Tropicalities

Pacific Islands Monthly

Magazine Section

Well, there’s still corn in Egypt. Or money in the Aus tralian Treasury, anyway. June 15 was a great day for the Higher Brass in the Papua- New Guinea Public Service salary increases all round to the tune of £5OO or £6OO per year were announced. What’s more, they were retrospective to December 3, 1959. Every one will be collecting from £250 to £3OO back pay.

Enough to buy the baby a couple of dresses. r[ESE were some of the in creases : The Assistant Administrator’s salary is increased from £3,125 to £3,725. Director of Public Health, from £3,050 to £3,625. Then down the scale a notch, in “A” Group, heads of Treasury, Native Affairs, Education, Agriculture and Law have a salary rise of £585 to £3,585.

Directors of Lands and Works are upped £535 to £3,385; while the lower orders in group “C”— chiefs of Civil Affairs, Forests, Posts and Tele graphs and Customs—benefit to the

tune of another £525 to their salaries to £3,225 per annum.

The new Collector of Taxes eats the profits to the tune of £3,100 per annum which is £5OO more than he expected when he started, The two “Statutory Appointees”— I* l3 '! is the Public Service Com missioner and the Commissioner of Titles—have salary increases of £625 and £6OO respectively—to £4,125 and £3,700, also respectively. they are “different” in that they don t get the additional £4OO B/IlCl £450 per B.nmiin thS-t IS

Uving

m the Wllds of the Territory, All th e others do get this allow ance—as well as housing con cessions, three months leave every 21 months and long leave of about three times that every half dozen years.

Life in the Territory can be tough—but there are some corn pensations.

How to be a MIC Qualifications required to be a MLC (or MLA in some territories) apparently do vary.

It is a curious fact, and probably a demonstration of the differing social setups in these territories, that six of the seven elected repre sentatives in Tonga are lawyers, five out of six in Fiji are lawyers, while in the Cooks the elected members are business men, and in Western Samoa only men of title rate.

In New Guinea there’s been no set pattern, although there was one lawyer in the last Council, and there will be one in the next—Mr.

C. P. W. Kirke, who is standing unopposed for the Papua Electorate.

Bush Beer News A straight-faced extract from a recent Cook Islands official news sheet, concerning Mangaia Island: “Native oranges are ripening well but because of blemishes will not be shipped (to New Zealand). They have many uses for home consump tion, though.”

My word they have—as the chief judge of the High Court there has noted of late! —J.

Peace Declared in Apia

The birds were singing along the Apia waterfront in July, when that famous South Seas hostess Aggie Grey declared peace with PIM roundsman Jim Shortall.

It happened this way. About six years ago, the PIM man interviewed a very irate American who alighted from an aircraft in Fiji after visit ing Tahiti and way-points.

The American had strong feel ings about all hotels south of Honolulu. He demanded his private bath and oceans of hot water and all the other super-duper luxuries that go with the nickel-plated, streamlined king-sized-tariff hotels in that neck of the woods. What he said, toned down several notches, was recorded in PIM.

Aggie duly read it, and admits she blew her top. Her coconut radio went on the air and the writer was smartly traced.

Next time he showed up in Apia, he knew all about it—and the next time after that, too. Aggie’s Hotel

ACCORDING TO FRED. One of the exhibits at the recent Goroka Agricultural Show (New Guinea) was this effort by the local radio amateurs. Natives, who couldn't have known what it was all about, stood six deep round the hut on both days of the Show listening to the strange noises and the disembodied voices being pulled out of the air by local “hams". It was by way of Being a Pan-Pacific effort, too, as that frail looking contraption on the left (it was made of pieces of bamboo), was an aerial built from specifications supplied by VR2CC (Fred), Raki Raki, Fiji. Come in VR2CC (Fred), and take a bow!

was quite definitely full as far as he was concerned.

Well, the sentence has been served; peace was declared in July, there was a nice room waiting along the road to the Tokelaus, and the famous Aggie Grey even looped her arm round the PIM man’s waist for a photo.

We now report: The Coral Route hotels are OK! , ,

Wicked Magic in Hotel-

Room Numberina Koom iNumoermg ISAT in my room in the Club Hotel, opposite the Fiji Times office, and stared dismally at my typewriter. It had been a frustrating day—nothing had gone right, and—because I had “stuck my nose into the sugar dispute”—a loyal follower of Mr. Patel had publicly cursed my name.

There was a hesitant knocking at the door. More ear-bashing, I supposed. I strode over and threw the door open.

Outside, a wide-eyed Indian artisan stared at me, alarmed. He had just removed the figure “8” from the door, and was replacing it with the numeral “13”.

I closed the door and left him to it. Life’s like that. I felt I had earned the “13”. * * * There was a party that night in the hotel’s new Starlight Room. It was a really bright party, and a gentleman staying in the hotel en j°yed very much - Quite late> he took hig fuddled way to bed. He was about to enter No. 6 when he observed that the number was “11”.

“Must be tight,” he murmured, “Could ’a’ sworn my room was right here”.

He ambled along a corridor, located No. 6, and went in. A some what scraggy American tourist, oldish, but still prepared to believe the worst of men, screeched shrilly, and reached frantically for a gown, The gent fell out backwards and

hurried away, mouthing apologies.

“Gripes, I am tight,” he assured his agitated shadow.

Eventually, thoroughly bemused, he was rescued by one of the hotel staff, and led gently back to No. 11.

Neither he nor I had been told that, with the addition that day of five new bedrooms to the hotel’s accommodation, all rooms had been re-numbered, and five had been added to whatever we thought we had.—RWR You Don't Have to Seek

the Pacific

F’S not the nightingale that’s singing in Berkeley Square these days (or nights). It’s the soft sound of the surf and Hawaiian music that you get.

Well, according to an advertise ment in the London Daily Mirror, anyway.

According to the ad. boys, June 25 was the date for the opening of the Beachcomber—Europe’s First Poly nesian Restaurant—at the May Fair Hotel, Berkeley Square. As well as the Hawaiian music and sound of the surf you can have “fabulous South Sea Island cuisine and Pacific-style drinks” (bush beer and fermented coconut toddy?). For stick-in-the-muds, Chinese and European food is served as well.

A reader in Devon, who sent us the clipping (it’s got a funny little figure at the top of it, like a cross between a tiki and a frog) re marks: “Well, with the May Fair Hotel, anything is possible—they once actually got a nightingale to sing in the Square”.

Seems to us that the owners of the restaurant have got their ideas from seeing too many Hollywood movies and that it would be a bit lush for real beachcombers like our mob down here.

Samoan Custom Boosts

Airline Business

SAMOA’S two small competing airlines might find that their best friend in the drive for busi ness is Samoan Custom..

On occasions lately, aircraft have been fully booked by parties of Samoans on social visits to the neighbouring territory, complete with whole roasted pigs, platters of taro, breadfruit, yams, and Samoan food delicacies.

The excess “baggage” has often cost as much as the fares.

Then, in the good old Islands way, custom requires that the visited parties—complete with whole roasted pigs, platters of taro, breadfruit, yams, and Samoan food delicacies — must repay the visit a week or so later.

An airline official at Faleolo, glancing at the face of roasted pig in Julv as it was carried past him towards the aircraft, said to a PIM correspondent: “That looks like the same bloke that came in last Tues day!” Could be, too.