This Month’s 50th Birthday Features

• THE REGION Publisher Stuart Inder takes a searching look at the Pacific, the changes of 50 years, the situation today and the outlook for tomorrow 5 • THE NEW POLITICS Associate Editor Malcolm Salmon, recently back from Port-Vila, describes the background as colonial New Hebrides becomes autonomous Vanuatu 18 • THE OLD POLITICS Robert Langdon tells how Britain acquired a Pacific island and Bengt and Marie-Therdse Danielsson tell how France acquired a Polynesian kingdom 97 • THE WRITING Marjorie Crocombe describes the birth of the new wave of Pacific creative writers 140 • THE DANCING Colourful traditional dancers launch the Third South Pacific Festival of Arts in Port Moresby 31 • THE SINGING Jane Milder tells how she talked with the man who wrote the haunting melody of Isa Lei 149 • THE SHIPS Veteran navigator, writer and artist Brett Milder spins a tale of ships that served the Islands 164 • THE AIRCRAFT Jack Percival, the man who flew with Smithy, describes how Pacific air routes developed 151 • THE YACHTS Gwenda Cornell writes about her life as a wife and mother in a cruising yacht, and husband Jimmy Cornell has a look at the sort of people who sail away 169 • THE ELEMENTS Maclaren Hiari tells the story of the worst volcano disaster in modern Pacific history 111 •. .. AND SOME WORDS ABOUT OURSELVES Founder R W Robson speaks from retirement at the age of 95, and Pacific leaders send 50th birthday messages to PIM 88

Aviation 151 Banaba 97 Books 131 Chile 159 Deaths 181 Fifty Years of PIM, Postscript 115 Fiji 41, 53, 149,157,162 French Polynesia 108 Island ruin mystery 71 Islands Press 47 Kiribati 161 Letters 35 Literature in the Pacific 140 Lord Howe Island 42 Micronesia 158 Nauru 157 New Caledonia 61 New Hebrides 18, 25,41, 52,71 New Zealand 159,162 Nuclear news 52,57

Pacific region review 5 Pacific report 33 Pacific War film 79 Papua New Guinea 41.42. 51. 53. 57. 59, 79, 111, 159,161 People 64 PIM covers 80 Political Currents 51 Postmark Papeete 108 Ships 164 Shipping Services 179 Solomon Islands 42, 51,157,160 South Pacific Arts Festival 31 Three lives of PIM 88 Tradewinds 157 Tradewinds Intelligence 163 Travel 59 Tropicalities 41 Tuvalu 162 Yachts 169