Yesterday

The US Naval base at Pago Pago:

was expanding, Mr. E. G. Theodore

had injected enthusiasm into the Solo

mons with a gold mining venture,

Robinson and Ballantyne taxis closed

down in Suva because of competition

from Indian cabs, the Fiji Govern*

ment ship “Viti” was given naval

status, and APC was 2,000 ft. down in its first deep Papuan test oil well All of this was reported in “PIM* in July, 1941.

Here are some other extracts from that issue of 20 years ago this month: By a decision of the NZ Supreme Court; Mrs. Takau Rio Love, elder daughter oi the late Makea Nui Tinirau, was finallt awarded the title of Ariki Nui of the Cook Islands. The case had been in thf courts of both Rarotonga and Aucklanl for more than two years, and appeals were made by both Mr. W. P. Brownl and his wife, Tuvaine Rangatira, against the judge’s original decision to grant th| title to Mrs. Love. * * Clouds of pumice dust rising from Matupi volcano in Rabaul were making local conditions “most intolerable”, rei ported a correspondent. Cars wea ploughing through it in the streets, it was in the water, the food and everybodyf lungs, and some locals were saying it wai so bad that Rabaul might have to b« evacuated if it continued. * * * New Guinea finally got itself a Copra Control Board, and correspondents every! where reported that the whole South Seafi copra situation had improved consider ably since the elaborate central plan been made six months earlier for poolinl South Seas copra. * * * One of Papua’s best known and most popular residents, Fred (Brassey) Eveneffl was killed accidentally on Goodenougl Island in a premature explosion ok dynamite. * * jf Suva was shortly to be a regular cal on the trans-Pacific air service operate! by Pan American clippers. Britain an!

NZ had agreed to share with Fiji th(j cost of establishing a seadrome, witj facilities, at Laucala Bay, although thu clippers would call as soon as temporary moorings were put down. * * New Guinea was shocked by the murder in Wau of a beautiful 28-year-old Ause tralian girl, Miss Jean Wilson, who wait hacked to death with an axe by somebody who entered her bedroom. A native wi blamed for the crime. * * * A Papeete correspondent, in answering some criticism of tourist possibilities ir Tahiti, commented that it was “an unjr pleasant truth that American tourism t(J Tahiti in the past 20 years has heap navigated on the sea of alcohol anGj chartered to a course of unbridled licensffi It began with Prohibition, and with pub-c lication of books representing the as a Utopia of unrestraint.” * * * From Apia came complaints of furthers instances of offensive behaviour on thu part of young German-Samoans. Fronrn Vila, came reports that Free Frenchmer from the Condominium were among those? who had volunteered for de Gaulle anb: joined the battalion of French Pacifist volunteers organised in Noumea.