People

• Reliable sources in Wellington and Apia belive that Mr. O. P.

Gabites will become New Zealand’s High Commissioner in Western Samoa after popular Mr. Jack Wright retires at the end of March.

Mr. Gabites, a prominent man in the NZ Government service for a long time, has been NZ Consul- General in New York for the past two years. He has visited Western Samoa once or twice and is looked on, by those in the know, as a suitable successor for Mr. Wright in a difficult job. • The new Governer of New Caledonia and French Commissioner in the Western Pacific, Mr. Jean Risterucci, arrived in Noumea on February 14 to take up his post, • Peter Hardie, an Acting As sistant District Commissioner in P-NG, in January became the first European to climb 14,000 ft Mt.

Kubor in the Chimbu region of P-NG’s Eastern Highlands District.

He was accompanied by a Chimbu tribesman. • Mr. J. K. McCarthy, P-NG’s Director of District Administration, and Mrs. McCarthy, left Port Moresby at the end of February on a vacation which will take them on a long tour through Asia, Europe, the UK, and back to New Guinea in November. Acting Director in the meantime is Mr. T. G. Aitchison,

Before he left Port Moresby, Mr.

McCarthy was elected first president of the newly-formed Papua and New Guinea Society, which has similar aims to the Polynesian Society of New Zealand, and which will publish its own academic journals. Senior vice-president is Mr.

Nigel Oram, and junior vice president is Mr. Lepani Watson. • Mr. Donald Kingsmill, formerly private secretary to the Australian Minister of External Affairs, is the new Australian consul in New Caledonia. He replaces Mr. Ivor Bowden who has been appointed to a diplomatic post at the new Aus tralian Embassy in Dublin. PlM’s Noumea correspondent understands that Mr. Kingsmill’s posting is only a temporary one. • Doctor J. Jameson, who has been Regional Medical Officer at Lae for the past six years, has been transferred to Port Moresby. • Timoci Tuivaga, of Matuku, Lau, a former supervising magistrate in the Fijian Administration, has become the third Fijian to qualify as a lawyer. The first was the late Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna, who did not practice, and the second was Noa Nawalowalo, who was admitted to practice in Fiji last year. • Dr. O. W. Parnaby, Associate Professor of History at Auckland University, recently visited Fiji to gather material for a history of Fiji since its cession to Britain in 1874.

The late R. A. Derrick’s History of Fiji covers the period up to 1874. • The Queen has awarded the George Medal to a 39-year-old Fijian, Josateke Tunisau, of Naviti Island

in the Yasawas, for his heroism in going to the rescue of a companion who had been fatally mauled by a shark. Josateke, circled by the shark, swam for 45 minutes with the dying man before reaching a boat. • Mr. R. F. Calvert left the BSIP in February for Sydney, after almost 20 years of Government service. In 1952, he opened the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service on an ex perimenjtal basis, working in his spare time, and when the present service was made possible by a Colonial Development and Welfare Grant, he was appointed Broad casting Officer. He retired in 1962 and has just completed a final two year contract. • Prince Taufa-ahau, the 16-year old son of Tonga’s Premier, Prince Tungi, carried out his first official duty when he represented his country at Sir Winston Churchill’s funeral in London in January. The young prince is at school in England. Un official reports say Tonga would like to establish a permanent re presentative in London. • Mr. W. C. Groves, a former Director of Education in P-NG and a well-known old Islands hand, has retired from teaching in Melbourne to take up a special visiting fellow ship in anthropology at the Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. He will be engaged in editing field notes in anthropology which he made in New Guinea between 1931-35. • Chief Commissioner of the P-NG Land Titles Commission, Mr.

Cyril McCubbery, has retired from

BACK TO AFRICA: Sub-Inspector Max Kroll, of Rabaul, with his wife June, and their children. Penny, Diane, and Philip, left New Guinea recently to live in South Africa.

Mr, Kroll was born in Kenya, served in the Mau Mau emergency, and came to P-NG in 1963. He was well known in Rabaul.

the Administration and joined the Port Moresby law firm of J. Irwin Cromie as a partner. The firm be comes J. Irwin Cromie and McCub bery. Mr. McCubbery first went to the Territory in 1946 as Deputy Crown Law Officer. In 1963 he was manager of the P-NG team at the First South Pacific Games in Suva.

O After 11 years in P-NG, first as a Public Service Inspector, the Territory’s popular Secretary for Labour, Mr. Noel Mason, has resigned to take up the post of assistant director of the NSW Chamber of Manufactures. Mr.

Mason, who has a law degree, will be responsible for industrial matters and will be based in Sydney from March. • Miss Irene Sexton, for many years Administrator’s secretary in Nauru, returned to the phosphate island in March after several months’ vacation in the East, Japan and the Philippines. • Mr. James Hampstead, a musician and bandmaster in the British Army for 22 years, has been appointed Director of Music for the Fiji Police Band.