Remember ?

Do You Remember ?

In the South Pacific 20 years ago,

they were building up defence in

stallations in New Caledonia, Port

Moresby and Fiji; Japanese fishing

vessels seemed to be poking their noses into everything (and there was a new move for a regular new

Japanese shipping service between

Japan. Tonga and Fiji); and in

New Guinea they were arguing the

merits of Pidgin versus Engish—

as they still are. Here are some ex

tracts from “PIM” of August, 1939:

At Alexishafen, New Guinea, three Ger man mission priests, a pilot and a native were killed when their Fokker crashed while taking off. One of those killed was Father Joseph Kirschbaum, an anthro pologist, explorer, author, one of the best known men in New Guinea. * * * Tonga was having internal troubles, with “marked tension in official and political atmospheres” according to a Nukualofa correspondent. This followed the “Treasury fiasco”, when it was found that a young Government clerk has been systematically filching funds for years. A Court judge ment on the matter had been critical of some people in high places, and ex plosions were expected. * * * Near Malaita, in the Solomons, the Government vessel “Tulagi” captured a Japanese sampan with the aid of machine gun and had its captain fined for shell poaching. In another case near Vanikoro, a Japanese poaching vessel rammed the schooner of a trader which attempted to stop it, and made off followed by bullets from the trader’s pistol. It was a sign of the times. * ❖ * At Aitutaki lagoon in the Cook Islands, the natives assembled to watch the first plane they had ever seen take off—a Walrus amphibian from the cruiser “Achilles” in which the Governor-General of NZ, Lord Galway, was making an Island tour. They saw the aircraft come to grief at the end of its flight, and sink in deep water. * * * In New Guinea, J. L. Taylor’s Hagen- Sepik patrol was back in Rabaul, after examining, among other things, a con tinuation of the central New Guinea plateau discos ered in 1933 by Taylor and the Leahy brothers. Taylor said that when consolidation of the Highlands was com pleted and a road was put in from the coast this healthy area would absorb many European settlers, “who could make a second Kenya in Central New Guinea, and at the same time help the natives to a higher state of civilisation. The High lands’ people, he said, were of a “superior native culture” and had a real admira tion for the white man. * * * From Western Samoa came a report of the death in July of High Chief Malietoa Tanumafili, QBE, Fatua to the Adminis tration for 26 years and a former member of the Legislative Council.