Nutshell
p. 17 · Read in the full issue
In A Nutshell
Tear-Gas Used
In Honiara
TEAR-GAS was used in Honiara on April 1 to break up a demon strating crowd of Melanesian workers who went on strike for higher pay.
In March the Building and General Workers’ Union negotiated a new agreement with the Government for Government labourers and classified workers, but the agreement was not accepted by all workers. About 800 went on strike, many marching into the main town area from China town. Men who were still working were intimidated en route.
One of the demonstrators, bran dishing a Malaita war club, was arrested after a scuffle with police.
Later a crowd of about 300 con verger on the Central Police Station, demanding the release of the arrested man. Police, led by the Police Chief, Mr. D, Morgan, warned the crowd to disperse.
The crowd disobeyed and became ugly. Stones were being thrown at the police when the Chief ordered tear-gas to be used. The crowd ran.
The original demonstrator was sentenced to two months gaol, and 14 others arrested later were given sentences of from six weeks to three months.
The strike collapsed when the Government ordered the strikers back to their villrges if they did not work. • “It was a lot of fuss over a small matter,” said Captain Jack Thomsen, master of the US research schooner Te Vega, when the vessel turned up in Suva in April after having been “missing” for a week.
A search was begun for Te Vega when she lost radio contact —the result, it turned out, of transmitter trouble. • Teams of scientists from eight countries—New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, USSR, Japan, the United States and Canada —will begin arriving at tiny Manuae Atoll in the Cook Islands early in May to prepare to observe the total
eclipse that will be visible from that island on May 30, Other scientists will probably go to Aitutaki, and to Fenua-Ura and Bellingshausen Islands in the Society Group for observations. • The establishment of the first radio broadcasting station on Nauru at an estimated capital cost of £25,000 has been approved by the Australian Minister of Territories, Mr. C. E. Barnes. • The Australia-West Pacific Line has introduced a new cargo service from Australia to Papua-New Guinea with the Tenos to take in Port Moresby. (See timetables, p. 148).