Letters

‘Thank-You,

Don O’Bryan’

’ In August 1977 I spent two weeks on the island of Raro tonga. One of the reasons for my visit was to meet Tom Neale, the ‘hermit of Suwar row’, with whom I had been corresponding for a number of years. At the time of our meet ing, a most memorable one for me, Tom was in hospital undergoing treatment for can cer to which he finally succum bed on November 30, 1977, aged 75.

In September of 1978 I revisited Rarotonga'and one of the first things I did was search out the grave of my friend Tom. It is in the Veterans’

Cemetery right across the road from the airport. I visited the grave several times and, though rather spartan in appearance, it was obvious that someone who cared was looking after things.

That someone is Don O’Bryan, long with the Cook Islands

Trading Corporation, who was

Tom’s staunchest friend. Over the years it was Don who handled all of Tom’s business affairs in Rarotonga and saw to it that supplies and mail were put on the yachts and trading schooners that were scheduled to call in at Suwarrow.

I have seen Tom’s letters to Don and it is quite obvious that Tom would have had an extremely difficult time with out Don’s devotion to the wel fare of his friend. Don’s allegiance did not end with Tom’s death. In accordance with Tom’s will, Don was appointed trustee of the estate and upon him fell the responsi bility of retrieving Tom’s per

sonal belongings from

suwarrow along with arrang

ing the details of Tom’s burial.

M that time, in a letter to me, 3on wrote: ‘Tom now lies in vhite sand as he would have vished, and close to the sea.’

The grave when I saw it was without a headstone but a few

days before my departure I learned that Tom’s two chil dren, Stella and Arthur, had arrived from New Zealand with a headstone for their father’s grave. It was my good fortune to meet these two young people on the eve of my departure. Don assured them that the headstone would be

properly set.

I wish to take this oppor tunity to pay tribute to Don for his many years of dedication to Tom, and I’m sure that I speak for Tom’s many friends around the world when I say ‘Thanks,

Don O’Bryan.’

Byron W. Hart

Boulder Colorado USA

Not Enough

Said

It is of interest to note and com pare the two front covers of PIM December 1978 (Colonial

Hangover) and January 1979

(Somare, the Great Survivor).

Need I say more?

Paul Garvan

Kieta, North Solomons Province, Papua New Guinea (We would appreciate it if you would say more. Editor)

Sick Sic

... Tsk, Tsk!

The item in PIM January con cerning John Champion is of such meanness and stupidity that it does not even deserve to be dwelt upon. However, since the writer has thrown into question the professional integrity of the director and editor-in-chief of Nabanga, neither of us is prepared to ignore it, or the malice sur

rounding it.

What’s it about? Announc ing the departure of Mr John

Champion, your magazine

refers to the farewell interview with the former British Resi dent Commissioner which we published in our issue of November 7, 1978 ( Nabanga No. 91). PIM starts by devoting a few lines to Mr Champion’s remarks and then rapidly leaves them - as if they were not the substance of the matter! to offer Nabanga’s editors a lesson in journalism as gratu itous as it was derisory.

We were guilty, we are told.

of an unfortunate lapse of taste because we retained an ex pression in bad French used by Mr Champion. To support his case, our brilliant teacher might at least have quoted the incriminating passage: PIM readers would then have been able to judge the matter for what it was. Some knowledge of French and a minimum of intelligence would have suf ficed to show that there was ab solutely no harmful intent on our part. On the contrary.

If we retained the expression circuler la cervelle, put it in quotation marks and ac companied it with a sic, it was not because the expression was incorrect but because the

image thus employed by John

Champion had a lively charac ter in French that we ourselves would not have been able to achieve. In doing what we did, we wished only to pay tribute to the manner in which John Champion uses French. If the writer of your item did not understand this he (or she) should go to school.

We wish to point out that the whole of the interview with J.

Champion was tape-recorded.

The ex-British resident com missioner spoke in French, a language he speaks very well but in which quite naturally he makes numerous mis takes, just as when J. M. Laf font or J. Massias speak

English they make errors.

Where is the man anyway who can express himself as well in a foreign language as in his own? We listened to the

recording and, doing our duty

as journalists, we went right

through it correcting the slight

mistakes Mr Champion had made, with the exception and for the reasons already stated of the one which aroused the ire of the PIM writer.

We hope that these few re marks will dispel any misun derstanding about the so-called impropriety of which we are said to have been guilty. They would suffice in themselves if the PIM writer had not seen fit to go on and draw the lesson of the story. According to him such a ‘lapse of taste’ is a per fect illustration of the men tality inherited from the condominial organisation of

the New Hebrides. From this it is only a short step to claiming that we sought to play a ‘lousy trick’ on Mr Champion.

This imputation of evil motive, expressed in scarcely veiled terms, is not only insult ing but degrading to a maga zine which has built for itself a reputation throughout the Pacific region for its serious ness of approach. Before giving lessons, one needs to take some oneself. One of the first taught in the field of journalism is the need to separate fact from comment. The PIM writer con cerned appears to have for gotten this. He draws conclu sions from an unimportant detail and barely mentions the rest.

The truth is that N abanga No. 91 devoted four (not three) of its 20 pages to the departure of Mr Champion, with one photograph covering two thirds of its front page, and seven other photographs in the body of the interview. Further, our artist spent many hours drawing a black and white portrait of Mr Champion, which was pubished on page 8.

This ‘honour’ had not pre viously been accorded to any one but Mr Dijoud [French minister for overseas depart ments and territories] himself.

The lines with which we introduced the interview ex pressed quite unequivocally the affection and admiration felt by us for John Champion.

Certain phrases could well have been quoted, such as: • he was able to cope with

(circumstances) as they arose

without passion, and maintain the notion of a correct balance, even if this attitude sometimes involved personal risks. Pos sessed of a cool and clear head, his gaze turned firmly towards the future, anxious to con tribute to the unity of the country in peace and moder ation, John Champion served the New Hebrides well.’

Compared with ours, your presentation of the facts thus appears as incomplete and biased. More serious: it could damage the image of our publi

cation through the charges

made against two of its editors.

We are convinced that PIM will be true to the mission of information which it has

always espoused by printing the full text of this letter in its next issue.

Please accept, Mr Editor, our brotherly, saddened, greet ings.

J. MASSIAS, director, J. M. LAFFONT, editor-in-chief.

Nabanga.

Vila, New Hebrides (Copy to Mr John Champion.)

Fulfilling its mission of infor

mation, PIM has happily shouldered the task of translat ing this long letter on a matter that ‘does not even deserve to be dwelt upon ’. For the rest, we are unrepentant, despite the

ingenuity of the explanation

offered by Messrs Massias and Laffont. PIM believes that if these gentlemen had been much concerned to bring out the

‘liveliness ’ of Mr Champion’s

expression (which translates into English roughly as ‘lt makes the brain circulate’, whereas he meant something much closer to the English ex pression ‘lt keeps the mind active’) they would have taken much more trouble to explain themselves than simply putting quotation marks around the words and adding the word sic.

They should well understand that in this wicked world this little Latin tag is most often used to convey an impression of ridi cule of the words just cited. As a final comment, we would like to express our great satisfaction at the friendly terms in which Mr Massias and his colleague

now speak of Mr Champion.

Things have certainly changed

over the past 15 months or so,

for example, since November

1977, a period described by Mr

Champion in the Nabanga

interview as ‘the least agreeable ’ of his time in the New Hebrides.

At that time, among his other activities, Mr Massias rushed

out a special edition of Nabanga

a week before its due publication date in order, among other things, to maximise Mr Cham

pion’s political discomfiture

arising from the behaviour of

some British police personnel

during a civil disturbance in Vila on November 29. (Mr Mas sias could no doubt tell us whether this particular exercise in over-enthusiastic Gallic twist ing of the British lion’s tail rep resented one of those bavures, or botches, in the recent French re

cord in the New Hebrides which were criticised by Mr Dijoud during his visit to Vila last August.) But perhaps we should let Mr Champion have the final word on this matter. He told Messrs Massias and Laffont: ‘But I don’t want to go into this subject of November 1977. It’s already old history and I won 7 go back to it . . .’

Loyalty

Figures

In your article on the Loyalty Islands (PIM January) there are a few errors which I wish to correct.

First, Mr N. Naisseline is not ‘the’ chief of the island of Mare but one of the seven chiefs the six others recently wel-

corned with traditional friend liness the French minister for overseas territories.

Second, the latest figures for the population of New Caledonia, based on the census of January 1978, are: total population 137 000; Melanes ians 58 400; Europeans 51 400; Wallisians 10 100; Tahitians 6400; Vietnamese, Indones ians, others 10 600.

At the last legislative elec tions, with 68 200 registered voters, pro-independence can didates secured 5367 votes,

about 11% of the 45 193 votes cast.

H. Wright

Noumea New Caledonia

Aust Unions

And Fiji

By sheer chance your April 1978 edition of PIM, a most

interesting publication, was

handed to me some days ago.

The brief article headed ‘Fiji: Australian union will talk’ drew my attention.

I have followed the activities of Australian trade unions and the results thereof in other countries for some years. It would be much appreciated if I could obtain details of events in which unions were involved

during Fiji’s 1977 dock

strikes.

I would also like to obtain an extract of Mr Tas Bull’s justifi cations on the alleged inter vention in Fiji’s internal affairs by trade unions which were to ‘clear the air’. The fact that the air had to be cleared pointed in the direction of intervention at some stage or other.

Can anyone put me in touch with someone in Fiji who can supply me with factual his torical data relating to the events of 1977?

G. P. Daniel

PO Box 1391 Geraldton, WA Australia

Germany And

The Pacific

I have shown your magazine around here in West Germany and I believe that a number of persons have already sub scribed to PIM. The interest in the real Pacific here is great and genuine. Time and again I am amazed at rubbish pub lished in our media about the Pacific. They just don’t know.

Waldsassen K H. STELLMACH West Germany

W. Pacific

Fco.

B. T. Burnh

15 Mills Street Middle Park Victoria 3206 Australia

In Search

Of Old Rim

I have managed to obtain * complete set of PIM from December 1960 to date. I am wondering if any reader knowv of a source where I can obtaiii issues prior to Decembea 1960.

K. A. Holdom

68 Tirangi Road, Rongotai, Wellington 3, New Zealand.

Nidoishe Naisseline ... one of seven