From the Islands Press

LAST Friday afternoon when I was sitting at a Chinese grog shop at the Municipal Market, Suva, I saw many cargo lorries filled with fruit, vegetables, dalo, cassava, bananas, duruka, kumala and coconuts to be sold at the market.

I saw that the drivers were urging the cargo owners to pay them the transport costs but the cargoes heaped around the market verandah were not touched when the market closed.

What happens if these cargoes are not bought? How can these farmers recover the money which has been used for the transport?

How can they go back home?

Tears came from my eyes when I saw these farmers spread empty sacks on the cold verandah of the market and lie there for the whole night beside their cargo.

I, myself, with a woollen singlet and a coat on could not bear to stand on the verandah for one hour. Several old women were lying in the same place. Some of them had brought only five baskets of cassava and two bundles of dalo.

How are they going to eat during their stay at Suva? How are they going to manage their travelling expenses back home?

What are they going to buy for their children?

Now what can the Government do to help these people?— Letter from Timoci Radaveta, Beqa, in “The Fiji Times”, Suva.

NO doubt there were good reasons for changing the bus timetable [on Tarawa] last month, but I am surprised that none of your readers has yet commented on the new arrangements.

For those of us who live east of Bairiki, travel to and from Betio is time wasting to say the least. I live at Bikenibeu. Suppose I wish to visit Betio on business which will take about an hour.

I might take the 2.20 bus from Bikenibeu. This bus arrives at Bairiki at 3.05 and I am luckv enough to see the 3.00 mail launch rounding the corner by the beacon. I wait till 4.00 for the next, and arrive at Betio at 4.40.

I complete by business and return on the 6.00 launch from Betio. I

see the red bus waiting at Bairiki, but joy oh joy, it departs at 6.30 just as my launch is coming round the corner by the beacon. I sit on the wharf, tired and hungry, until 8.00 when I finally leave Bairiki. I arrive home at 8.45 exactly six hours and twenty-five minutes after I left.

But perhaps, after all, it is a good thing that in this hectic life of Tarawa we should be able to sit and meditate on Bairiki wharf? —Letter from Brian Savage in “Colony Information Notes”, Tarawa. • Since Mr. Savage’s letter was published, the Tarawa bus schedules have been changed again.

THE statement by Airlines of New South Wales that flying boats will be withdrawn from service [to Lord Howe Island] in 1970 has not been queried, qualified or denied by any re sponsible authority, including the Minister for Civil Aviation.

In spite of the remote possibilities of a future transport service being operated by a hydro foil, STOL or amphibian aircraft, it is a fact that none of these possibilities is yet beyond the theoretical design stage.

It is imperative that something is done immediately to ensure the very survival of the island as a tourist resort.— Editorial in the Lord Howe Island “Signal”.

INDICATIONS are that the opportunities within Western Samoa for profitable investment are becoming increasingly known overseas and that a great deal more foreign capital will be flow ing into this part of the world over the next few years from both private investors and friendly gov ernments and international or ganisations.

There is little doubt, either, that Samoa is on the brink of a tourist boom and with the impetus given by the Heart of Polynesia con ference . . . the flow of tourists over the next few years is likely to reach tidal wave proportions.

A major resource in forestry is almost certain to be exploited on a large scale within the next year

or so, and other major industrial enterprises in the form of a fish cannery, food processing, etc., are close to realisation.

At the same time replanting pro grammes and better management of plantations have been instituted and are certain to result in greatly increased export of agricultural products within the next few years.

There is obviously going to be a lot more money and many more jobs in this country as each month goes by from now on. People will be better off. The only trouble is that in the process a few people are going to get a lot better off than everybody else and the vast inequity in wealth and opportunity that now exists in the population of this country will be greater still.

What is going to be done to rectify the situation is perhaps the most serious and explosive problem this country has yet to face.— Editorial in the “Apia Advertiser”, Apia.

WHY do some of my own people of Guadalcanal not respect the female teachers of Guadalcanal?

One of the possible reasons for a seeming disrespect is that some men do not understand the dignity of females as equal to males in our present age. Most of our elders and even some young people still think that females are there just to work in the gardens to produce food and in the house to beget children.

If that is the only way they look at females then they have not understood the dignity of women. They are using women merely as a means to an end, namely, to get their bellyful and to satisfy their sexual appetites.

These people must be taught to understand that times have changed and we are not to treat females as though they are second-rate human beings.

Let us today in the Solomons not look on women as belonging to an inferior caste. I said times have changed, but I did not say that we should do away with all our customs because of this. We must understand that some of our customs are good and some are bad.— Letter from Camilus Teke in the “BSIP News Sheet”, Honiara.