The Editor's Mailbag

Philatelic Flippancy

Your article ‘1973 Stamp Flood . Starts’ (PIM, Feb, p 10) might well cause some misunderstanding con cerning the stamp issues of the Gil bert and Ellice Islands. The article implies a certain flippancy regarding new stamp issues among Pacific coun i tries, and a tendency to produce rather more issues than may be justi fied. While this is almost certainly true of at least two countries in the area, to tar the GEIC with the same brush, as you have done, is to be quite misleading.

The stamp issuing policies of the GEIC are highly conservative, and normally no more than three new issues appear in each year, each issue usually having a face value below one dollar. Compared with most other countries (in or out of the Pacific) this is an extremely modest pro gramme by today’s standards and one which has resulted in the enviable respectability GEIC stamps enjoy among collectors. It is to be hoped that the article does not lead anyone to equate the stamps from this colony with those of the territories whose philatelic policies are really dubious.

I note, incidentally, that the greatest offenders when it comes to over doing it, were not actually among those mentioned in the article.

G. J. Hayward.

King George V School, Bikenibeu, Tarawa,

Geic.

• But PIM agreed that “it’s all a good healthy way of adding revenue to the coffers” and printed a sample of one of GEIC’s stamps which is good healthy publicity.

... And Philatelic Fault

It is not pleasant to have to demolish a myth—especially when it is still a baby—but I think I must correct your comments on the recent Fiji stamp issue celebrating the diamond jubilee of the Fiji Rugby Union (PIM, March, p 17).

The player portrayed kicking on the 25 cents stamp is not Pio Bosco Tikoisuva, whoever he is. I suspect that he exists only in the mind of the English designer of the stamp.

In fact, to let your philatelic readers into a little secret, the three stamps were designed in 1969 and Were intended for another issue which

was later cancelled. This was to commemorate the centenary of the Rugby Football Union in 1970. Since the stamps had already been designed, the Fiji Post Office decided to add the words “Diamond Jubilee of Fiji Rugby Union” plus the badge of the Fiji RU at the bottom and use it for the recent issue instead.

It would be nice to put names to all the players as in the case of Malakai Labaibure in 1951 issue, but they are not drawn from Fiji photos whatever their origin.

Incidentally, the union was formed in 1913, not 1903. You may be interested to know that this year is also the golden jubilee of the Tongan RU.

Derek Robinson.

Dept of Agriculture, Suva, Fiji. • The date 1903 was a typo graphical error which was detected too late for correction.

Underpaid In Fiji

I am writing this from Fiji.

Do those in authority in Fiji realise how underpaid the working and poorer classes are in Fiji?

Do the labour unions realise that even though they are getting a rise of 15c an hour, that is still only 50c an hour? Do they and the Fiji Gov ernment realise the cost of living in Fiji for the working and poorer families and the way they are forced to live? The homes—so-called—of these people are beyond me to find suitable words to describe. How can they live decently with a proper diet on the pitiful wages they are paid.

I know of one case where a Fijian lass is working six to seven days per week, and she gets the very princely sum of SFI3 a week. I know of a lad who is a baker, and in Australia they get for two days’ work what he gets for one whole week, I know and have met others—all the same sad story. They are willing to work, but cannot get a decent break.

With Fijians and Indians here it is the same story, and it is breeding bad trouble, bitterness and hatred.

Sadly I say we Europeans have a lot to answer for, as a great many of these larger concerns are European firms. I also understand that even those who are in what we would call good positions do not get paid as much as a European would if in the

Letters

same position here in Fiji. Can they not see the danger of what they are doing? When one looks at the posi tion in its right perspective one can not altogether blame the firms, as the ones that can really rectify these things are the government. They should and must stand behind their own people. Fiji is their land, not ours. These wrongs cannot be righted unless the government stands behind the unions and their own people before more racial hatred is born.

The ministers of the Fiji Govern ment have called for a rise for them selves. If they cannot live, how on earth do they expect the working people of Fiji to exist on what they earn? Cost of living is not low at all.

It’s quite high, and vegetables . . . well the less said about that the better. First there was Hurricane Bebe and a cyclone has again flat tened cane and ruined the crops that were starting to grow. Yet the people bear it all and try to carry on living, and will welcome the stranger to their homes with warmth and hospitality They are afraid, a great many ol them, to stand together in case the> lose their jobs. It needs a man like our Mr Hawke, with courage to help them. I always was taught that £ good day’s work deserved a gooc day’s pay.

A. Mclean[?]

Florence St, Tweed Heads,

Nsw.

Battle For War Relics

We read with interest your articb in the February issue of PIM (p 37.

“Fate of War Relics Launches Nev, Battle for the Solomons”. The las paragraph mentions that it is interest! ing to note that Tambea Village wai told only in May, 1972 by a dive: belonging to Laurent and Co that thi Zero was where it lies etc.

The real facts are as follows: 1 1 February, 1943, a young boy name; Kanuto Tigili, standing on the bead; at Tambea, watched an aeroplanr crash into the sea at Tambea an proximately 600 to 700 ft from thr shore. All the villagers fron Komimbo and Tambea knew thr position of the plane and for pas, 25 years it has been a popular fishinr spot. This boy, Kanuto Tigili, is a shareholder of Tambea Villag Resort. Another shareholder Pen Agroseni was the man who showeo;

the exact position of the plane to the diver of Laurent and Co.

I had been told by the people about a Zero lying in the water at Tambea Bay but it was not until 1971 that I was shown the exact position. The fact remains that the Gaubata Line people at Tambea had knowledge of the position of the Zero from the time it crashed. I represented not only Tambea Village Resort but also the people belonging to the Gaubata Line in the court action.

E. O. Torling,

Managing Director, Tambea Village Ltd.

Guadalcanal,

Bsip.

Arawa Is Beautiful

Arawa or Bougainville might look ugly but it is not. The people are all a lot more friendly than those of Moresby or Lae; the natives would be about the best behaved ever, ex cept when they have their tribal disputes.

I suppose the houses might look ugly but since they are all fully furnished people cannot really com plain, not that many of them have.

The township itself took about two to three years to build and it was not as easy as pie.

Arawa is a really good town so could you please stop putting it down. Maybe if the person who wrote that article would stay there for a year or two they would see what I’m driving at. It really is a beautiful place.

R. Nothdorft (Miss).

Sydney Church of England Girls Grammar School, Moss Vale,

Nsw.

• Arawa’s young defender is referring to an article in PlM’s September issue.

Instrument Of Terror

I am shocked to learn (PIM, Jan, p 104) that the Rt Rev David Hand, Anglican Bishop of Papua New Guinea is in favour of a non-military national service.

From 1933 until VE-Day in May, 1945, this type of totalitarian op pression was one of Hitler’s chief instruments of terror. I sincerely hope that you will publish this reminder of past actions of the epitome of the anti-Christ, so that the Queen’s Bishop of Papua New Guinea may come to his senses once more.

George Von Heldreich.

PO Box 545, Heligoland Island, West Germany.

• Last of the Letters, p 39

Letters

The Dear Dead Days

Your YESTERDAY section (PIM, I Nov 1972, p 77) set me to rocking I and dreaming (well, I was already I rocking) about those dear dead days I of the 1950 s when the Solents and I Strato-clippers (or cruisers) were I making air travel such a delight.

One trip in particular stands (or I sways) out. Three of us, language I students in Tokyo, somehow per- I suaded our tight-fisted comptroller I that a trip throughout Southeast and I South Asia to round out our educa tion was a must.

Off we went. Things got a little I boozy at the farewell party before r we left Haneda Airport, and the * tempo picked up as we spread our own peculiar brand of the Charming American around the Orient. At some point, and to this day we disagree as f to where it was, one night in a bar I we ran into a group of New Yorkers on their way to Indonesia. We all sat around telling lies and swilling, to the horror of the very proper bartender, ; beer and straight shots (boilermakers in Brooklynese) until the wee.

Although we were booked on BOAC (or maybe KLM or QAN TAS) for the next leg of our trip i (whatever that was), the three of us awakened to find that we were in a bar lounge that was moving at a good clip and at about 6,000 feet.

You’ll be happy to know that this did not bother us in the least. What did bother us was that the bar was closed, a situation for which we were totally unprepared. Our leader, an intrepid US Army Infantry major, found a set of stairs going up, and up the stairs he disappeared forthwith. Reappearing in a few minutes, white-jacketed bar tender in tow, he calmly announced that the bar we were in was hooked to the bottom of an airplane! And so, to our relief, it was. A lovely, lumbering, comfortable, luxurious, piston-engined Boeing Strato-clipper (or cruiser), no less.

I After we had helped our leader get the bartender squared away and in operation, we asked him (the major) where we were headed. He hadn’t the foggiest; so we dropped the subject.

New guests began appearing at the foot of the stairs as if dropped from the heavens, and they looked so familiar that we dropped our typical American reserve and asked them who they were. Turned out that they were members of a group of New

Yorkers on their way to Indonesia. A clue at last! Not only that, but one of their members read us into the scenario. We had, it turned out, all trooped down to the airline office, awakened the manager at 0300 hours that very morning, and with little or no trouble persuaded him that E Pluribus Enum meant just what we thought it did, ie, that if we didn’t join forces then and there, all of us headed out to gether, he would have to answer to the local police as to why a bunch of Rowdy Yanks were still in town.

We exchanged our tickets, picked up our baggage, and joined them, off to Indonesia.

Wonderful trip, wonderful people, wonderful food, wonderful grog, wonderful airplane. As far as we could tell, the entire passenger and crew list was represented in that lounge most of the time, and who flew the plane we’ll never know.

Maybe it was the bartender, since we had taken over his job at once and he had nothing to do. Made a good landing and take-off, too—several times.

Ah, yesterday.

Walt Higgins.

4001 Ridge Road, Annandale, Virginia, USA 22003.