People

• Mr. Jean Sicurani, the Governor-designate of French Poly nesia, is due to arrive in Papeete on January 15. He will take over from Mr. Aime Grimald. • Sergeant W. J. Prentice, 29, of Dunedin, has been appointed chief officer of police in the Cook Islands.

He replaces Mr, J. M. O’Halloran, who held the post for 16 years. • Father Bassau, of the Sacred Heart Mission at Kaintiba, in New Guinea’s mountains, arrived at Wau in mid-December with a mob of 15 horses after a journey from a tiny mission station in Northern Papua, across the Owen Stanley Ranges.

The distance on the map is only 60 miles, but the journey took Father Bassau three weeks. During his trek, Father Bassau crossed some of the wildest and most rugged country in the territory, where peaks soar to more than 9,000 ft. • The Rev. Cannon Pittman, Warden of St. John’s College, Suva,

will return to pastoral work in New Zealand early in January. The Rev.

Dr. Smythe, Vicar of St. James the Less, St. Kilda, Melbourne, and a lecturer at Melbourne University, will act as Warden until the arrival of the new Warden, the Rev. Dr.

Harvey, from the United States, in July. • Mr. K. D. Harrap, Deputy Commissioner of Labour in Fiji since 1962, has been appointed Com missioner of Labour in succession to the late Mr. John Amputch. Mr.

J. P. Barron has succeeded Mr. J. H.

Common, who has retired, as Fiji’s Director of Public Works. Mr. Barron had been Deputy-Director since 1954. • Mr. lan McDonald, chairman of the P-NG Copra Marketing Board, and Mrs. McDonald, returned to Port Moresby in December after an extensive European holiday. • New Seventh-Day Adventist pastor on Norfolk Island is Pastor G. H. Watson. Pastor Watson had previously been stationed on Pitcairn, Rarotonga and Lord Howe Island. • Miss Robyn Ragg, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David P. Ragg, of Suva, Fiji, was married on December 19 to Mr. J. D. O’Donnell, an officer of the cable repair ship Retriever, which is based in Suva.

The marriage took place at the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Suva, and many friends of the well-known Ragg family were entertained after wards at a reception at the Club Hotel. • The Venerable C. W.

Whonsbon-Aston, Archdeacon of Polynesia, has intimated to his Bishop, the Rt. Rev. John Vockler, his desire to cease regular active service in the Diocese after the next biennial Synod in September, 1966,

and the leave then due to him.

However, he will return to Fiji. He will than have completed 36 years of service in the South Pacific, in cluding New Guinea, Fiji and much of Polynesia proper. • Noa Nawalowalo, the first Fijian to be admitted to practise as a barrister and solicitor in the Supreme Court of Fiji, has joined the old established firm of Munro, Warren, Leys and Kermode. He was educated at Queen Victoria School, and qualified in New Zealand. • Misima, Papua, on November 28 had its first wedding since the pre-war gold rush days, when Mr.

Albert Munt, of Quartz Mountain, and Mrs. Ruth Avison, of Samarai (formerly of NZ) were married by the Rev. J. Dawes at the Loaga Methodist Mission. The couple will live on Misima. Mr. Munt is from an old Territory family, • The Samoa Bulletin reported in December that the New Zealand High Commissioner to Western Samoa, Mr. J. B. Wright, was expected to retire from his post early in 1965 to live in Western Samoa.

Mr. Wright, who was born in 1909, first served in Samoa in 1936 as Assistant Treasurer and Collector of Customs. He married a local girl, Miss Aileen Fabricius, in Apia in 1938. • The Inspector-General of Over seas Affairs in the French Govern ment, Mr. Debay, caused alarm and despondency in Tahiti in December when he visited French Polynesia to study that territory’s economic affairs, and—according to the local Press—decided to recommend the imposition of personal income tax, taxes on industrial and commercial profits, and certain other taxes.

HOSPITALISED: One of P-NG's most popu lar Administration officers, Mr. F. P. Kaad (pictured), expects to be many months yet in the paraplegic section of Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital. Dozens of friends visited him over Christmas.

"Freddy" Kaad, Madang District Com missioner, was seriously injured in Sep tember in an aircraft crash in the Madang district in which the pilot. Captain Ray mond Jaensch, was killed. Freddy's spine was injured and he suffered severe burns.

U.S. Missionaries

For New Guinea A group of Americans, the Rev.

Father Burns, Mr. and Mrs. Milton Kempf and the Kempf daughters, Christine, 10, Dobora, 8, Shirley, 7, Linda, 5, Sandra, 4, and Beth Ann, 1, arrived in Sydney recently in the Matson liner "Mariposa" en route to the Sacred Heart Mission at Kavieng, New Ireland, P-NG.