and arrogant

letters

Anti-French, dishonest

Your December issue is a bit hard to read even for an English speaking, anglophile non-chauvinistic French reader.

Do you really think French people are unable to read and understand English language?

All four papers, related in one way or another to French poli cy, culture or history, appear impregnated with anglo-saxon self-satisfaction and arrogance.

Is your editorial staff engaged in such a spiral of anti-French criticism as to lose contact with decency, not to say honesty?

I must apologise if I feel the temptation to give you some advice. I suggest you should look at yourself in an attempt for objectivity and clear headedness before being over whelmed by what appears as a form of paranoid schizophrenia.

Doing so, I apologise for being French, (I cannot help it) for living in New Caledonia, (is it not a thorn of a sort stuck in Australia’s foot?) but I will not make apologies for being what I am not: atheist, fascist, extreme rightist, colourist and so on.

As for this island, I mean New Caledonia, I wonder if you deliberately lie for political reasons or if you are misin formed. Both hypotheses are unethical ways for journalists.

You can see that my opinion about you is not so different from your opinion about me.

Could this be a sound basis for mutual agreement?

Whatever my opinion about PIM, it will not change my deep feelings for English language, culture and civilisation.

Nor will it lessen my admira tion for this great country of which PIM, fortunately, is not the perfect illustration.

Dr Pierre Bourqion,

Noumea.

Have you

heard of

Captain

Young?

I wonder if any readers might have some information on a Captain J. B. Young. I have met a blank wall in seeking information on this man.

The only reference I was able to find was in a Cook Islands newspaper Te Torea. of 1895.

It suggested he had ships named Victoria, Prince Alfred, Niva, Queen and Zillah (schooners) along with Spray and Blanche (cutters).

I have traced some of the vessels later but under different owners.

Young apparently partnered Henry Nicholas about 1850 in a store at Avatiu, Rarotonga and introduced cotton gins and steam engines to the island, although nothing is known of him now.

Historians seem to have mis sed him.

Tony Monteith,

Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand.

Cheques

change

hands

Immediately I heard of the devastation caused by Cyclone Sally in the Cook Islands, I sent off two private donations to help the relief work.

I sent one cheque to a senior Roman Catholic churchman and another to a leading protes tant.

The acknowledgements came back on the same day.

The Catholic churchman gave my donation to the protes tant groups as the people who would best know how to apply it. The protestants passed my cheque to the Catholics for the same reason.

It was good to see that this spirit of co-operation and brotherhood is still alive and well in the islands.

Since the donations were private, I’d be grateful if you did not publish my name and address. (Name and address supplied), Sydney.