Nutshell

In A Nutshell

MR. CHARLES HALL, director in the Philippines of the Cali fornia Packing Corporation, visited the New Hebrides recently to study the possibility of establishing pine apple plantations and factories to can both the fruit and the juice. Mr. Hall toured Tanna, Efate and Espiritu Santo. He was particularly impressed by what he saw at Big Bay, Santo.

He spoke of establishing planta tions covering thousands of acres in the area, which would represent an investment of about $lO million, and would employ a large number of people. The French Residency’s news bulletin says it remains to be seen whether Mr. Hall carries out his pro ject. * * * • Pago Pago’s Bank of American Samoa is taking on a new face with the enlargement and opening of additional teller’s windows to handle the tremendous volume of business that now comes to American Samoa’s only bank. The bank’s tellers have been doing a greater volume of busi ness per person than is done by most banks in the U.S. * * * • A smouldering fire which lasted about two days destroyed copra meal worth about £25,000 at Island In dustries Ltd. store, Walu Bay, Suva, at the end of July. Island Industries Ltd. is a W. R. Carpenter com pany. Most of the meal was scheduled to be shipped to Britain. * * * • Sixteen indigenous leaders from P-NG will visit Australia in Septem ber and October to study parliamen tary and governmental procedures. * * * • The Nuffield Foundation has approved a grant of £15,000 sterling for the British Solomons Training College. This money will be used to expand the college to provide accom modation for 96 students instead of the present 48, including accommoda tion for up to 24 women. It is hoped that the extensions will be completed next year. * ♦ * • Work will probably start in September on the long-talked of museum and library building on

Rarotonga. Voluntary village labour will probably be employed. It is hoped to complete the building early in 1964. Money has been raised by a very active action committee. * * * • The population of Niue Island at March 31, 1963, was 4,885, or 21 more than that recorded in the 1961 census, according to the island’s annual report. Migration, mainly to New Zealand, is keeping the island’s population more or less stationary. ss: • The Government of Fiji has banned the importation of five periodicals containing Chinese Com munist propaganda, * ❖ * • The freezer and cold storage installation, recently built in Vila for the locally-financed Societe Entrepot Frigorifique was officially opened in August by the British and French Resident Commissioners in the New Hebrides. The new installation will store locally-produced meat for sale in Vila, and it is hoped that some may be exported. Storage space is also available for imported fruit and vegetables. * * * • A radio telephone service be tween Rarotonga and New Zealand was inaugurated in July. Calls can be extended to Australia. Rates for calls from Rarotonga to New Zealand are £NZI/10/- for up to three minutes, plus 10/- for each additional minute.

Calls to Australia cost £2/5/- for up to three minutes, and 15/- for each additional minute. * * * • The first Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony airmail postage stamps will be issued late this year or early next year when the colony gets its first regular air service. The service will be operated fortnightly by Fiji Airways between Fiji and Funafuti and Tarawa with a Heron aircraft. * * * • A subsidy scheme designed to expand copra production in Fiji came into effect on August 1. Under the scheme, subsidies will be paid for clearing land, thinning over-grown plantations, new planting and re planting.

The cost of the scheme this year is estimated at £33,500, of which 90 per cent, will be met by a grant from Britain. The scheme is partly designed to encourage Fijians to work land under a system of in dividual tenure. * * * • More than 700 people now draw liquor in American Samoa on a ration basis. This privilege was once only granted to contract employees,

Europeans and islanders who had lived outside American Samoa for three to five years.

The privilege is now granted to any adults who apply who are over 21 years and in good standing. The applicants are checked by the Gov ernment Liquor Board and when approved are granted permits that en title them to one bottle of hard liquor weekly. * * * • Port Moresby service clubs are to build a £25,000 fresh-water swim ming pool at Boroko. The president of the Port Moresby Amateur Swim ming Association, Mr. G. Toogood, says this is part of a four-stage plan to provide swimming facilities in Moresby.

Included in the plan is a £3,500 25metre sea-water pool now being built at Ela Beach.

A 25-metre fresh-water pool at Boroko, to be enlarged eventually to 50 metres, will come later. * * * • From September 19, Fiji Air ways will increase its scheduled air service between Suva and Honiara from once a week to three times a fortnight. The first flight will arrive in Honiara on September 20. * * * • Eighteen residents of Papua- New Guinea had incomes of £lO,OOO or more in the 1960-61 financial year, according to official statistics issued recently. Of the 18, 16 were men. * * * • Mr. M. Martin, representative of the C. T. C. Limited, a large timber company in Sarawak, arrived in the BSIP in August to survey timber in the Allardyce Harbour area on Ysabel. He was accompanied by two assistants. Three directors of the company were expected later. * * * • Work is going ahead rapidly on the reconstruction and repair of the wartime airstrip at Funafuti, GEIC, which will be a stopping place for the proposed air service between Fiji and the GEIC. A hotel, the Vaiaku- Langi, is also being built at Funafuti. * * * • The French airline TAI has abandoned its monthly air service from Noumea to Tahiti via Wallis Island but will continue the service to Wallis Island. * * ♦ • More than 30 years after the route was pioneered by Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, Qantas on Septem ber 7 was scheduled to inaugurate a regular weekly service between Bris bane and Honolulu, using 7075. This will give Qantas eight Pacific services

a week. The Brisbane service will originate in Sydney and is designed to encourage interest in Queensland. * * ♦ • The population of Fiji at the end of 1962 was an estimated 427,851 latest statistics reveal. Indians do not yet quite make up 50 per cent, of the population—at the end of last year their numbers were estimated at 212,829. The Fijians numbered 177,770.

The figures for other races were: European, 10,553; part-Europeans, 9,226; Polynesians, Melanesians, Mi cronesians, etc., 6,842; Rotumans, 5,337; Chinese, 5,177; others, 117. ❖ * * • A conference of representatives of public servants engaged in the Administration of Pacific Islands Territories will be held in Wellington, NZ, in December. Indications are that delegates will represent the Ad ministration services of Papua-New Guinea, Fiji, Western Samoa, the Cook Islands and, presumably, the territories controlled by the British Western Pacific High Commission. * * * • Copra production in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony in the first six months of this year was well below normal. Excluding the Line Islands, only 2,221 tons were pro duced to the end of June compared with 5,981 tons for the whole of last year—a fall of 26 per cent. As there was little rain from January to June, the position is likely to get worse before it improves.

Things are a little better in the Line Islands. Christmas Island pro duced its first copra in June since November, 1962—38 tons. * * * • The clearing of trees from the proposed site for the Kira Kira Air field, BSIP, will probably start towards the end of the year. * * * • The BSIP’s Director of Medical Services told the Legislative Council recently that it was still unsafe to drink unboiled water in Honiara.

“The chlorination plant installed at Honiara waterworks has materially improved the purity of the water supply,” he said, “but bacteriological results are not yet sufficiently and consistently satisfactory to enable me to recommend the drinking of un boiled water.” * * * • One hundred and eighty-eight officers and men of the U.S. Air Force 1370 Mapping Wing are now working in Papua-New Guinea mak ing aerial maps and a land and sea survey ag part of a world-wide map ping survey.