The Month

• LAND POLICY IN VANUATU — In an Open Letter to President Ati George Sokomanu and Prime Minister Father Walter Uni, Dr Alan W. Ward explains why he resigned before his contract was up as an adviser on land policies to the Vanuatu Government. Dr Ward sent a copy to PIM for publication 8 • YOUTH SUICIDE IN WESTERN SAMOA — Dennis Oliver, YMCA Training Officer in Western Samoa and a founding member of that country’s suicide Study Group, tells how it is approaching its sensitive and important task 15 • ECUMENISM IN THE PACIFIC — Canon Rex Davis looks at the peculiar problems faced by Pacific Islands churches in relation to the modern ecumenical movement 23 • REMEMBERING THE KON-TIKI — Bengt Danielsson, one of the famed six men who in 1947 rafted across the Pacific from South America to French Polynesia, tells the little-known story of the fate of the raft, and describes his recent visit to the Oslo museum which is now its permanent home 28 • PENTHOUSE AND THE COOKS — A Cook Islands Government minister replies to a wild attack on the Cooks Cabinet which somehow found its way into the September issue of the Australian edition of Penthouse 45 • SELLING WELL IN SYDNEY — Seven Pacific Island countries who took part in a September trade fair in Sydney report encouraging responses from Australian buyers to their manufactured and other products 69 • THE STORY OF FATHER PLACIDO — R. Dawson Murray pays a deeply felt tribute to Dutch-born Roman Catholic who for many years ministered to a number of small congregations in the northern islands of the Cooks group 63

Australia in the Pacific 69 Books 55 Chambers of Commerce 66 Churches 23 Cook Island 45, 63 Deaths 82 Guam 65 Hawaii 55 Island Press 53 Letters 8 New Caledonia 13, 19 Oil exploration 67 Pacific history 57 Pacific navigation 28 Pacific Report 5 Papua New Guinea 9

People 39 Pitcairn 31 Political Currents 45 Postmark Papeete 28 Shipping services 77 Solomon Islands 33 South Pacific Forum 51 Trade Unions 19 Tradewinds 65 Tropicalities 31 U.S. in the Pacific 49 Vanuatu 8 Western Samoa 15 Whaling 59 Yachts 71

Yesterday 63