High Commissioner

Popular Appointment

Mr. David Trench High Commissioner For Western PacifiC

Mr. David Trench, Deputy

Colonial Secretary, Hongkong

will be Britain’s next High Commissioner for the Westerr

Pacific.

HE succeeds Sir John Gutch, wl retires early in the new yea He is expected to take up h appointment soon after Sir Johr departure.

The official announcement ma< by the Queen in August, said thi Mr. Trench would be appointed be a Companion of the Distinguish* Order of St. Michael and St. Joh Mr. Trench has had long exper ence in the British Solomons ar his choice as High Commission will be welcomed as a happy one. I went to the Protectorate as a cad in 1938. He saw military servi from 1942-1946, and attained tl rank of Lt.-Colonel.

Human Touch

He is a man with the hums touch and a sense of humour th shows in the twinkle in his e and a laugh that is never far aw£ The Western Pacific was a tes ing ground for a lot of young a ministrative officers during the wj Following his pre-war Solomo experience he had been posted Tonga as Secretary to the Gover ment.

But after the recapture Guadalcanal, he was sent back the BSIP as District Officer 1 Guadalcanal and given the job “pulling the district back into shapi The way in which he did it described in Harold Coope Among Those Present in th« terms: “He reopened the Dis t r i Treasury, although for mar months it consisted merely of t; safes standing on a trestle in t open air. As the end of the figf ing on Guadalcanal drew near a coastwise schooner journeys cor against be undertaken for otll than military purposes, he beg to visit distant areas to see hi the natives were faring.

“He was agreeably surprised the manner in which they had sto up to the strain of war. Nowlu was there any sign of a collapse i morale. During a period when Gt ernment control had inevitably b(» relaxed, no inter-tribal feuds tJ developed and there had been serious crime.

(Continued on page 147)

“Local chiefs, although deprived of the official support and guidance on which they formerly relied, had everywhere succeeded in preventing disorder. ,

Dealt With Shortages

“One of Trench’s chief headaches was the shortage of food in areas formerly occupied by the enemy.

The Japanese landed on Guadal canal with orders to live on the country and wherever they went they engaged in wholesale looting of gardens. , ..

“Trench set out to get the gardens back into production as Quickly as possible, but m the meantime part-rations (readily pro vided by the Americans on a lease lend basis) had to be issued in one corner of the island where stocks of food were particularly low. The rations were doled out by police patrols which released them only to families able to produce evidence that they had begun replantmg their gardens. - “Perhaps the gravest result of the Japanese invasion was the virtual cessation, over large areas, of that routine medical work which is of such immense importance in tropical territories. . .. .

“The Mission doctors and their staffs had done what they could to keep the work going, and had achieved prodigies, but they could scarcely have been expected to set up their trestles and offer injec

tions in villages adjoining Japanese encampments.

“A pre-war campaign which had promised to bring the Protectorate’s Public Health Enemy No. 1 — yaws—under final control had been interrupted and there had been a fresh outbreak of that disfiguring and debilitating disease. Trench assembled all the natives he could find who had had some experience as dressers or hospital wardsmen and sent them out as a sort of ‘shock’ battalion, with such drugs as were available “His duties as a District Officer having been forcibly increased by the demands of war. Trench sought

to divest himself of lesser respon sibilities. Many of his judicial powers he delegated to headmen, who were given authority to hear certain classes of criminal and civil cases on condition that the parties concerned were willing to submit to their jurisdiction, n, nn . ( Ma PPY Experiment “This experiment produced ex tremely satisfying results, as Trench was confident it would, in view of the excellent record of the headmen when left to their own resources during the occupation, “The simplest of Trench’s ‘war

duties’ was the arranging of lectun on native customs, and the pn paration of pamphlets on natn languages, for the enlightenment < American troops; the most interest ing was the selection, from tl bridges of American warships, 3 bombardment targets along tl enemy-occupied coast; and the mo hazardous was the operation, wil the help of Kennedy and othi officers stationed in the westei islands, of a rescue service fi crashed American airmen.”

In 1950. Trench was transfern to Hongkong, and his reputatk as a practical, down to earth ar human administrator continui there.

He will find it a change to j from the free-spending atmosphe of wealthy Hongkong to tl Treasury-controlled Western Pacii High Commission, but he can r member when things were mui worse, and all concerned can 1 sure that whatever he does will 1 firmly grounded in practic common sense and good humour.