The Editors' Mailbag

Mayor Laroque

Sir, —I refer to the report headed A \i/i n frw- Anfnnomkts in NftW

, . . . .. ... developments in linguistics .Th e other is that a colleague of mine recently bought a scientific

e political upheavals and discontent at preceded independence hindered y satisfactory and continuing ex riment.

Having at last come to the Pacific, have so far been unable to learn lether there was any all-out at npt made to introduce Basic iglish as a lingua franca in the icific, and if so, why it was andoned—if it has been in all eas. Can anyone enlinghten me, d others who may be interested?

My curiosity has been deepened two facts. One is that the Rev. . G. Camden, of Santo, has recently and it necessary, as an immediate d practical means of communica >n, to translate into Bislama (New jbridean pidgin) the Gospel of St. ark, under the title “Gud Nyus long Jisas Krais, Mak I Raiteni”— job which he has done most ectively with the aid of the newest

t 0 operate a service to Norfolk island and New Caledonia on a regular basis and at the same time asked for government assistance in getting the service operating correctly.

Initially we asked for a guaranteed freight to be paid on a service operating every six weeks and for the guarantee to be available for the next three years. The department, however, was only prepared to assist the service for 12 months, when they would again review the position, After the first 12 months, the department was not satisfied with the progress made, and against our protests they reduced the guarantee payable and decreased the sailings to every eight weeks. Their thinking in this matter was that the same amount of cargo would be offering in the given period, but with the lesser sailings the guarantee would, of course, be less and thus the

d have a lesser pay believed the depart a tactical error in it-back in the fre »s and advised them s elementary, in our believe we are by all merchants and lat when endeavour > a trade a regular ial to gain the cen ters and buyers, and nent’s view that the :ut-back was hamper mt. d until about the year when we put •osal to government extend our service, and faster vessel, dedonia (which was t terminal) to take i and the Solomon ;r words our service ;rated on a 35 day [over the following sland, Noumea, Port abaul, Honiara, Vila, ck to New Zealand, •n was, we thought, I received by the

Minister of Overseas Trade, the Right Hon. J. R. Marshall, and he advised us to get the support of the ex porters in forming this development service.

We accordingly arranged the necessary meetings and from these came the South Pacific Export Action Committee who were then charged with substantiating our earlier pro posals to government that such a service was warranted in view of the increasing demand for New Zealand exports to the suggested areas.

SPEAC submitted proposals which supported our own proposals and detailed evidence of the need for such a service was sent to the department and the Minister in October, 1967, where it has been under consideration ever since by the department’s experts.

Quite understandably our plans

>uld not be kept confidential, with ie result that some months ago hers made approaches to the gov nment to enter the trade, and they e: the German Columbus Lines, hich intends to trade from New •aland to New Guinea; Messagerie aritimes, which is also intending to ade from New Zealand, but only far as Noumea; and the Reef avigation Co., which is intending trade between New Zealand and oumea and other Pacific Islands.

We have never asked for a subsidy be payable to us for this service, it merely a guaranteed freight that >uld, in effect, be a loan, and we L ve offered to repay the money yable to us in the form of a aranteed freight once the service is operating profitably. Because of b lack of support we have received :>m the government and also be use of the announced intention of i numerous other companies to ter the trade, we could not continue run the service at a loss as we d in the past, and therefore our •ectors were reluctantly compelled cut their losses and withdraw from ; trade.

I personally was extremely sorry having to announce the decision withdraw as a great deal of effort our staff, both ashore and on ard our vessels, had gone into this nture. I might add that our cision in no way affects the service Tahiti presently operated by igga Dan.

I. A. Mckay

General Manager, Holm and Company Limited ickland, NZ

"Unjust And Uncalled For"

Sir, —May I, as a subscriber of ur journal, be allowed to comment Tun Sambanthan’s speech re rted by your Suva correspondent IM, April, p. 18).

I was somewhat suprised to read ; views expressed by him. Mr. mbanthan and his colleagues were Fiji on a goodwill visit, and as :h, were entertained on behalf of the communities in the colony, s remarks regarding Indians were fortunate and tantamount to inter ing in the domestic affairs of a endly country.

I am quite certain what he said is not the official policy of the ilaysian government. Regarding his narks about Mahatma Gandhi, I i sure Gandhi would have made

remarks for the benefit of the whoh community and would have pleadec for better understanding.

It is a well established conventioi that any Commonwealth delegatioi visiting a Commonwealth or colonial territory ought to confine itself learm ing about country’s affairs rather thai making rash statements.

I believe his statement wa unjust and uncalled for, and tha it did not help to solve anything Since the colony is passing througl great changes, which in the long rui will affect the general standard o living and political stability, lb country needs more than anything, ; firm leadership.

By allowing an outsider to interferi in the internal affairs, the Govern© and the government failed in thei constitutional duties, and, in fad established a bad precedent. (Tb classic example is de Gaulle’s inter ference in Canadian politics).

I have great pleasure of knowin, many Malaysians in London, am practically everyone of them con demned fhe behaviour of Tun Sam banthan. My friends pointed out tha Tun Sambanthan, as a member o the minority community in Malaysb enjoys all the rights and privilege in pari passu with the homogeneou communities.

For him to utter such remark about a particular community in Fij: when on a friendly visit, was in comprehensible.

R. S. Naiker

London, SW7.

New Guinea Civilisation

Sir.—To many the oppositioi thrown up by some of the Bougair ville natives to the operations c Conzinc Riotinto is considere: foolish. However, I can see thei point. It means the end of an ers and though an era sometimes fraugh with troubles and strife, one in whic they could handle their own troubles After all the traveller on the bulloc dray was quite as happy, and a 1c less prone to mental disorders thai the traveller on the jets of today.

Also it ends an era in this country the end of the old time prospector This to me is a sad parting of th ways in history. To men like Ms Crowe, Sharkeye Park and th Leahy brothers, the driving fore was not only the lure of a fortuu overnight, but the flaunting of dange and hardship to see what was rourr the next bend.

Today, the men who will dra\ most of the profits are the me sitting in plush-lined apartmeni

watching a televised show of a prospecting lease carried out by helicopter. Individuality has been :omputerised, like entertainment.

Where once he enjoyed old time dances, he can now sit and watch pictures of Hollywood seductions and European hoodlums fighting with guns.

There are many who say, “Look what we are giving to the natives— roads, education, refrigeration and all mod cons”. But what are we ;aking away? A life of contentment, with plenty of food to go round (this :ountry is not India), a perfect sex ife conforming to the laws of nature, a belief in spirits which helped keep lown crime, and no lust to get all and in their own hands so they can make their neighbours slave for hem.

When they love their neighbours and hate their enemies, the process s simple. Instead of the complicated process of supplying both sides with mough arms to keep fighting, they fither feed them or eat them. Is the :ivilised process so far advanced? wonder how many of the potentates >f civilisation would swap places vith a leader of a tribe in the middle )f New Guinea?

The poor, unfortunate, civilised aative now has to work eight hours i day to get himself a pair of boots hat he wouldn’t need in his own mvironment. The only essentials a aative needs to live, feed and house limself and a family are a scrub mife and a tomahawk.

Outside the larger cities I can nostly be found with a pair of shorts ind a pair of sandals, quite often vithout the sandals. I feel very sorry or the poor Royal P-NG Consta mlary lugging those great clodhop >ers around sandy streets.

Lance H. Wilkinson.

tfilne Bay, J apua.

What Sort Of A Thief

Is The Robber Crab?

Sir, —The robber or coconut crab Birgus latro ) is well known, by iame at least, to most residents in he South Sea Islands. Despite this, me important point about its life listory has so far eluded us—that is, whether it can or cannot open un njured coconuts with its powerful laws.

Interest in this particular activity las been maintained ever since

Darwin dealt with the habits of this crab during his visit in 1836 to the Cocos-Keeling Atoll.

Contrary to popular belief, Darwin at no time claimed to have witnessed the crab breaking coconuts, but merely reported that a certain Mr.

Liesk had often seen the crab do this to fallen nuts. He claimed that nuts were not attacked on the palm.

The closest that anyone seems to have come to observing the feeding of the crab was on Malaupaina Island (one of the Three Sisters) in the Solomons about 80 years ago.

A Royal Navy surgeon, Dr. H. B.

Guppy, of HMS Lark, disturbed a robber crab with a freshly-opened coconut on this uninhabited island.

Captive crabs kept on board the Lark could feed only after coconuts had first been broken.

A Dutch scientist, A. Reyne, in 1938 confirmed that in Indonesia there is no convincing evidence that the crab can open uninjured nuts.

Finally, the late Dr. C. A. Gibson- Hill, as a result of observations on Christmas Island and Cocos-Keeling Atoll, agreed in 1948 that the crab is unable to break undamaged nuts and certainly does not climb palms in search of them.

It seems most likely that readers of PIM are in a very good position to clear up this vexing point about the feeding habits of the robber crab.

Anyone who has observed it feed ing on uninjured nuts would be doing a great service if they could provide details of time and place. Un tunately the crustacean is nocturnal as a general rule which makes clear observation very difficult.

R. A. Lever

Surrey, England.

Leatherbacks In Ng

Sir, —In answer to your request for further information on Leather back turtles ( PIM, June, p. 57), these turtles are quite common along the coast of the Aitape Sub-district of NG’s West Sepik.

I recently saw one which had been caught by plantation workers at Tapir Plantation, just west of Aitape.

It took 10 men to turn it on its back and a tractor was used to pull it up from the beach.

It was just over 8 ft long and must have weighed half a ton.

Unfortunately it was not so lucky as the one caught in Fiji {PIM, March, p. 115), and ended up in the

cooking pot.

John H. Allen.

Yalingi Primary “T” School, via Aitape, NG.