Advisory Council To Be
pp. 109-110 · Read in the full issue
News From The Geic
Advisory Council To Be Set Up This Year
An Advisory Council for the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony is to be set up later this year.
This follows the enactment on January 30 of an ordinance for its establishment by the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, Sir David Trench.
THE new ordinance requires the Resident Commissioner in the GEIC to inform or consult the Ad visory Council about such matters relating to the administration of the Colony as he may decide to place before the Council, or which the High Commissioner may direct to be placed before it.
At meetings of the Council, mem bers may request information or offer advice on any matters concerning the administration of the Colony.
But the Resident Commissioner can refuse to give information, and he is not obliged to act on any advice.
The Advisory Council will consist of the Resident Commissioner as President, the Assistant Resident Commissioner (ex-officio member), four official members chosen from the Colony’s civil service, and from 8 to 12 unofficial members.
All members will be appointed by the Resident Commissioner and will hold office for two years, after which they may be re-appointed.
The Council will meet at least once a year. It is almost certain that the first meeting will be held before the end of the year.
PRODUCTION in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony might be considerably increased if landowners could agree to a reallocation of land, the Crown Surveyor in the BSIP, Mr. J. B. Twomey, said re cently.
Mr. Twomey returned to Honiara in March with Mr. P. Blume and a party of survey assistants after two months in the GEIC, where they checked and analysed land registers for the whole of Tarawa Atoll and made an accurate survey of parts of northern Tarawa.
Mr. Twomey said that one of the
problems in the Gilberts was that of fragmented land holdings. Be cause of the law of succession, much of the land had become so minutely subdivided over several generations that its cultivation was no longer economical.
“If landowers could agree to a reallocation of land so that each of them got a compact area instead of unworkable small pieces, production in the Colony might be considerably increased,” Mr. Twomey added.
Mr. Twomey said his party had been warmly welcomed by the Gil
bertese. Besides its other work, the party had laid out a full-size athletics track to international standards on Bairiki, putting in numerous concrete markers to guide the builders of the track. * * * Pastor W. G. Ferris, President of the Seventh-day Adventist Mission in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, has been transferred to Pitcairn Island to replace Pastor Davies. Pastor A.
C. Thomson, who has worked pre viously in the GEIC, will replace Pastor Ferris.