On the record

No sexual danger in

this tablet taking

The Medical Department’s tasks in the remoter parts of Fiji must seem difficult enough without rumours such as the latest one relating to filarial tablets!

The department has reported that the people of Macuata and Bua were reluctant to take the tablets be cause they feared their sex life would be affected.

A spokesman said: “There is a rumour in Macuata that the filarial tablets, which have to be taken regu larly to cure filariasis, will prevent people from having children and that they interfere with men’s sex life.

“The Medical Department wishes to tell the people of Macuata and Bua most emphatically that this rumour is not true”.

The spokesman urged the Indian population and all the people in the area to support the anti-filarial cam paign and to take the tablets at the prescribed time.

He added: “The rumours about the tablets interfering with the pro creation of children and with sex life are pure imagination—but there is no imagination about the dreadful results which can stem from filariasis once it gets a firm hold.

“It can lead to the appalling dis figurement of elephantiasis, apart from it having a very bad effect on general health. The debilitation caused by filariasis is certainly calcu lated to interfere with sex life. The tablets will not interfere with it”.

Trait ends for

shell collector

Islands shell collectors probably won’t be seeing Willard Mohorter again. The 82-year-old American has decided to call it a day after 37 years criss-crossing the world, in cluding the South Pacific, buying or collecting all kinds of shells.

Mr. Mohorter will now concentrate on managing the shell collection in a museum in his home town, Cin cinnati, Ohio. Of the museum’s 23,000 shells, he has loaned 20,000 of them.

Mr. Mohorter retired 12 years ago as a publishing company executive, but long before that, from 1934, he had been taking several months off each year to travel the world in

search of shells. In that time he has amassed the world’s largest individual collection of shells —more than 650,000. Mr. Mohorter has been visiting Fiji since the 1930 s and New Guinea since the late 19405, and once made news in Rabaul, New Guinea, by paying $l,lOO for a Gloria maris shell.

Making money's not

all easy cash

Making money’s not so popular any more, it seems, in the Solomons, A suggestion that a workshop or fac tory be set up on Malaita in the British Solomon Islands to make shell money, was turned down by a recent meeting at Busu, Small Malaita.

The meeting, attended by eight chiefs from the Tarapaina area and local council members, was called because there was some concern about the shortage of shell money, and the fact that the number of people able to make it was decreasing.

One of the reasons for the shortage was said to be that young girls were not interested in making the money because the job took a long time and because they were not paid well. It was explained at the meeting that it takes six months or more to make a ta’afuliae and costs about $72 if the people making it are paid in dollars.

At the meeting it was suggested that a factory be set up to make the money more quickly. It could then be sold and the workers better paid.

However (according to the local BSIP news sheet) the idea was op posed by several Langa Langa people, who did not think the art of making shell money was dying out. They said if a family wanted to make more, it was up to the man of the house to make the women work harder.

Confectionery takes

Fiji coconuts

Having been presented with an ?asy, profitable alternative outlet for their coconuts, some Savusavu danters have stopped producing copra >n their estates.

They are supplying husked coco mts to an American confectionery nanufacturing firm, Mendonca bandies. Its Nausori factory pro luces frozen 1010 (coconut cream) or sweet-making in Hawaii. The company has plans to open a desic ated coconut factory about two ailes from Savusavu township.

In negotiations with the company’s epresentative, Mr. Gerald Kleiman,

the Copra Producers’ Association has managed to get a higher price for a ton of husked coconuts than is currently being paid for a ton of first-grade copra.

Mr. Robbie Lepper, of Wina Estate, was among the first to benefit when Mendonca Candies started buy ing husked coconuts from Savusavu about a year ago. He has been able to stop producing copra on his four estates and, as the company’s purchasing agent in the area, is now buying on its behalf from 10 other estates.

The company is reported to pay about SFI44 a ton (about 6,000 nuts). The price is fixed and there are no fluctuations.

“We don’t have to worry about the price of copra anymore,” Mr.

Lepper said. “WeTe sending at present about 300 sacks of coconuts ;ach week to the Mendonca factory. [ hope to increase this to 700 sacks.”

He said there were no freight charges. All that the planter had to io was husk the coconuts, count and ?ag them and payment was made on he spot.

Visitor business

• The Trust Territory received 16,700 visitors last year according to he Office of Tourism —an increase )f 30 per cent, over 1969. Direct ourist expenditure in 1970 amounted o $2 million—about double that of [969. US visitors amounted to 60 )er cent., while Japanese tourists emained at 1969’s level of about 25 >er cent. Marianas had the most dsitors while Ponape had the fastest ;rowth rate. • Back in Agana, Guam, is Nor )ert Unpingco, the newly-appointed lirector of Guam Visitors’ Bureau, rom a world-wide whistle-stop tour o promote Guam, sponsored by |anAm’s arch rival, TWA. Miss juam International, Flora Baza, ac companied Unpingco on his trip. • Fiji, in the first quarter of this r ear, had 10,000 more staying visitors han in the first quarter last year, '5,000 compared with 25,000. Most pectacular increase was in Canadian isitors who, for the same period, in reased by more than 81 per cent, 'lew Zealanders were 50 per cent, lore, Americans 48 per cent, and Uistralians 32 per cent. The March 3tal was nearly 33 per cent, more han that for March last year, with Americans contributing nearly 5,000 3 the total of 12,000, Australians early 3,000, New Zealanders 1,300 nd Canadians over 800. Only 3 per ent. of the March visitors came by ea.