Deaths

of Islands People

Jim Leahy

In Sydney in December, of a heart attack, aged 72.

James Lube Leahy was an Australian who pioneered the coffee industry in Papua New Guinea. He had retired to live in Australia six years before after spending 46 years in PNG as a goldminer, farmer, planter and businessman.

Jim Leahy, whose Irish-born father came to Australia just before the turn of the century, was the seventh of nine children and was born into a family destined to take an important part in the history of PNG. Two of his brothers, Mick and Dan, were explorers who opened up parts of the New Guinea high lands, and nine of his nephews became associated with land, business and government in

Png.

He was 20 when he went to

what was then the Mandated Territory of New Guinea, fol lowing his older brother Mick who had been attracted to the newly-opened goldfields. The brothers worked claims at Edie Creek, but only just made ends meet, and they became increas ingly interested in agricultural development.

Jim became the business brains of the family, working from the north coast of the New Guinea mainland as a trader and labour agent. At the out break of the Pacific War he became one of the many Aus tralian settlers who saw service with the army in ANGAU, the Australian New Guinea Admin istrative Unit. His main task throughout the war was the organisation and control of Papua New Guinean workers who played a valuable part in backing up the supply and movement requirements of the troops.

After the war he settled in Goroka, which became the biggest inland settlement in PNG, but then was a remote patrol post linked to the coast only by air services. He estab lished the first sawmill in the

area, operated a trade store, and took up an agricultural lease.

He planted lea on his lease, raised livestock, and in the late 1940 s put in an experimental planting of coffee. It was the start of an outstanding success story which led to the develop ment of the coffee industry as PNG’s major agricultural ex port earner.

Jim Leahy extended his own coffee plantings but at the same time played a major role in interesting highland village communities in the establish ment of coffee as a cash crop.

The spread of coffee-growing in the highlands was helped by a scries of setbacks in other coffee-growing parts of the world. This raised prices for the PNG product, and led to the establishment of a strongly based agricultural economy.

Jim Leahy became a prominent member of the grow ing community in Goroka. He helped to found the Goroka Farmers and Settlers Club and the Highlands Show Society, and was an active supporter of rugby league football. After his retirement to Sydney in 1975, he continued to be a frequent visitor to PNG.

Tauaanae Tufuga Fatu In Apia on December 5, aged 67.

Tauaanae Tufuga Fatu was a veteran of Western Samoa’s politics, and was a member of the parliament which brought independence to Western Samoa in 1962. He was edu cated at his country’s Avele College, and like many of his contemporaries who received higher education became a school teacher. He was active in

community politics for many years, and had business inter ests. He entered national poli tics in 1954 when he became a member of parliament under his title of Tufuga.

Tauaanae was minister for health in 1962 and 1963, and his services to politics were recognised in 1981 when he was elected to the executive com mittee of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. He led the Western Samoa del egation to the association’s annual conference in Zambia in 1980.

He was a prominent member of the Methodist Church, and was chairman of the church’s lands development board, in addition to holding a number of trustee positions in the church administration. He was also a director of the Development Bank of Western Samoa.

Jane Milder In Currumbin, Queensland, in December.

Jane Hilder was born in Fiji as Jane Freeman, a member of a family well known in that country for many years as banana buyers and shippers.

After her father Arthur Free man retired from Fiji to grow bananas on the Tweed River, in far northern New South Wales, Jane for a number of years had charge of the property, and became an expert in this form of agriculture. Only weeks be fore her death she published an article on the subject in a specialist Australian banana growers’ magazine.

Jane Hilder survived her late husband Captain Brett Hilder by only eight months. (See obituary of Brett Hilder, PIM Jun ’Bl, p 56.) Ratu William McGregor Bose In Suva on November 9, aged 79.

Ratu Bose’s father, Ratu Ifereimi Qasevakatini, was one of the first Fijians to join the police force in the colonial era.

His mother, Adi Senimili Naulumatua of the Qaranivalu family of Naitasiri, was the first grand-daughter of the King of Fiji, Ratu Seru Cakobau.

After service with the police in Fiji and the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony (now Kiri bati and Tuvalu), Ratu Bose

joined the Fijian Infantry Regi ment on the outbreak of World War II in 1939. During his war service he was selected by the US forces to work in Solomon Islands as an adviser, due to his extensive knowledge of the South Pacific region.

He rejoined the police force after the war, staying with it until his retirement. He was at one point recalled from retire ment by the Public Service Board and was appointed Dis trict Officer in Rotuma.

R. E. Hodgson In a road accident in Victoria, Australia, on December 18, aged 57.

Mr Hodgson’s appointment as Australia’s High Com missioner to Nauru had shortly before been announced (PIM Jan p 7). His 21-year-old daugh ter died with him in the acci dent.

Joseph Flores

In California, USA, on December 19, aged 81.

Joseph Flores was appointed governor of Guam by US Presi dent Eisenhower in 1960. He was the first Guamanian to hold the office. Shortly before. Mr Flores had started the Guam Republican Parly. He served only one year, before President Kennedy appointed a Democrat to the job.

At one time he was publish ing five weekly newspapers in San Francisco, and in 1950 he started the Guam Daily News, which in 1970 became the Pacific Daily News. Present editor of PDN, Joe Murphy, was brought to Guam by Flores to edit GDN. Murphy remem bers Flores as a good publisher in terms of non-interference, but one who ran a ‘tight budget’.

As well as his activity in newspaper publishing, Flores founded a number of successful financial and real estate con cerns.

Major Jese Vetiduadua In Suva on December 12, aged 39.

Major Vetiduadua was one of the Royal Fiji Military Force’s few qualified bomb disposal experts. A career soldier since 1962, he was commissioned in 1974 and had three tours of duty in Lebabon.