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[?]eposits Of Copper Ore Likely On New Georgia

An Australian geologist, Dr.

. L. Stanton, who recently com

eted a geological survey of New

eorgia," BSIP, extending over

:veral years, believes there is a 3od chance that copper will be mnd on that island. )R. STANTON says the New Georgian survey has revealed the lexpected existence of diorite rock, bis is interesting because all ineralisation so far found on uadalcanal has been associated with orite, and mineral deposits, gener ly copper, have been found in asso ation with it in other parts of the orld.

Dr. Stanton says all diorites are Dt necessarily accompanied by ore jposits, but their presence in New reorgia can be taken as “more than good omen” of the presence of eposits of ore. • Fiji’s Medical Department will lunch a campaign soon to immunise bout 65,000 children against polio, iphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus nd, where necessary, tuberculosis.

The campaign will be aimed at hildren below school age and those n their first year at school. The arget is to immunise every child in he Colony in these groups. • The P-NG Administration has >ought 7,000 acres of land to re ettle a group of people who live in he Nakanai mountains in the West Mew Britain district. The land, vhich cost £14,000, is suitable for growing lowland crops such as :ocoa, coffee and coconuts.

The Nakanai people will be re-

IN A Nushell

settled on the new land when the Administration has divided it into small blocks. • Overseas officers now form only eight per cent, of the Civil Service in Fiji, according to the annual re port of Fiji’s Public Service Com mission. At the end of last year, there were over 5,000 civil servants of whom just over 400 were re cruited overseas. Half of them were permanent pensionable officers and half were on contract.

The report expresses concern that the supply of suitable local candi dates for administrative and execu tive grades is not yet matching the need. • In Wellington, New Zealand, on March 5, a jury acquitted John Vin cent, aged 20, a deck-hand in the Blue Star Line freighter New Zealand Star, of the murder of the ship’s steward on the high seas. The jury reached its verdict after six hours.

Vincent had been charged with the murder of David Alan Rowe, who was found dying in his bunk on the night of January 1, while the ship was bound from Panama to Christ mas Island and Suva.

The chief steward’s death was in vestigated by the Fiji police when the ship reached Suva. • Surveyors and engineers from the P-NG Administration and Civil Aviation were to survey possible DC3 airstrip sites in the Milne Bay area of Papua in March.

Samarai, Esa’Ala and Misima in this area are now serviced by a Cata lina.

• The New Hebrides Department of Posts and Telecommunications is offering four prizes of £Stgso in a postage stamp design competition, the entries for which must reach the Condominium Postmaster, Vila, by June 30.

The contest is to obtain designs for four new stamps, in both the English and French series, to be issued in 1965.

Two of the designs must feature New Hebrides industrial life; the others must depict an indigenous bird and New Hebrides marine life.

Further details are obtainable from the Condominium Postmaster. • Forty-five new students began courses this year at the Fiji School of Medicine. Of these budding doctors, dentists and health in spectors, 31 are from Fiji, five from Tonga, four from the Solomons, three from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, and one each from Niue and the New Hebrides.

At Fiji’s Central Nursing School, there are 61 new students including three from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, two from the New Hebrides and two from Rotuma. The rest are from Fiji. • A United States Army ship, the FS 216, arrived at Tarawa, GEIC, on February 14 and landed two Jap anese astronomers, two Japanese elec tronic engineers and an American supervisor who were to take part in a programme for observing the oc culation of stars in the Pacific. The party settled down at Tabonibara Village, in Upper Tarawa, for several weeks before moving to Marakei Atoll to continue observations. • The New Hebrides Con dominium Public Works Department has started work on a new airfield at Tongoa, Shepherd Islands. It is being built in the centre of the island on the site of the present small strip.

• American Samoa now h nearly 600 registered vehicles on i roads. This figure is made up * about 200 Government cars, 188 pi vate cars, 55 taxis, 56 light true! and cargo vehicles, 86 motor cycl and 95 bicycles. The territorj population is now estimated at 24,00 compared with 21,051 at the la census in 1960. • A total of £.35,000 sterling being provided from Colonial D yelopment and Welfare funds for joint agricultural training institutic in Vila, New Hebrides. The Coi dominium Public Works Departmei is building the centre, which will I able to take up to 16 New Hebrides students this year. • The British Phosphate Con missioners’ £3,000,000 worker housing project on Nauru and Ocea Island is expected to be finished lal this year. The project involves th construction of 160 two-storey blocl to house 1,000 families and 1,00 single workers.

The work is being done by E. 15 Clementson Pty. Ltd. It entails ship ping more than 30,000 tons of pn cast concrete panels, 150 tons c aluminium roofing and 10,000 ton of general plant and materials fror Australia. • The GEIC Registrar of Co operatives reports that monthly copr production in the Colony increase* from a low of 22 tons in Novembe to 388 tons in February. He ex pected the target figure of 460 ton a month will soon be achieved, bu says that the February fall in thi overseas copra market price t< £67/5/- may make it necessary fo

HONG KONG WEDDING: There was wedding of interest to New Guin people in Hong Kong recently when [?] Paul Mow was married to Miss Dia Mary Jan of Sydney. The newlywe[?] went to Japan for their honeymoon. [?] Mow was formerly a resident of Raba[?]

j Copra Board to reduce the price id to producers by £-3 per ton. • In Tonga the entire population 70,000 is to be vaccinated against lallpox in the next two months with ; assistance of the United States iblic Health Service. An American idical team of five, from the Com jnicable Disease Centre at Atlanta, jorgia, will carry out the task with jet injector immunisation gun, a draulic-powered instrument which jects vaccine through the skin ider high pressure, without the ed for conventional syringes and edles. • New badges to be worn by itive members of the Pacific Islands jgiment will denote their standard : proficiency in the use of English.

The badges will be issued in three rms: The shape “E”, “E” within a urel wreath, and “E” in a laurel reath surmounted by a crown. They ill represent degrees of proficiency English equivalent to those of rade 3, Grade 6, and Grade 8

udents in Queensland schools.

The badges will be made of brass id will be worn on the right-hand lirt pocket. • A mild epidemic of measles, hich has been going through the few Hebrides since November, ;ached Ambrym in March and was jreading rapidly through Pentecost. • The GEIC Resident Com lissioner, Mr. V. J. Andersen, out ned proposals for a survey of the otential development of Christmas sland at the opening meeting of a ession of the Colony’s Advisory 'ouncil from March 3 to 6.

Speaking of the recent relaxation •f liquor control, Mr. Andersen said here had been no noticeable in rease in cases of drunkenness. • The Governor-General of New Zealand, Sir Bernard Fergusson, will eave Auckland in the cruiser ■IMNZS Royalist on April 13 for a J, 500-mile tour of the Pacific. Sir Bernard will be accompanied by Lady Fergusson, his son and mem bers of his staff.

The Royalist’s itinerary is Raoul Island (Kermedecs), Nukualofa (Tonga), Niue, Pago Pago (Ameri can Samoa), the Northern Cook Is lands, Papeete (Tahiti), and the Southern Cooks. The Vice-Regal party will leave the Royalist at Aitutaki and fly by RNZAF Hastings to Western Samoa, the Tokelaus and Fiji. The tour will end at Wellington on May 13.

• Qantas Empire Airways, which inaugurated a weekly service Sydney- Brisbane-Honolulu last year, has now extended this service to San Fran cisco. The service begins in Sydney on Saturdays at 5 p.m. and termin ates at San Francisco at 3.40 p.m.. the same day, the International Date line having been crossed. • The names and descriptions of hundreds of flowers and plants which grow in Fiji are listed in a new book published by the Government Printer at Suva. It is Plants of the Fiji Islands, by J. W. Parham, botanist in the Department of Agriculture.

• The Gazelle Peninsula Local Government Council passed a resolu tion in March that all drinks served in Rabaul hotel bars should be served in plastic containers instead of glasses so that the present feeling of discrimination would be ended.

At present, natives drinking in Rabaul’s two hotels are given beer in plastic cups and Europeans get glasses, even if they are drinking to gether.

A letter from the manager of the Cosmopolitan Hotel, which was read to the council, said natives were given plastic cups because there was too much danger from broken glasses.

Islanders I [?]

SYDNEY: Seen at t[?] clubrooms of t[?]

Polynesian Asso[?]

ation in Sydney [?] cently are (top) thr[?] people from Suv[?] Mr. H. A. Harris[?] (left), Mr. V. Hou[?] Lee and Mrs. Ha[?] son. Below is party of Norfolk [?] landers, Mr. Ri[?] Quintal! (left), Mi[?] Julie Blucher ar[?] Miss Evelyn Hobbi[?] —Tele-Phot[?]