People

• Mr. R, H. Scott, recently retired as Director of the Farm Advisory Division of New Zealand’s Depart ment of Agriculture, was to take up his new appointment as Director- General of Agriculture for the Cook Islands at the end of November, Mr. Scott has wide experience in agricultural administration, knows about the requirements of an effective extension service, and is experienced in the political and financial fields. • The Tongan Commissioner and Consul in the United Kingdom, the Hon. Vaea, recently opened his offices on the 17th floor of New Zealand House at the Haymarket, London. He was appointed to the post about four months ago. • Sir James and Lady Donald of Auckland paid a one-hour visit to Rarotonga in October on the Matson cruise ship Monterey. Visitors are not normally allowed ashore at Raro tonga from Matson vessels, which stay only long enough to circle the island, but 90-year-old Sir James wished to see the recently completed Seventh-day Adventist Church near Avarua, to which he had donated a substantial sum. He is associated with A. B Donald Ltd., an old established firm in the Cook Islands and Tahiti. • Mr. Desmond Joseph Dowdall. a graduate of the University of Dublin and formerly Adminstrator General of Tanzania, arrived at Nauru in early November as the Republic’s Secretary for Justice. • Among the more venerated visitors to Tonga in November was Elder LeGrand Richards, member of the Council of the Twelve Anqstles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon), who came to preside over a two-day conference of the church’s Nukualofa “stake”, or branch. Author of three widely-read church books, including one translated into the Tongan language. Elder Richards has devoted 60 years of service to the church, and heads a successful real estate business. • Mr. G. J. Donne, currently sitting magistrate at Rotorua, New Zealand, has been appointed for three years, a Puisne Judge in West ern Samoa. He’ll take up his post in early February.

• Mr. J. R. Taylor, Islands rep for Wilton and Bell Dobbie and Partners, which have taken part in many wharf, water supply and con servation projects for Islands govern ments in recent years, is on a six week “break” in London with plans to be back in the New Hebrides in February next year to advise on the Vila wharf construction. His Islands trips late this year have included the Solomons, Fiji, the GEIC, the Hebrides and Norfolk Island. • The Gilbert and Ellice Islands’

Commissioner of Labour, Mr. H. M.

Murphy, has been named chairman of the colony’s newly-formed Interim Apprenticeship Board. Other board members so far named are Messrs.

R. Marshall, Commissioner of Works, and J. Woods, deputy Chief Educa tion Officer, • Peni Tutuila, 58, composer and traditional dance expert, left Tonga recently to study traditional forms dancing in the Cook Islands, Tahiti and the New Hebrides. He has retired from his job as a driver. • Among the many officials pre sent at the opening of the fourth airstrip in the Gilberts, Butaritari, in early November, was Miss E. J.

Emery, head of the Pacific and Indian Ocean Department of

Britain’s Foreign and Common wealth Office. She was in the colony to discuss matters concerning the select committee on the new GEIC constitution. • Mr. Oala Oala-Rarua, New Guinea’s Assistant Ministerial Mem ber for the Treasury, made a diversional trip to Vila, New Hebrides, after returning from Noumea, New Caledonia, where he was a member of the P-NG delega tion at the South Pacific Confer ence. In Vila, Oala had a good look at the French and British way of doing things as well as meeting top officials. • Fiji is well-known, New Guinea is being undersold and only rarely heard of. Such was the comment of a Hong Kong-based travel executive in the South Pacific in November.

He also said Saipan, Mariana Islands, was currently the “in” spot for tourists out of Tokyo, Japan.

The executive: Mr. Z. B. Kaelin. general manager, Far East, Swiss Air Transport Co. Ltd. • “Robby” Roberts, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Government’s num ber two man, in Suva, in November on a tourism study tour, had this to say on tourism in the GEIC: “At the moment there’s no such thing as a tourist industry, but the people are in favour of having one.

All we need is a straight air service.”

Robby wasn’t saying however, which airline had said it would pro vide such a run to the GEIC. • High Chief Lefiti Faitasi, District Governor of American Samoa’s Manua Islands, retired recently after 33 years in his post.

Now 76, he was born at Tau, Manua, in 1894, and served with the US Navy from 1914 to 1936. His home today is in Pago Pago, on Samoa’s main island of Tutuila, O Mr. James Whistler, guesthouse owner and editor of the weekly news sheet Signal, has been elected for a three-year term as island member of the Lord Howe Island Board. He recently won 70 votes while the other candidate, Mr. P. W. Dignam, won 55 votes. Mr. Whistler was island board member from 1957 to 1966. • Mr. M. J. Pitchford, a social welfare organiser with experience in England and Zambia, has been ap pointed senior health education officer (familv planning) to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony.

Mr. losefa Setu, an architectural draughts man with the Western Samoan Govern ment, was in New Zealand recently, where he looked at housing designs.