Yesterday
p. 101 · Read in the full issue
American Samoa, Guam and the US Trust Territory were nearer civil government 20 years ago this month. President Truman, in May, 1949, called for the transfer from naval to civil administra tion of Guam within a year, and of American Samoa and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands within the next two to three years.
Mr. Truman spoke of his government’s intention of according civil government and full civil rights to the inhabitants of America’s Pacific territories.
Other items in PIM 20 years ago ncluded: A new, 27-seater bus was the :entre of controversy in Port Vloresby. Its owner, a local business nan, Mr. R. Corlett, had sold it to he Administration and no decision lad been made as to whether to nake it available for European or Vew Guinean users. If the Europeans von, word was the New Guineans vould get free services with older buses; if the New Guineans won, vord was an announcement would mmediately follow that another new bus was awaiting shipment to Vloresby from Australia!
Niue baskets were on sale in Sydney. Except that the people idling the baskets spelt Niue ‘Niuew”. PIM wondered how they ironounced it.
The Woodford Hotel opened for business in Honiara on May 14, 1949. Licensee was Ken Dalrymple -lay and on the morning of its first lay free beer flowed. That evening he doors of the hotel had to be bpened with the assistance of a lachet—the key had been mislaid luring the struggle to serve half of Toniara with free beer.
Hundreds of tons of rubber were ding up at storage points in Papua because of price disagreements—a natter of four-fifths of a penny— between local producers and Aus ralian buyers of rubber. Australian buyers had offered a price equal to vorld second-grade rubber, but 3 apuan planters wanted first-grade brices. Talks were on between the wo parties, and the Australian Gov srnment had been asked to intervene.
In Western Samoa, it was a time bf tragedy. A young nurse poisoned iers e 1 f at Savaii; a resident bf Apia hanged himself from a breadfruit tree; a Savaii mother killed ier newly-born baby and buried it; md a man from Faasaleleaga cut >ff the head of another Samoan with i knife. A motor bus crashed into i coconut tree outside Apia, and
killed a Samoan pedestrian and a child on the bus.
Following a wild “jungle-juice party” near the Lunga River, Guadal canal, in the Solomon Islands, one Solomon Islander died and another was seriously ill. Local stevedores and cookboys were in volved in the party, which began after a drum “of some war-purpose fluid” was found in an air-raid shelter.
Mr. R. R. “Dick” Laycock, leading Solomons identity since his arrival on Guadalcanal in 1905, and for nearly 20 years a PIM correspondent, died on his Papari Plantation, Santa Ysabel, on May 16, 1949.
Burns Philp and Co. Ltd.’s ship ping services made a loss of £73,000 for 1948-49, the Big Firm’s now dead chairman, Mr. Joe Mitchell, announced. Mr. Mitchell said Aus tralian port conditions were “lament able” and BP ships had spent only one-third of their time at sea, the other two-thirds in port.
“World’s Most Expensive Coffee Bean” ran the heading, in PIM. Mr. and Mrs. Fred Bannigan, of Wau, New Guinea, had paid £1,200 to have one small coffee bean extracted from the throat of their son, Murray, in a Brisbane hospital. But the value was there.
With a departure on June 9.
Skymaster aircraft instead of war time Lancastrians were to take over regular fortnightly services from Sydney to Norfolk Island. They are still flying them to Norfolk!
The building of an Anglican cathedral in Suva was likely to begin by the end of 1949, PIM reported.
The cathedral, in the heart of Suva, was to be completed in stages starting with the chancel. According to the Rt. Rev. L. S. Kempthorne, Bishop in Polynesia, “We shall erect the shell and leave it to posterity to complete the ornamentation.”
This picture of Mr.
Hugh Greig, of Fan ning Island, ap peared in RIM 20 years ago. He is holding a gun of solid brass which must have been used by an old-time Yankee whaler. The gun was fitted with a swivel, and had a double trigger ac tion, with two ham mers and two powder holes, to ensure against mis fires.