The Editor's Mailbag

The Thoughts Of Skinner

Sir, —Thank you for giving so much space to the Skinner views on the Islands and Democracy ( PIM , Jan., p. 33).

However, I fear your writer was too nice. He spent so much time on my theoretical views on what makes democracy work that he omitted the main historical fact of interest to your readers that there is more present democracy and self-government in the Pacific Islands than in over half of the countries that belong to the United Nations, and particularly more than in the majority of the countries that make up the “Com mittee of Twenty-Four” which is always demanding self-determination for Pacific Islands when the majority of its members permit no self-deter mination in their own countries.

Carlton Skinner.

Skinner & Co., San Francisco,

Usa.

News Of // Staghound ,/

Sir, —Re the letter from F.

Mortimore regarding news of Paul Hurst of Staghound, I would be in terested to read of their whereabouts as I got to know Paul very well during his visit to Tahiti.

I would also like to find out some news of Dick and Abby Stafford in their boat Meridian.

Hope all is well in the Islands.

Apart from the fact that we have had 80 inches of snow this year and that it is minus 15° Farenheit here in Montreal, things are OK. Our family looks forward to revisiting some of our old haunts in the South Pacific in 1970.

J. S. Shephard.

International Civil Aviation Organisa tion, Montreal, Canada. • J. S. Shephard is, of course, the celebrated “Captain Joe”, who pioneered the Coral Route to Tahiti for Air NZ.

Stamp Information, Please

Sir, —Through the good offices of a friend of mine, I have been fortun ate in receiving a number of old copies of your magazine, from which I have been extracting some useful material about the collection of post age stamps in my possession.

My collection for the various islands of the South Pacific is almost com

plete, in the modem issues, and I am now in the process of “writing up” the stamps for educational purposes in the school in which I teach. This means attempting to gather together all the information possible concern ing the pictures on the stamps, and illustrating this as attractively as pos sible, either with drawings or photo graphs if available.

Obtaining such information, or obtaining correspondents in some of these tiny islands is no easy task, and I am wondering if any of your readers can help me.

I sincerely hope that some of your readers will be able to assist me in this great project work, which is giv ing me such great fun, and is being of such tremendous interest to the lads in the school as well as other members of the staff.

G. Moir.

The Ashburton Secondary Boys’ School, Shirley Road, Croydon, Surrey, England.

Bsip Forestry Law

Sir, —Mr. Charles K. Man, in his letter {PIM, Oct., 1968) on the BSIP Forestry Law, not only raised a point but improved on it when he expressed the concern and resentment of land owners over the policy of declaring Forest Areas in native customary land. In fact, these Forest Areas were intended as a measure of conserva tion of one of our most valuable natural resources, and by no means as an act of confiscation or ex propriation. Compulsory acquisition of land has never been used for forestry in this country.

All that, however, is now a matter of past history, as in the December meeting of the Legislative Council, the White Paper on Forestry Policy was well debated and a happy solu tion found to the vexed problem of the unpopular Declared Forest Areas.

In the words of the Conservator of Forests, Mr. K. Treneman, “Forest Areas—will go—as soon as alternative controls over our import ant timber resources can be brought into force. There are no ifs or buts or exceptions. All the Forest Areas will be cancelled, and powers to de clare them will be removed from our legislation.”

The alternative form of control, which gained unanimous acceptance

Letters

in the council, is a system of licences for the commercial timber operators.

Sawmillers and log exporters will need to have licences for their opera tions, but the owners of land will be free to use their land as they wish.

They can fell trees to make gardens, or for the manufacture of canoes and artifacts, or for the provision of building poles or firewood. There will be no interference with the customary usage of the land.

There will be a little indirect re striction in the main forest tracts, where a landowner who wishes to sell his trees can do so only by sale or lease of his land to the govern ment (the right still being his as to whether he negotiates or not). But in the less important timber tracts the landowner is free to negotiate directly and sell his timber to a licensed sawmill.

The Conservator of Forests ex pressed his confidence that these con trols will be sufficient for safeguard ing the national asset of the forests, and the Elected Members reassured the government that there is now no reasonable objection to forestry policy.

E. P. Marriott

Senior Information Officer, BSIP Government, Honiara.

Seen In Black And White

Sir, —Natives must never touch European girls. This rule must last forever—until the end of the world.

We feel, too, that it is bad for Europeans to marry native girls, be cause we natives are black and we don’t want to lose our black skins.

We want to remain as black as we are.

Therefore, European boys when they come to P-NG must have wives of their own. They must not come single—and turn black to white. . . . Europeans may be right to marry Red Skin girls to make them white. But not in Buka and Bougain ville—because our skin is nice black shining, like a shoe polished. Our custom life has never changed. . .

Thony James Porknomin.

Vocational School, Buin, Bougainville,

P-Ng.

• The reference to “Red Skins” is presumably aimed at NG Main landers who are so described on Bougainville. • For more letters see p. 53.