Pacific Foundation

Decides Which

Way To Head

By a staff reporter

Everybody in Sydney in February seemed to be asking, “What is the Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific?” The foundation, previously unheard of locally, had suddenly got itself columns of publicity by arranging a gala preview of an MGM film, which was attended by the cream of Sydney society.

Proceeds went to the foundation.

To find out about it I sought out the founder, Mrs. Maurice Silverstein, and its executive director, Father Staney Hosie, both of whom were in Sydney from New York to launch the foundation’s New South Wales branch—the first branch outside of the parent American organisation at 101 West 55th Street, New York.

The parent body has a charter to raise public subscriptions, tax deduc tible. It was launched 16 months ago.

It turned out that Mrs. Silverstein was the former film actress Betty Bryant, born in England but who had spent her early years in Australia (where she made “Forty Thousand Horsemen”). She has lived in America since her marriage to the man who is now president of MGM International.

No plans yet

Father Hosie is an Australian Roman Catholic priest, who became interested in South Pacific problems a few years ago when he toured some of the islands to gather material for a history of Marist missionaries.

“I felt that help was needed for the people, particularly in health and education, and that some kind of international organisation could do the job,” said Father Hosie.

“Christians can’t do much on their own, and although I am a Catholic I didn’t want any particular religious bias—just the best means of obtain ing help.”

So Mrs. Silverstein, a long-standing friend of Father Hosie, put her social weight behind the launching of the foundation, and obtained Father Hosie’s secondment from the church as the foundation’s full-time executive director.

How will the foundation help the people of the South Pacific? Father Hosie admits he doesn’t know yet.

He is just beginning to develop a programme.

He has talked to those people in the US, British and Australian governments responsible for South Pacific affairs and he says they are all happy for the foundation to dc something—start clinics perhaps, sub sidise training courses.

But what? It’s wait and see,