Prophesying is a risky business unless

you happen to have an "in" with the stars or, as most professional seers do these days, you shove in dozens of alternatives and ambiguities, one of which is almost sure to click. PIM has often stuck its neck out over the years, but honestly, and made some shrewd prognostications. Some came true, some didn't.

Twenty years ago this month we forecast—maybe warned would be a better word—that if the government began mucking about with fiscal changes in Papua New Guinea, toying with the idea of a free trade area with Australia, it would mean the arrival of the biggest bloodsucker that's ever been known—INCOME TAX.

They were blessed days in PNG when there was no such thing as income lax.

Then somebody thought to meddle wiih taxes and proposed a Customs union. PIM said: "The obvious fact is that, if the Customs Tariff is to be adjusted downwards, so as to allow goods to come in at reduced cost, revenue must come in from another source; and that, of course, would be taxation of incomes." PIM was right. It took another seven years but with cuts in Customs dues came the birth of income lax in the territory.

Other prophets said that if the tax man began dipping his claws into personal pockets, it would probably lead to an immediate exodus of Europeans from the territory, particularly the salaried class. That was way out.

There was no exodus, but there was an awful row about it.

That was Papua New Guinea in May, 1952. In most other places in the Islands life just jogged on, as did the Sou<h Pacific Commission which was holding its ninth session around the beginning of the montji. The United States, which had only a short time before joined the commission as administrator of the Trust Territory of Micronesia, was attending its first meeting. The chairman was Mr. N. A. J. de Voogd of the Netherlands.

In those days of course there wasn't the s’me publicity given to their deliberations. The Islanders were content to do what they were told and take what the Metropolitan powers thought

was good for them. There was the usual list of projects; surveys of this, that and the other, coffee, coconuts and cocoa growing and fish supplies in the lagoons.

They're still at it with identical surveys which never seem to produce anything o:her than reports and some nice fat fees for experts. PIM had a go at the whole setup in its Up Front with the Editor this February and got a pat on the back from Bill Forsyth in a letter to the Editor in the April PIM. As he was the SPC's first Secretary-General he knew what he was talking about.

Rice growing is one of the subjects which the SPC has toyed with from time to time and through the commission's efforts, or the United Nations Development Programme, or both, there's more home grown rice in the South Pacific than ever before. But that wasn't the case 20 years ago. PlM's Honiara correspondent told readers of a crisis which had arisen in the Solomons—a shortage, nearly a famine, caused by a production drop in Australia.

It was really an artificial shortage because there was any amount available from other sources but import licences were needed and so few were granted to suppliers elsewhere that Australian growers almost had a monopoly. Because of a production drop at home, the Australian Government refused a quota to the Solomons. There were no rations for labourers and PIM pointed out that it could seriously affect the protectorate's economy since copra could not be produced if labourers had no rice.

There were several deaths recorded that May, notably that of Captain Kini McPherson, who died in Suva at the age of 63 on April 30. He has a niche in the Islands, indeed in world history, as the instrument by which the notorious World War I German sea raider, Count von Luckner was captured at Wakaya Island. Von Luckner and his party landed on Wakaya after the wreck of the "Seadler" and McPherson, who was sheltering with his cutter at Wakaya heard and recognised the language spoken by the German raiders McPherson hightailed it for Levuka and raised the alarm. And that was the end of von Luckner's raiding career.

One story was about filthy lucre; a host of complaints from Tahiti about the large number of filthy and torn banknotes in circulation in French Oceania. A sample reached PlM's offices and PIM described it as being the "dirtiest and most delapidated bit of money we have ever seen". One writer said "Everyone hates this filthy money". Us, we'd sooner have $20,000-worth of filthy notes

than half that in crisp, clean, germ-free stuff.

Another bit of light relief was about a report in the Sydney "Sun" quoting an American visitor who said that, as the recent hurricane had destroyed schools in Fiji, classes were being housed in breweries, which were strongly built and s ocd up to severe weather. She said there was a brewery in every small town.

No doubt, temperance advocates were horrified, but PIM put the record straight.

Said PIM. "Little Audrey laughed and Irughed because she knew that what Mrs. Ongley said was 'Bure', not '3rewery' and that a 'Bure' is a native house, built of native materials."

Other stories paraded by PIM included the loss of Burns Philp's inter-island motor vessel "Lolowai", which ran ashore on Ambrym Island in the New Hebrides; first moves to film "His Majesty O'Keefe" at Deuba in Fiji; an increase in TEAL's flights between Auckland and Suva from a weekly service to three flights fort nightly; and plans to teach natives in the New Guinea Highlands how to weave wool from the sheep which had been introduced into the area a short time previously.

Sheep production hasn't flourished as much as was hoped but there's a deal of weaving going on today in the Highlands. There's no shortage of wool though. Some politicians pulled a lot of it over the eyes nf the voters in the recent elections!