People

• Mr. M. D. Irving Gass, Chief Secretary, Western Pacific High Com mission, in Honiara, BSIP, has been appointed Colonial Secretary in Hong Kong, where the Governor is Sir David Trench, High Commis sioner in the Western Pacific until a year or so ago. Mr. Gass, who is 48, served in Ghana, formerly Gold Coast, for 19 years before being appointed to the Western Pacific as Chief Secretary in 1958. Mr. Gass is expected to leave Honiara on April 28 for leave in England before taking up his new ap pointment. • The Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony’s Chief Police Officer, Mr.

C. A. Williams, recently spent two weeks with the Fiji Police to study their training methods with a view to improving the training of the 120 men in the GEIC Constabulary. • Mr. Richard Barrett Lowe, a former Governor of American Samoa and Guam, is currently writing a book at his home at 508 Cameron Street, Alexandria, Virginia, which deals with his experiences in the Pacific during the war and his later governorships. Mr. Lowe’s home is a reconstructed version of George Washington’s town house, which stood on the same site until a century or so ago. Mr, Lowe built the replica of the house following his return to the US from Guam in 1960. Since then he has also served as a UN observer for the National Education Association. • Dr. L. O. Roberts, who went to Suva on January 5 to supervise the transfer of the World Health Organisation’s South Pacific Office from Sydney, has been transferred to Africa, to establish a permanent WHO office in Zambia. He will be temporarily replaced in Suva by Dr.

H. M. C. Poortman, of the Nether lands, until a permanent representa tive is appointed. • Queen Salote of Tonga, who is staying in Auckland, celebrated her 65th birthday on March 13. o Professor J. W. Davidson, who is Professor of Pacific History at the Australian National University, Canberra, recently visited the New Hebrides. He spent two days on Tanna in connection with a book he is writing on Captain Peter Dillon,

whose discovery of sandalwood on Tanna in 1825 brought the first European settlers to the New Hebrides. Dillon also discovered the fate of La Perouse at Vanikoro. • Many tributes were paid to the work of Mr. J. B. Wright, New Zealand’s High Commissioner in Western Samoa, when he was given a farewell dinner in Apia in mid- March by the New Zealand Trade Commissioner, Mr. K. Davies. Mr.

Wright, who will retire at the end of March, will settle in Western Samoa. His successor, as predicted in PIM last month, will be Mr. O. P.

Gabites, New Zealand’s Consul- General in New York. Mr. Gabites, who is 51, joined the NZ Department of External Affairs in 1947 and has served in Canberra, Ottawa and Paris. He is married with three daughters. • Secretary-General of the South Pacific Commission, Mr. W. D.

Forsyth, left Noumea in March for a tour of North America and Europe, where he will discuss a wide range of SPC activities with Commis sioners, senior officials of Territories, member Governments and scientific and university bodies.

He will return to Noumea via Australia where he will have talks on the forthcoming Sixth South Pacific Conference to be held at Lae, New Guinea, in July.

Dr. Richard Seddon, Executive Officer for Social Development, is acting as Secretary-General. • Mr. James Smith, Director of Public Works in Bermuda, has been appointed Deputy Director of Public Works in Fiji. He fills a position which has been vacant since Mr.

James Barron was promoted Director of Public Works on the retirement of Mr. John Common. • Mr. Bob Paul, managing director of New Hebrides Airways and a prominent planter on Tanna, New Hebrides, was admitted to hospital in NSW recently for treatment for a back complaint. • Mr. Harold Richards, Con dominium Postmaster in the New Hebrides since 1947, has resigned

RABAUL WEDDING: Recently married at Rabaul's Memorial Church by the Rev. lan Pardon were well-known police officer Eric Hastings and Miss Narelle Lyme. Eric is a popular footballer and cricketer and has represented New Guinea in inter territory matches.

GONE FINISH: Two well-known Rabaul identities, ten and Beb Palmer, "went finish" recently to settle at Leura in the Blue Mountains of NSW. Len spent 47 years in telecommunications, including 17 in Rabaul. He retired as manager of OTC.

from his post and will settle in Aus tralia after a trip around the world.

Mr. Richards and his family left Vila in the Caledonien on March 24. • Captain T. S. Withers, famous in the South Pacific for his “Blue Lagoon” tourist cruises to the Yasawa Islands, Fiji, has announced his semi retirement and the formation of a new company to take over his opera tions. He will retain an interest in the company and be one of the initial directors. His 56-ft motor yacht is to be replaced by a 112-ft Fairmile, “Sayandra”, and well-travelled Cap tain Oscar Wright, local-bom mariner, experienced host and professional skindiver will be master. • Mr. T. P. Smith, a retired Queensland grazier, has bought the Oceanic Private Hotel in Suva. • Visiting Fiji in March on his way to Australia and New Guinea was Mr. G. Coleridge-Taylor, the Sierra Leone delegate on the UN’s Committee of 24 on Colonialism. He told interviewers that his Govern ment felt that Fiji needed early in dependence. He said the indigenous people of Sierra Leone had accepted the fact that other communities, mainly Indian and Lebanese, had an

important place in the country. He surprised his interviewers by adding that not one of the indigenous people had a place in the Sierra Leone Gov ernment. • A Fijian fisherman, Menusi Nasorowale, who lives in a village near Labasa, won a fight with a huge 400-lb groper in March by jumping on its back and driving it to shallow water after having speared it. • Elwyn Christian, Pitcairn’s self taught dentist who has been extracting teeth and making dentures on Pitcairn for years, arrived in Suva in March to take a dental course at the Fiji School of Medicine. He will go back to Pitcairn in six months as a full time government dentist. • A member of the P-NG House of Assembly, Zure Zurenuoc, will rep resent New Guinea at a promotion of Territory products at the Tokyo In ternational Trade Fair from April 11 to May 6. Mr. Zurenuoc, who is Under-Secretary for the Treasury, has wide commercial interests of his own.

The Tokyo stand has been built entirely of New Guinea timbers and will display cocoa, coffee, coconut oil and crocodile skins, among other things.

STUDENT NURSE: Miss Sahodra Tikaram, of Suva, seen here at a social evening of the Polynesian Association in Sydney, is doing an advanced course of obstetrics at Sydney's Crown Street Women's Hos pital. On graduating, she plans to travel extensively before returning to Fiji to practise her profession. Miss Tikaram al ready holds a general nursing certificate.

—Telephotos.