of oven seas radio “hams”, Mr. Wyn. McGee; formerly with Nadi Aeradio in Fiji and latterly of New Zealand, madd a quick loop round the Fiji-Tonga* Niue-Samoa circuit in May, travel! ling by TEAL, Fiji Airways, ana Matua, at the expense of Americau and New Zealand radio amateun and with the intention of supplying them with radio contacts—and com firmation cards—from these hard* to-get territories.

The Americans sent special portd able radio equipment down to for him to pick up there. Only s few hours was available ashore a each place for setting up the equip* ment and making contact with thu maximum number of overseas* stations.

Mr. H. J. Smythe took up am appointment as New Zealand Civlr Aviation Administration Works Officer at Faleolo Airport, Westerm Samoa, early in May. Mr. Smythe is known in the Cooks, where he was engineer in Mr. D. C. Brown’s two-masted schooner Tahitienm\ some years ago. He left there to> join the RNZAF. * * * Mr. H, Ellis, a diesel engineer fon Cable and Wireless Ltd., went to Fanning Island, Central Pacific, in May, by the USS Co.’s transit Pacific vessel Waihemo. Three large!, diesel motors, transhipped from UK, ■ to provide more electric power at the Fanning cable station werev landed, and Mr. Ellis will install them in the three or four monthse period before the next north -boundo ship calls to pick him up for en route to another cable station job in Cape Verde Islands, in the Atlantic.

Married in the Lutheran Church, Lae, NG, i[?] May, Mr. and Mrs. Don Cresswell. Mr. Cress well is with Qantas—his pretty bride was Hele[?] Waters.

Db Niederholzer and his attrac wife Nancy have returned e to Berkeley, California, after Bar at Rarotonga. Mr. Nieder er did research for his doctor’s ee in education and his wife ht at St. Joseph’s Catholic ion School. Mr. Niederholzer : the University of California anxious to get back to the :s one day.

iix M. Keesing, former US )r Commissioner of the South ic Commission, is now lectur on “Administration of Pacific tories” at Stanford University, e he is executive head of the rtment of Anthropology, Dr. ing, a native New Zealander, grandson of a Fiji mission er, is now regarded as one of principal American experts on Pacific world.

nember of the Malayan office e Colonial Development Cor ition, Mr. G. I. Firmston ims, was in the BSIP in May >sing possibility of development cts in which the CDC can

[?]ing from a business visit to Western [?]—where he found the market possibilities [?]able —Mr. G. H. Barton, manager of [?]tional Paints of NZ, Ltd., left, was met [?]a by Mr. Peter Derbyshire, manager of Hutchinsons (Fiji), Ltd.

[?]ble in Suva at present are these two members of the 50-man Nauru Police Under a scheme commenced last year, [?]en will take special training each year [?]e Fiji Police. First Class Constable Derog left, and Constable John D. Olsson, the pair to come, had to travel in the phos [?]ship “Golden Master" to Napier, NZ, [?]y bus to Auckland, by TEAL to Nadi, [?]ally by bus to Suva —where they arrived [?]ary. The route home —in July—is likely to be equally round-about.

Mr. R. Burrows-Wilkes, former Collector of Customs in Nyasaland, has taken an appointment as Col lector of Customs in the BSIP, and has arrived at Honiara .

Dr. William Matheson, well known to many old-timers in the Pacific, has been on a visit to his brother, Dr. Farquhar Matheson, and his family at their home in Utulei, Vavau, Tonga. Mr. Matheson was in Samoa around Word War I period, when he acted as British Government Receiver of German properties.

Mr. R. A. Derrick, curator of the Fiji Museum, paid a visit to the Bishop Museum, Honolulu, and the Peabody Museum at Salem, Mass., USA, in May-June. Both of these museums have a great deal of material associated with Fiji which Mr. Derrick was interested in studying. He was also to pay brief visits to museums at Chicago, New York, and Washington, DC. 4 s Mr. J. L. Chalmers, a high executive in Fiji of Colonial Sugar Refining Co. Ltd., will be transferred soon from Fiji to the company’s Technology Division in Sydney. Mr.

Chalmers has spent many years in Fiji, and for the past two years he has been in charge of the large operation under which the CSR Co., following its decision to close the Nausori sugar mill, is seeking to in troduce a new economy to the Rewa Valley and Delta.

A large community of Indians has been growing cane in this area for several decades; and at present the Company and the Government, in co-operation, are trying to induce the farmers to change from sugar to the growing of rice, and other subsistence crops. Mr. Chalmers is connected by marriage with the Ragg family of Fiji—he married a daughter of Sir Hugh Ragg.

With Mrs. Irene Byron (centre), business secre tary of the Polynesian Association, in Sydney recently were these two charming young New Zealand visitors—Miss Yvonne Douglass and Miss Mary Carmond, both of Auckland. —Tele-Photo.

A son was born to Mr. and Mrs )on Reid in the Chatham Islands arly m April. Mr. Reid, well known n New Zealand’s Island Territories ecently took up an appointment as le si dent Commissioner of the Jhathams.

Messrs. C. and L. Baker, two New alanders, recently visited Raro- Q ga to investigate the possibility setting up fruit processing in istry.

[r - Frank Reeves, general man v of Tasman Empire Airways •, and Mr. G. N. Roberts, TEAL ctor, were in Tahiti early in 1 on a business visit. * * ♦ rs. Mary Croudace, of Western ioa, who had been residing in 1 York for some time, returned in May, and took over lagership of the Casino Hotel

ned by the Administration!.

[?]s. M. M. Enright left Sydney for Sohano, [?]ugamville, where she will stay with her [?]ghter, Mrs. A. Green, for about six months, was Mrs. Enright's first trip to the Islands.

[?]erlands New Guinea Government Secretary. [?]A. Loosjes, who attended the Fourth South [?]ic Conference in Rabaul in May, is at [?]nt spending three months leave in Aus [?]a. The Assistant Government Secretary, J. A. Welleman, is acting in his place in Hollandia.