People

• The Methodist Church in Fiji July accepted seven candidates for 5 ministry, and ordained four Fijian inisters. The new ministers are the ;vs. Isireli Caucau, Onisimo Vuni iqa, Aminiasi Qalo and Isimeli :nelala. • Mrs. Raywatti Tulsi, a Fijian dian, has been appointed a full ae court clerk and reporter in uth Australia. She is the first >man to hold such a post. Her rents are Mr, and Mrs. P. D. imswarup, of Suva. • The South Pacific has a role the New York World Fair through group of American Samoans who e attracting big crowds to their nces in the Polynesian Building, r. Edward Johnson and his wife, Pago Pago, recently took in the ir during a tour of the United ates.

Mr. Johnson says the Samoans ve won many friends “because ly are young, amateur, and always ady to smile”. • The president of the Malaita mncil, BSIP, Mr. Mariano Kelesi,

has been awarded a United States foreign leader grant. He will spend about three months in the U.S. • Miss Mary Edwell-Burke, an artist who has been living in Fiji for the last seven years, left for Vancouver in the Lakemba in August. She plans to settle in Canada.

In the last 30 years she has made 22 arrivals at Suva, and has been a painter in the islands since she was 21. • Mr. J. Golson, Senior Fellow in Anthropology at the Australian

National University, visited Fiji in August to inspect archaeological sites in Viti Levu. He is at present engaged in excavations in Tonga, • The Rev. Allan Dutton became the first European member of a fully-elected local government council in the BSIP on July 22 when he won the seat in Belaga ward in the Gela local government council elections. In Haleta Ward, the sitting member. Father John Bosmata, and Dr. C. E. Fox were defeated by ex- Sergeant Dudley Gorosi. Dr. Fox, who is nearly 86, has been a mis sionary in the Solomons since 1908.

VA WEDDING: Mr. Douglas Guise, of [?]oua, and Miss Losa Felix, of Suva, were arried recently at the Sacred Heart thedral, Suva. The bride is the daughter Mrs. C. Felix, of Suva, and the groom the son of Mr. John Guise, MHA, of [?]ne Bay, Papua, and of Mrs. Guise, [?]uglas is a dentistry student at the Fiji School of Medicine.

• Visitors to Sydney in August with an eye to the future were Mr. and Mrs. H. P. Seale, of Goroka, New Guinea, and Mr. and Mrs.

Robin McKay, of Aropa plantation, Bougainville. Mr. Seale, formerly District Commissioner, Eastern Highlands, has bought a modern home

unit in Cremorne, but is not certain of his future movements. If a suit able posting shows up he may return to the Territory. Mr. McKay has sold Aropa, and his family is currently occupying a house (with swimming pool) at Killara while he decides on his future plans. He does

not expect these will involve severance of his Territory conne tions after 29 years there. • New South Wales members i the Council of New Guinea Affair which is linked with the New Guine Corporation, were announced August by the chairman, Mr. Norms Cowper, a Sydney solicitor. T 1 Council will eventually appoint a pe manent executive director and wi encourage seminars and discussior on NG, stimulate contact betwee New Guineans and Australians, an produce an independent journal. (PEV June, p, 11).

NSW council members are: M Steven Rich, chairman of the N< Corporation and chairman of Pacifi Islands Timbers (Holdings) Ltd.; S: J ohn Crawford, former permanei head of the Department of Trad< and Professor of Economics at th Australian National University; M] C. R. Darvall, general manager c the ANZ Bank; Mr. A. F. Deer, mar aging director of Mutual Life an Citizens Assurance Co, Ltd.; M] Merlin Hansen, director of Develop ment Finance Corporation Ltd.; Mi F. M. Hewitt, MLC (NSW), chaii man of Huvei Plantation Ltd.; Mi John R. Kerr, QC; Mr. L. Shon secretary of the Federated Iron workers’ Association; and Major General lan Dougherty, Director o Civil Defence in NSW. • Judge Cameron Smith, of th( NSW District Court, has been ap pointed an acting judge of th< Supreme Court of P-NG. The ap pointment, for about four months is to relieve pressure on the remain ing judges following the illness o; the Chief Justice, Sir Alan Mann. • Napoleon Onzem, of Lae, is the first New Guinean to hold j private pilot’s licence. He hopes tc become a commercial pilot Napoleon, 23, was formerly a school teacher.

[N the presence of a large audience, Queen Salote of Tonga, m August 17, opened a new ircade in Nukualofa’s main street, faufaahau Road.

The £60,000 building had been mder construction by the Tonga Construction Co., a subsidiary of the fonga Copra Board, since November.

It was built entirely by Tongan abour under Tongan supervision.

The modern spacious design of wo floors, totalling 40,000 square ; eet contains 36 units available as shops or offices while the foundation ncludes a 100,000 gallon water storage tank. The building is Tonga’s nost glamorous. • The P-NG Administration will lave its fourth broadcasting station in operation soon—at Daru—and lopes that a fifth will be operating before the end of the year, at Goroka.

Call sign of the Daru station will be VLBVD, operating on a frequency af 3304 kilocycles.

Initially Radio Daru will use a 250-watt transmitter, but later a more powerful transmitter will be installed. The P-NG Administration operates local broadcasting stations separate from the Australian Broad casting Commission stations in Port Moresby and Rabaul, which cover the Territory with a stronger signal. • As Honiara grows it is provid ing more amenities in keeping with its status. The latest addition will be a fish market, complete with freezer room and refrigeration machinery, and an icemaking plant to produce ice for fishing ships. The BSIP Government has offered the council a grant of £6,500 for the project. • The Fiji Legislative Council on September 14, will meet for the first time since the Member system was introduced on July 1. • A new broadcasting studio building for the ABC in Port Moresby will be officially opened on September 5. The new building cost £190,000 and the Australian PMG’s Dept, installed equipment worth £75,000.

• Although many Vietnamese were repatriated in the last year or so, there are still 972 in New Caledonia, of whom 837 live in Noumea, according to a recent census of Vietnamese in that ter ritory, The breakdown of the 972 was 288 men, 197 women and 487 children.

Of the Vietnamese born in New Caledonia, 435 have asked to become naturalised French, or have shown interest in acquiring French nation ality. • A P-NG Lands Department survey team, working with a helicopter, has completed a detailed geodetic survey of 10,000 square miles of mountainous country in the Western and Southern Highlands in four months. Without the use of a helicopter the work would have taken two years. • A cocktail party was held on the night of August 1 to mark the re opening of Tahiti’s Hotel Taaone, which was almost completely destroyed by fire on August 29, 1963. The rebuilt hotel has 70 rooms, erected at a cost of 30 million Pacific francs (£150,000). • In two years the P-NG Depart ment of Agriculture expects to know if a new predator insect, the platymerus, will be an effective

check against the rhinoceros beetle, which causes extensive damage to coconuts, and other coconut pests.

The department in 1962-63 imported the insects from Zanzibar, the only known place where they are found.

They were kept at the Keravat Lowlands Agricultural Experiment Station where they flourished.

The adult platymerus are black and are about an inch long. They live in the crown of coconut palms among the fronds, and attack any insect which feeds on the palms. • In November, 339 P-NG secondary school children will sit for the Territory Intermediate Certificate examination. It will be the first Intermediate examination based on a Territory syllabus to be held in P-NG. • The Australian Government plans to fence off part of the P-NG border with West New Guinea to stop diseased slock crossing from West New Guinea into clean areas. • The RSL national congress, to meet at Hobart in October, is ex pected to amend the League’s con stitution to admit former New Guinean servicemen. The decision will raise an interesting situation in those P-NG RSL clubs which do not admit New Guineans as members (Over)

Membership of the RSL does not Automatically confer club rights. • The possibility of basing troop ransport aircraft permanently in 5 -NG will be investigated by the Minister for the Army, Dr. Forbes.

Dr. Forbes, on his return to Can )erra after a visit to the Territory, ;aid the Pacific Islands Regiment :ould be used more effectively if Aircraft were available permanently.

The aircraft, if they are stationed n the Territory, will be tactical lirlift capacity planes probably Caribous or Dakotas. An RAAF Caribou recently made test landings m a big number of P-NG airstrips, ncluding some near the West New juinea border. • The Fiji Amateur Athletic \ssociation has planned a 150-mile elay from Lautoka to Suva with the Tinners carrying a message for )resentation to Miss Hibiscus, 1964, After she is crowned by the Governor, Sir Derek Jakeway, on September 26. The message will be Tom the Mayor of Lautoka, Cr.

L B. Ingleton. The last runner will ie escorted through Suva by torch jearing athletes. • An anthropological team from he Australian Museum in Sydney )lans to acquire a haus tambaran Torn the Sepik District of New Suinea during on expedition to the erritory in the next few weeks.

A haus tambaran is a steeple-like itructure used in religious ceremonies.

The museum team will leave Sydney on Septmber 29. It will comprise Mr. Douglas Miles, As listant Curator in Anthropology, and Mr. Malcolm Cameron, of the ex libition department.

In New Guinea they will join Mr.

Barry Craig, who has been working n the Telefomin area, and who has Almost finished a comprehensive ;urvey of the native culture of the egion.

Mr. Miles told PIM in August that the museum did not want an existing haus tambaran, because it would have religious significance.

So it was proposed to get the natives to erect one in Maprik, then systematically dismantle it and transfer it to Sydney for re-erection in the museum’s Melanesian Gallery.

As no-one in Sydney is capable of reconstructing it, it is planned to employ two Maprik villagers for the job. These men will be fed and clothed by the museum during their stay in Sydney. • The tourist industry of Papua- New Guinea may get official en couragement from the Australian Government, which is gathering reports from the P-NG Administra tion.

The Government is also consulting tourist organisations about the in dustry. On top of the official interest private groups, including Ansett, are making surveys, particularly in the New Guinea Highlands, to assess the potential of the industry. • The East-West Center, Hawaii, in collaboration with the Trust Territory Government, recently held a three-week Pacific coconut pro duction and processing course in Ponape, Eastern Carolines. • Members of the Rabaul Town Advisory Council are upset about alleged amplifying of Press reports of Territory matters “when some thing bad happens”.

Recently, Councillor R. Neale com plained that the newspapers took no notice of anything good done. But as soon as something happened it hit the headlines.

During the recent police dis turbances relatives of his in Aus tralia had written to him asking him to send his children back to Aus tralia immediately for safety.

On Holidays: Mr.

and Mrs. G. R. H.

Bentley, of Suva, were snapped at a social gathering of the Polynesian Asso ciation in Sydney re cently. Mr. Bentley as an engineer in Fiji's Posts and Tele graphs Department.

He and his wife have been spending holi days in Australia. — Telephotos.

On South Seas Business

Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Rice, of Lautoka, (top picture), were among the passen [?]rs in the Matson liner "Mariposa" when [?]e sailed from Sydney in August for the [?]ited States via the Pacific Islands. Mr. [?]e, who has lived in Fiji for the last 40 [?]ars, is manager of the Shell agency in [?]utoka. He and Mrs. Rice were returning [?]m leave in Sydney. In the middle, [?]ture are Mr. Graham Grant, of Sydney, [?]th his daughters, Kathy and Kristine, [?]o were among the relatives and busi [?]ss associates who farewelled him on the "Aariposa". Mr. Grant is sales manager the mining company, Gilbert Gray and [?]. Pty. Ltd., and was on his way to the [?]peror Gold Mines at Vatukoula, Fiji, a sales mission. Below are Mr. A. W. [?]ssell (left) and Mr. David Tucker, both Sydney, who were to disembark from [?]e "Mariposa" at Pago Pago. They repre [?]nt the flour milling companies of [?]eorge Fielder and Co., Tamworth, NSW, [?]d Brunton and Co. and the Great [?]estern Milling Co., both of Dulwich Hill, [?]dney. They planned to spend a few [?]ys in Samoa and then to visit Tonga [?]d Fiji before going home.