Consular Post

Change

After six years' service in Tonga as British Commissioner and Consul, Mr. E. J. Coode left Nukualofa with his wife on June 3 to return to England. For a month or so before their departure, the Coodes were feted almost without a break.

Mr. Coode was succeeded tem porarily by Mr. lan Thomson; but the permanent appointee, Mr. A. C.

Reid, was expected to take up his post about the end of June. Mr.

Reid, who was British Commissioner and Consul in Tonga from 1957 to 1959, has been Secretary for Fijian Affairs in Fiji for the past six years.

An interesting feature of Mr.

Reid’s appointment is that he will be directly responsible to the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, and not to the Governor of Fiji, who, hitherto, also held the office of British Chief Commissioner for Tonga.

The removal of responsibility for Tonga from the Governor of Fiji is the second such change in the last 12 years. Before 1953, when a separate post was created with head quarters in Honiara, Fiji’s Governor also held the post of British High Commissioner for the Western Pacific. Photo: Hettig.

Mr. and Mrs. Coode.