Nutshell

In a Nutshell

• The new officer-in-charge of Mount Hagen (New Guinea) police station, Inspector B. Chape, spent two hours at the Mount Hagen Hotel on July 3 speaking to villagers about the problem of stone-throwing by local people, and asked for greater co operation with the police. As he drove away, he was farewelled with a shower of stones thrown by one of his audi ence. Later, villagers apologised for the man’s “breach of faith”. There were six other stone-throwing incidents the same night, indicating a growing trend towards violence in the area. • Fiji Airways, in changing its name to Air Pacific, makes this claim, probably unrivalled, in its first AP timetable “Only Air Pacific flies to an independent state (Western Samoa), a protectorate (the BSIP), a condo minium (the New Hebrides), a colony (the GEIC), a territory (Papua New Guinea), a kingdom (Tonga) and a republic (Nauru).”

Only one missing seems to be a dic tatorship.

• Although some co-operative societies in PNG have fallen by the wayside, the success ratio of the movement is better than in many advanced Western countries. Ac cording to figures produced by Mr.

Paulius Matane, secretary of the Business Development Department, co-operatives returned an average of 15.8 per cent, on their outlay in 1969-70. The Co-operative Extension Division has about 160 field in the territory guiding the 380 established co-operatives and new business opportunities are being created with an experimental silk worm industry in the Southern and Western Highlands and textile weav ing in the Highlands where about 100 looms have been set up. Further pottery making and textile weaving at Port Moresby’s Small Scale In dustries Centre show promise of future avenues for more people to establish their own businesses.

• A consortium of banks operat ing in Fiji is expected to lend the dominion $6 million to help it take over the sugar industry from the South Pacific Sugar Mills. Share holders will be bought out at a cost of $lO million plus $3,750,000 for the land. The World Bank has also agreed to finance the new road from Suva to Nadi. Fiji’s Minister of Finance, Mr. Wesley Barrett, who visited London, the United States, Switzerland and Malaysia looking for financial aid for Fiji, was full of optimism, when he returned home in July, about prospects of loans. He was followed into Suva by Mr.

Anthony Best, a representative of the

world-wide Rothschild banking or ganisation. Mr. Best spent two days in Fiji. • Mr. Rupert Alexander Maxwell Colyer, one of the founders of Colyer Watson, the well known Islands trading firm, left an estate of $372,045. His will has been probated in the NSW Supreme Court. Mr.

Colyer, who lived in Vaucluse, Sydney, died on January 5, 1971, aged 81. He left $119,000 to Ruma Investments Pty. Ltd., and the re mainder of his estate to his wife and family. Duty on the estate was estimated at $164,000. Colyer Watson was taken over by Steamships Trading Co. Ltd. in the early 19605. • From July 1 wages and salaries in the Trust Territory are being taxed for the first time. Everybody em ployed for wages is subject to a flat tax of 3 per cent, on his income, with no deductions and no graduated t in creases. There is also a tax of SUS4O on the gross receipts of all businesses operating in the TT up to $lO,OOO, with 1 per cent, on gross receipts above $lO,OOO in any one calendar year. The new taxes are expected to raise $2.5 million a year. Employers will withhold the taxes from em ployees’ wages as they earn, and tax returns don’t have to be filed.

• The Cook Islanders are planning to bottle imported liquor to prevent a price rise following an increase in freight charges. A bottling plant has been ordered from New Zealand and spirits will be imported in 56-gallon containers. Whisky, rum, gin and unfortified wines will be bottled. The job of collecting bottles has been given exclusively to the Boys Brigade. • The Cook Islands Rarotongan Bible is out of date. It also contains misspellings and mistranslations and some of the old Maori words are double-Dutch to today’s young people.

The Rev. H. C. Bischoff of the Bible Society in New Zealand discovered these things for himself when he visited Rarotonga recently, The old Rarotongan Bible, he was told, was translated by a European whose knowledge of the Cook Juanas dialects was far from perfect. The Bible Society is expected to appoint

a committee to consider the job of retranslation —but that job could take up to 30 years. • Kieta Local Government Coun cil has approved the purchase of 3,000 Bougainville mining shares and scotched a rumour some Nasioi people were spreading that owner ship of the shares would give the company a claim to their land.

• With the help of Japanese manufacturers, Fiji’s duty-free shops are hoping to beat Australia’s new Customs limitations on duty-free goods. New rules brought into force by the Australian Customs on July 1 limit the weight at which transistor radios can be brought in duty-free to under 4 lb, and to under 12 lb for such items as tape recorders and re cord players. Japanese manufacturers are hoping to send to Fiji a new, light weight combination radio, tape . re corder and record player. Its weight: will be 111 lb. • Two plantations and an agricul tural station will be taken over by the; PNG Government for a new satellite: town on 600 acres of land five miles; from Rabaul on the Gazelle Peninsula..

Industry and low-cost housing on the: site will relieve pressure on Rabaul which is short of land for industrial! development. Mrs. Greenwood, owner of Vunawutung plantation, has agreed! to sell it to the government for $70,000 and negotiations are beings carried out for the purchase of Vuna kamkambi plantation from Mr.. F.

Chow. The government is worried, however, over the refusal of the Rasi man people to allow the building oi a power station at Kabaira Bay on the peninsular to continue. Failure this project may jeopardise the de-: velopment of the satellite town. • Passengers in an American Air lines Boeing 707 jet airliner slid dowi the emergency chutes when the plane landed at Nadi Airport in Fiji on July 15. Just before the landing, the pilot was told there was a bomb aboard It turned out to be a hoax, aimed ai the bearded Bishop Crowther, of Cali; fornia, on his way home after lead ing anti-apartheid demonstrators pro: testing against the South Africai Springboks rugby team in Australia.. • Drilling an exploratory well ir search of oil will begin on Tonga island of Tongatapu in late Septemr ber. The six-member consortium senior petroleum engineer from Thi Hague, Mr. Theo Albers, has gone tc Australia for further talks with thi companies concerned on local tacton and is also engaging drilling con: tractors.