The Editors' Maillag

ance of South

Geography

etter this month points out, surprise”, an announcement in nagazine by the distributors of ish firm, setting out a list of gents. Samoa is referred to as i Samoa” and New Guinea is ed as “British New Guinea”, n Samoa, of course, is now an ident country and while New i, in an academic sense, might cribed as under British rule, iarkedly and fundamentally an lian and United Nations re ality, ever, unlike the letter writer, not “surprised” at inaccurate tions of Islands territories by who should know better. It’s perience that more territories ongly described in print than ise. The most common error listake one island for an entire Thus we have travellers return on “the beautiful coral island nga”, wherever that is, and had a honeymoon “on the of Fiji”. And we are always ! about somebody who has just 0 Rabaul, “on the island of Britain, which is near New e is a remarkably widespread ice in both Australia and New 1 on South Pacific geography, r as we know, the schools yet doing anything about it, e future generation will prob e as ignorant as the present

ier Empire

sr Laments

ough Sydneysider's article in PIM (Lament of an Empire ) seems to have got tangled h an argument about duty-free in the Nadi Airport shop PIM, p. 23) one Fiji citizen, t, speaks up in support of the of it—that it still should be ant to be British.

E. Jean Canard, of Lautoka, le has read PIM for 20 years s is the first time she has ever a letter to the editors. She silence to say that she heartily js the article and goes on: le is a pioneer family of these ul islands;, and I’m a fifth ion member of it, still proud British Passport.

“It would be most interesting to know, if as Sydneysider says, the British are now third grade citizens who are the first and second grade citizens?”

Grade maybe is the wrong word; but the idea seems to have got about that the Russians and the Americans are the most important, which is all very well if you are Russian or American.

Who Has Any Early

Information About NG Gold?

Does any reader have any con temporary material or photographs on the prospecting phase of New Guinea’s Bulolo goldfields before the Bulolo Gold Dredging Company was formed? If so, Mr. A. M. Healy, a Research Fellow in Pacific History at the Australian National University, Canberra, would like to have a look at it. He wants to use it as a lead-in to an objective academical study he is working on of the history of the Bulolo Gold Dredging Company.

Mr. Healy, who reports that he has the “full and generous co-opera tion of the company” in his project, will be visiting the Territory later in the year.

If anyone has any material they can post it to Mr. Healy at the De partment of Pacific History, Austra lian National University, PO Box 4, GPO, Canberra, ACT. Mr. Healy assures us that material on loan will be carefully looked after and re turned with the minimum of delay.

It's Happened

To Us, Too

We are not too sure whether this belongs to the Editors' Mailbag page.

But it did come through the mail and it was addressed to the editors. It was in the form of a booklet.

Careers for Solomon Islanders, 1962, a neat little volume, set-up and printed by the South Pacific Commis sion Literature Production Training Centre, Honiara. “See page nine” was scrawled in an anonymous hand on the front cover. Intrigued, we turned to page nine and found, un der the boatbuilding section: “Rates of Pay: You will receive pocket money of £3 a month during your first year of training, and £4 a month in the second year. You will also be given clothing and food, and you will love in very comfortable quarters.”

"No need to hurry, mate. We've got five minutes to take-off!"