From the Islands Press

YOU can’t have one without the other—sunshine and water rationing, that is. The price of the sunny days we’ve been having recently will be felt in the [Pago Pago] bay area starting tonight; water will be shut off from 11 p.m. until 5 a.m.

The rationing will continue until further notice—“at least until more rain can fill our reservoirs up again,” says Jim Lee, manager of maintenance and operations.— News item in the “Daily Bulletin”, Pago Pago, American Samoa.

THIS fair town of Goroka — prosperous and up to date in many respects —has four large mercantile establishments serving the needs of its citizens. Yet it has not been possible for at least the past month to purchase any other variety of shoe laces than white ones. . . .

My need is urgent—my present laces are so knotted that they no longer go through the eyeholes of my shoes. I have been advised to use binder twine suitably coloured with either dark tan or black shoe polish, but I consider this aestheti cally displeasing, and moreover I am told supplies of binder twine are also in short supply.— Letter from M. B. Orken, Goroka, in the “South Pacific Post”, Port Moresby.

FIJI is blessed with so much natural beauty that it is a shame that this should be so frequently marred by man.

Grass is allowed to grow un checked in front of houses, rub bish accumulates at roadsides, and empty cases and cartons are left outside shops and factories.

The colony’s motor traffic has not yet grown to the point where vehicle junkyards stud towns with eyesores, but derelict vehicles are only too often left to offend the eye along road edges. . . .

In the Walu Bay area at Suva there is a sharp distinction between owners with pride in their surroundings and their city, and those who are content to have their names on grimy, mildew-covered buildings whose

exteriors have not known fresh paint for years.

The situation is not improved by the Lands Department’s un kempt wilderness and the Govern ment Stores and Public Works Department’s derelict areas.— Editorial in “The Fiji Times”, Suva.

THE Economic Development Department has lately started a campaign aimed at impressing upon the public the desirability of ■ buying goods produced in Samoa rather than competing products from overseas.

No one could reasonably deny that it is in the best interests of this country’s economy for the people to follow this advice. The only fault about the campaign is that while the Economic Development Department is doing its best to promote local industry, local industry is doing virtually nothing to itself promote the sale of its products.

The reluctance among local businessmen to push their sales by advertising is a fault of long standing, and if local enterprises are ever to succeed, entre preneurs must realise that while the Department of Economic Development might provide tax incentives and duty free imports of raw materials, this department should not be expected to also sell the new products.— Editorial in “Samoana”, Apia, Western Samoa.

IT is hereby notified for the information of the public that the foreshore opposite the “Date line” Hotel must be cleared of boats, derelicts and articles of general refuse. Unless the afore mentioned articles are cleared away within the next 14 days, official action will be taken to remove them. Public notice, signed by the Acting Secretary to Government, in the “Cronicle”, Nukualofa, Tonga.

Following on the report from the Russell Islands of a boy being carried out to sea on the back of a turtle ( PIM, Aug., p. 45), there comes news from the islands of a young man riding a dugong.

A dugong is a mammal which, because of the shape of the upper part of its body, was thought by ancient mariners to be a mermaid.

A report from Marulaon says that a group of people using the kuarao method of fishing on Butata Island found they had caught a shark and a dugong when they hauled their leaf net in to the shore.

One man called out to a young man named James Nepolo to catch the dugong. But the mammal proved to be stronger than James, and he carried him some distance out to sea before he finally let go. —News item in the “BSIP News Sheet”, Honiara.

IT is well known that breakfast is considered to be the most important meal of the day by doctors and health experts in most countries. Yet all too many people ignore this meal, and as a result may run low on energy later on in the day.

Here in Rarotonga, it is a com mon sight to see school children dashing into a shop before school to have a breakfast of white bread downed with lemonade.

A variation is bread with two ice-cream scoops downed with lemonade.

Such a breakfast can hardly be expected to contribute towards the health, energy and proper growth of school children.— Editorial comment in the “Cook Islands News ”, 1 PROPOSE we in the New Hebrides should use a language that the majority of the islanders use. For instance, Ngunese, which stretches from North Efate to the east of Epi. Of course Pango, Erakor, Eton and Epau are included because their speech is more or less the same as Ngunese.

This does not mean that I want my own language (I am Tongoan) to be destroyed, but we want to teach the people a language which will be easy to learn.

My second suggestion is that if there is argument between islanders who do not want their languages destroyed, then we had better use a new kind of Pidgin which would include new words to enable people to talk about machinery and other technical subjects.— Reader’s letter in the “British Newsletter”, Vila, New Hebrides.