Tahiti Will Soon

Pacific Air Services

Be Better Off

• Papeete, Tahiti, which has been out on a limb as far as air ser vices are concerned, will begin to get the full benefit of the air age after the end of this year.

FFiji, in May, Mr. Jacques Sutton, representative for TAI in French Polynesia and Fiji, was confidently forecasting that at the end of this year, TAI would be extending its present service beyond Bora Bora to Honolulu and San Francisco—although talks on re ciprocal landing rights to cover this area will not take place till August. (See page 61, this issue.) When this extension is in opera tion it will be possible to fly by TAI all the way from Paris to San Francisco via Middle East and Asia, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tahiti and Hawaii—with a side trip to Auck land, NZ, if you want it.

Papeete Airport

Mr. Sutton said that preliminary work had started on the new inter national airport at Papeete and that when the contractors (Societe de Travaux Publics) got into full operation, they would be working 24 hours round the clock, seven days a week. It was expected that a 6,000 ft runway capable of taking Super Constellations and DC7c’s would be ready by June, 1960, and that by early 1961, it would be ex tended 4,000 ft further, to take jets.

TAI recently transferred its head quarters from Nadi, Fiji, to Papeete.

Pan American Airways are TAI representatives in Fiji; Mr. Sutton visits the Colony from Papeete about once every two months.

could still be a new Australian State.

Mr. Downs offers these sugges tions for reconstituting the Legis lative Council: • Creation of three electorates on the NG Mainland — Morobe, Madang-Sepik, the Highlands—one European and one New Guinean member to be elected from each. • Creation of three electorates in Papua—Central, Western and Eastern —each with one European and one Papuan. • Creation of two electorates em bracing New Britain and the Islands, each with dual representa tion, but plus one Asiatic member.

Mr. Jones' Views

New Britain solicitor Mr. Dudley Jones, who is elected member for the New Guinea Islands in the Legislative Council, sees the im mediate need in New Guinea as more than a reconstitution of the Council.

But as far as recomposition goes he would consider as probably still sound the recommendations made by the Select Committee of 1954 (nine elected members, an official majority of one, eight nominated members and any number of native observers who would take part in debates).

“We must face up to the fact that for the present the Govern ment is entitled to have a majority in the Council,” says Mr. Jones.

“The grave defect in the present system is that non-officials have no voice whatever in policy framing, either political or financial.

“This is where the reforms should come in, as it does not matter very much whether there is a majority of one or more in the Council.”

These are the desired consti tutional reforms needed in NG, as Mr. Jones sees them: • At least one non-official, probably more, on the Executive Council. • A Standing Committee on finance, consisting of, say, three official and two non-official mem bers. • A standing policy by the Gov ernment that on major legislation it will call a conference of in terested persons to discuss the pro jected legislation (which was quite successfully done in the case of the Native Labour Ordinance). • Representation in the Aus tralian House of Representatives.

On this last suggestion. Mr. Jones says that up until the last few months he has been luke-warm on this proposal. But he has since come to realise what a “tremendous help” NG people could have had in fighting the tax measure had there been a capable man at Can berra to present NG views.

Whether the member possessed a vote or not would not be import ant, his main job would be that of lobbying.