Letters

Tuvalu’S

Independence

In one of your recent issues (PIM, Aug, p 12) you men tioned a letter I had written to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in London concerning representation in parliament for an independent Tuvalu.

You reported me as having asked the Secretary of State to remove the Chief Minister from office. In fact that was never said. Neither the Secre tary of State nor the Queen’s Commissioner in residence have the power to remove an elected Chief Minister. I made it plain when I wrote that “the action taken by the Chief Minister warranted his removal by a vote of no con fidence, but this was avoided for various reasons”.

The main points I had hoped the Secretary would concern himself with were; (1) the disregard of the Chief Minister, acting as chairman of the Constitutional Com mittee, for majority decisions of the Committee; and (2) when the question was put to a vote in parliament, elected members were evenly divid ed, and government only managed to win by the vote of an ex-officio member who was instructed by the Queen’s Commissioner (sitting in the gallery) to vote with the government.

Your readers may be in terested to know that the Secretary of State’s reply had to come through the resident Queen’s Commissioner. This may demonstrate FCO pro tocol, but I feel that the Secre tary ought to have had the decency to write to me direct.

The fact that he dodged the issues that I had raised clearly undermines the established constitutional principles at stake, particularly that of “majority rule”.

Isakala Paeniu

Nukulaelae, Tuvalu.

Gilberts’ Denial

The report in the October issue of PIM (p 15) “Gilbertese split on Ocean Is land future” suggesting that the Opposition Party in the Gilberts House of Assembly supports the Banabans’ cause on Ocean Island is entirely misleading.

The Gilberts’ delegate quoted by the Banabans is not a member of the Assembly and has, at no time, been authorised by the Opposition to speak for them on this mat ter.

The policy of the Opposi tion on the future of Ocean Is land is to maintain the inte grity of the territory of the Gilbert Islands including Ocean Island.

Ieremia Taabai

Leader of Opposition, House of Assembly Gilbert Islands

English

Murdered

I am sorry to see that Mr Chen (PIM, Oct, 31) has so firmly grasped the wrong end of the stick with which he seeks to belabour me. The “implications” which he draws from my observations are his own. I have no objec tions at all to wee Scots having reeking lums, to Americans dressing inside out, or Yorkshiremen continuing (not ongoing) to use the second person singular; such regional expressions are fair dinkum.

What is surely objec tionable is for new words, of poor construction or none, being introduced to replace

perfectly good ones already in existence. This leads to “guesstimate” (estimate), “transportation” (transport), “burglarize” (burgle), which do nothing for the language except extend it, while “escapee” makes an odd bed fellow with the other ee’s —assignee, addressee, con signee, legatee, etc who are on the receiving end. Fur thermore it sounds like “Eskie pea”, possibly a rival to Bird’s Eye, but which should be kept in the Cooler, not out of it.

As English verbs are also declined and conjugated I must ongo to differ from Mr Chen.

M. R. S. Mitchell

South Yarra, Victoria

Noumea Clinic

May I reply to an article by Paul Sterling (PIM, Nov, p 85) regarding the local hospital and clinic.

According to Mr Sterling, the local hospital is for public servants, indigent Melane sians, Polynesians and those who cannot afford to go elsewhere. What about those who really want to go there because of the competence of the surgeons and notably Pro fessor Piquard and his team?

Can the Noumea clinics boast the sophisticated equipment of this hospital, or equally competent staff? Some of their nurses don’t even have a diploma and yet the recent Noumea clinic has ex travagantly high fees.

Price is not taken into ac count in the choice of hospital

or clinic, as most or should I say all employees of the Societe de Nickel, Banks, Commerce, are reimbursed 60% of all medical fees and 100% for major surgery or long illnesses. Is that, Mr Sterling, what you call insuffi cient health insurance for a tax-free country?

I do not want to start an argument on this subject, but I did think a few facts which had been omitted needed to be brought forward. I am not qualified to criticise or judge the competence of one or other clinic, but can only face facts having had personal ex perience as a patient in the local hospital for major surg ery.

E. Preveziotis-Helsen

Kouaoua New Caledonia.

(Mrs)

Info Wanted

I have been a regular reader of PIM for some time and have always found it very in teresting. I am particularly in terested in the cultures and traditions of the Islands and am hoping to make a trip tc research the traditional pot tery of the Islands. However, 1 have been unable to find a 10l of information on this subjecl in the library and I am won dering if your readers may bt able to be of some assistance, Any information at all or the subject would be useful particularly where a revival o traditional pottery is concern ed.

Fran Ifould

1762 Pittwater Rd, Bayview 2104, NSW.

War Relics

I am sending you some pic tures which have recently been taken on the plateau on the Bay of Dillon and show the remains of the three war time US planes which were obliged to land, due to tc shortage of gasoline, since most fights took place on the southern part of the New Hebrides. As I saw some other pictures on the same subject in your magazine I thought these could be of interest to your American readers.

Jean-Claude Rouleau

Dillon Bay, New Hebrides.