Pacific Islands Monthly - 1 January 1980

Pacific

Islands

Monthly

r*i

* January, 1980

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Inside:

The New

New Hebrides

Vol 51 No 1

January 1980

[Usps 952480]

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• New Hebrides The Vanuaaku Party’s sweeping victory in the November 14, 1979 elections has a troubled aftermath an exclusive PIM report from the spot l3 • Fiji Nutritional problems examined from two widely different points of view; those of athletes who took part in the South Pacific Games, and of pre-school children 27 • Tonga - Tonga’s King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV offers some free, and rather radical, advice to New Zealanders during his State visit 32 • Tuvalu Are they introducing a rabbit problem? 32 • Travel A globetrotter discovers a hotel in a Vancouver back street housing a treasure trove of works by artist Edgar William Leeteg, late of Papeete, and portrayer par excellence of Polynesian civilisation 36 • PlM’s Pacific - At the opening of the magazine’s 50th year, Judy Tudor looks back to August 16, 1930, the day the magazine was born, and then surveys its reports covering the first four years 40 • Kiribati A new book published by the government of Kiribati shows a talented group of Gilbertese looking at their nation’s history 46 • Banking A survey of the work in the South Pacific of the Asian Development Bank through the 70s 55 • Ships Ten shipping lines serving the Pacific Islands from Australia and New Zealand form a ‘co-operative’ 65 Cover: January is among the hotter months in the Pacific Islands, so we thought this cool shot of a local Tahitian beauty by young and popular Papeete photographer, Teva Sylvain, was seasonally appropriate.

Books 46 Deaths 73 Fiji 29, 49 Guam 33 Health 27, 56 Islands Press 53 Kiribati 46 Letters 5 Micronesia 33 New Hebrides 13 Norfolk Island 32, 57 Pacific Report 11 Papua New Guinea 33, 49

People 24 PlM’s Pacific 40 Political Currents 18 Ships 65 Shipping Services 71 Tonga 32, 37 Tradewinds 55 Tradewinds Intelligence 61 Travel 35 Tropicalities 32 Tuvalu 32, 57 Western Samoa 57 Yachts 67

Letters

Politicians to the

rear please

I would like to say how pleased I am to see that a Polynesian maiden is once again gracing your front cover (PIM, Nov).

Please take no notice of the correspondent who wrote advising that such illustrations should be beneath the dignity of PIM.

The appropriate place for

pictures of South Pacific poli ticians should be the rear pages.

Hugh Norwood

Geography Dept.

Massey University Palmerston North, NZ

Reply from

Miriama Chambault

We generally don’t read Pacific Islands Monthly. There is a long time view (in New Caledonia) that the aim of your publication is more subversion than information.

But concerning your October report of the South Pacific Games, we were surprised to read that ‘Miriama Chambault hated to win her two golds 100 m. and long-jump for the territory in which she now lives’.

You really have been gone too far! How can you write such nonsense? About a woman who came here seven years ago by her own decision after many years in New Zealand? Now married to a Frenchman, she is a mother of a child, Christopher. Do you mean that somebody FORCED her to stay in New Caledonia? But moreover, how can you say that about a woman who placed SPORTS over everything? When she thinks about sports and compe tition, she forgets the meaning

of ‘country’, ‘people’, ‘colour’

or origin. She works hard to win. That’s all!

And don’t say that this kind of thinking is due to the ‘fanatic Paris desire to convince Pacific neighbours that French is the best’. There are no ‘fanatics’ in Paris regarding New Cale donia, and we should dare to say, unfortunately for us!

Miriama Chambault would be as proud of her two gold medals whether she was living in Australia, Fiji, or New

Zealand. As a sportswoman she has had the most beautiful life that a woman can dream of: travelling around the world from Europe to USA for her

unique passion: SPORT. She

was not French, yet now she is.

And she is not so ‘rich’.

She simply discovered one day that all her philosophy was expressed in this short sentence from the Frenchman Pierre De Coubertin that you probably

know: L’important c’est depar

ticiper . . .

This could be enough for her to be proud of being a French woman. But there are also a lot of other reasons. This letter was published in La France Aus trale on November 8.

Alain & Miriama Chambault

Noumea New Caledonia • PI M's coverage of the Games was from former editor Bob Hawkins, who comments briefly

from abroad: ‘Perhaps my use of

the word “hate” was, unfortuna tely, too strong for the occasion.

What I intended to convey was the message that Miriama Chambault, whatever course her life has now taken, was first and foremost a Fijian and proud to be so. As to who finances what, it was clear at the Games that everyone, wherever they came from, had had to stretch themselves to the limit to raise enough money to get their teams to Suva. What was obvious, however, was the relative afflu ence of athletes from French col onies against that of athletes

from independent nations.'PlM

apologises to the Chambaults for any hurt they felt over the comment, which was not intended. Editor

Facts needed

on Donald McLeod

I am the great-niece of an early

Pacific pioneer. Captain

Donald McLeod, whose story I am trying to write. I’m sure it would contain much of interest from his birth at Cape Bre ton Island, Nova Scotia in 1845, to his arrival in New Zealand on the Breadalbane in 1858 at the age of 13, and his life in the New Hebrides from 1868 until his death in Noumea in 1894.

My father was Graham Kerr, of Kerr Bros, and these days, sadly, we have no connec tion with the group. I myself was born in Vila in 1917 and I’m trying to reconstruct my family’s history in the New Hebrides before it is too late.

I would be pleased to hear from any reader with infor mation about Captain McLeod.

Katherine Cawsey (Mrs)

122 Cowper Street Dickson ACT 2602

Lateiki reminds

him of Vulcan

Many thanks for the most in formative article by E. A.

Crane, on Tonga’s new island, Lateiki. (PIM, Nov.). I found

the article, pictures, diagram

and map all the more interest ing for having seen Rabaul’s Vulcan Island four or five days after it had erupted, causing such damage and hardship to that beautiful area. I well re-

member seeing coconut palms that had been snapped off like matchwood six feet or so above

ground by the accompanying

earthquake, and, as in the vicinity of Lateiki, a sea of pumice some distance from the harbour.

As all that happened over 42 years ago, there may not be too many around who were there when it actually happened, es pecially as World War II inter vened. If there is someone whose memory of it is good (es

pecially from the vulcanology

angle), I’d be delighted to hear from him/her. I am beginning to feel like the last dodo on Mauritius: I have even been told that it didn’t happen!

Again, thanks for all the good things in PIM

Kit Hetherington

Wentworth Falls, NSW, Australia • Vulcan Island, in Rabaul Harbour, New Britain, erupted in 1937 and joined itself to the mainland, where it is today.

Hundreds of people were killed in that eruption. Vulcan had

itself appeared following an

eruption in 1874.—Editor.

The Tu’anekivale

project

I draw your attention to some inaccuracies that appear in

Tropicalities, regarding the

Tu’anekivale project. (PIM, Nov. p2B). George Chan left SPC in October 1978 but be fore he left a Volunteer from the Netherlands National

College for Tropical Agricul

ture, Reinard Van Gent, had been made available to the commission and was assigned to the project. He worked with George Chan in Noumea for some weeks and then ac

companied him to Tonga.

Apart from the Christmas period, Reinard Van Gent lived at Tu’anekivale from August 1978 until March 1979 working on the project. He then returned to Holland.

In February 1979, Mr Ram Naidu of the Fiji Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries joined SPC specifically to work

with the integrated farming

project. Since that time he has visited Tu’anekivale in

February, April, May, July and

October to provide guidance

This was Vulcan, Rabaul, In eruption in 1937. Hundreds died.

and technical advice and to ensure liaison was maintained with the Department of

Agriculture.

A second Volunteer took up post in July 1979 Mr Arjen Hettema. He proceeded im mediately to the project and like Van Gent before him, is living in the village and is employed full time on the pro ject, with regular visits from Mr Ram Naidu providing the back-up.

The Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific, who were the partners in the operation with the late Dr. Alo Eva, have also continued their interest and support and as late as October 31, they advised ‘as a result of recent meetings be tween Mrs Elizabeth Silver stein, president of FSP and Mr Stanley Hosie, executive direc tor of FSP and Robert Craig,

Regional Development Offi

cer, USAID. ... we are able to

provide additional funding for

the Tu’anekivale Piggery to complete Stage I and II . . .'

W. T. Brown

Director of Programmes South Pacific Commission Noumea The future of

Islands airlines

Having read articles on airlines in the Pacific (PIM, July and Oct.) with great interest. I feel that the whole issue has come to a point where something should be done. The Pacific airline industry has come to a

point where efficiency doesn’t

seem to matter, but re

equipping fleets and expansion

does. The result is that a lot of carriers are running at a loss because they are trying to grow

too quickly and picture bright

futures that are far off.

Another major problem is

that the four major carriers: Air Niugini, Air Pacific, Air Nauru and Polynesian are try ing to become “The Regional Carrier for the Pacific.” All have a monopoly on most of their routes, in particularly Air Nauru. Because of this mon opoly high fares come into the business as the carriers know that the travelling public don’t have much of a choice.

It’s a sad thing that the re nowned “charm” of the islands

is spoilt by the politics involved

in air travel between the nations of the area.

Frequency is another prob lem. This is caused by lack of aircraft. The way things are shaping up, with Air Pacific

wanting bigger aircraft, places

like Tarawa and Funafuti are going to be lucky if they see a flight to Fiji once a month!

So, which direction will the carriers take? They have an entire ocean to serve. Each of them is government owned and to a great extent government subsidised because of heavy

operating costs.

If carriers continue the path they are on now; what with rising fuel costs etc. we’re going to have a very poor airline net

work. Full of big planes going

to small places, and, in some cases, so irregularly that they might as well not bother going at all!

Suggestions to solve their problems are thrown at the air lines all the time. I know this happens in Air Niugini’s case.

However nothing seems to

happen.

Obviously with airlines like Pan Am, who’ve already pulled out and U.T.A. and Qantas that are rapidly dropping the num ber of the flights to the region,

and Air New Zealand trying to take on the whole Pacific and treating Air Pacific and

Polynesian as competitors; the

Pacific airlines are getting a hard time, and the demand to “spread their wings,” is ever

increasing. They must surely

have to join forces.

I’m not saying that there should be one airline, but I am

saying co-operation between

carriers is essential. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to island-hop from Tahiti to Japan without

overnighting anywhere, and by

doing so making it cheaper

than going via Auckland or Syd ney! If all the airlines made a point of having the same type of aircraft and connecting con veniently with one another we’d have a wonderful airline network in the region. Pool ser vices is another healthy way of operating, because then an air line can operate a service at a loss and have the cost balanced out by its partner, while the opposite could occur on another route.

The Pacific has great poten tial and it’s a pity that it’s being kept indoors because of a lack of co-operation. Many of the peoples of the Pacific are tra ditionally related, so why can’t

their airlines stop trying to be better than one another, and get on with the job their people want them to do serve the Pacific. Not rip it off through petty competitive behaviour.

(Master) Richard Hawkins

(aged 15) Port Moresby, Papua New Ginea

John Kciia replies

to his critics In my last letter as Acting/ Director of the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies. I wish to make known several facts through the columns of three publications in which slurs have been cast against me; of which publications yours is one.

The institute is obliged to publish creative literature vet ted by critics competent to do so. I have set up a publications board as a further form of con trol.

My contract with the National Cultural Council obliged me to deliver for publi cation by the institute a list of named fictional and non fictional works and this was done before I took over as Acting/Director. I have refused to accept the royalties I am entitled to under that con tract.

During my period as Acting/

Director, I presented to the institute no works of mine.

Indeed, I have hardly had time to write any, but the one slim volume of the period is being published outside the institute.

During that time, however, I did have the works of others published by the institute.

The institute has published a very large number of titles, a minority of which are mine and some only are works of fiction.

Work by indigenous authors

gets preference at all times.

At no time did I seek the Directorship of the Institute but acted at the request of the Minister for Culture, Edu cation and Science.

It is not my habit to debate publicly with my critics, ama teur or otherwise, but for once, and not again, I wish to make the above facts known.

Dr. J. Kolia

Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies.

Port Moresby • More letters on p.lO.

Has the Pacific airline industry come to a point where efficiency doesn’t matter, asks a young reader? Pacific aviation began here, in the ‘Southern Cross', first trans-Pacific aircraft, now in Brisbane, seen being inspected here by two of the four who flew in her in 1928, Harry Lyon and James Warner.

In defence of

cruising yachts

In reply to the criticism in the December letters columns con cerning my article on Vava’u charter (PIM Aug. 79, p. 71), which raised the subject of local attitudes to visiting yachts. I feel that the writers failed to read the article care fully and jumped to rash con clusions. Firstly, both writers used the expression ‘dumb friendly native’ as if these were my own words. They are words I would never use and consider them an insult to my many friends throughout the Pa cific.

My article does not propose that yachtsmen should receive preferential treatment and not be subject to the normal immi

gration, customs, agriculture

and health procedures. Once they have satisfied all entry re

quirements however, foreign

yachts should have the same freedom of movement as any foreign visitor who arrives by other means of transport. The point I was trying to make is that there is no reason why

people travelling on yachts

should be suspected of being criminals, just because a very small minority have broken the law.

Along with all responsible

law-abiding yachtsmen, I am

strongly in favour of any

yachtsmen caught infringing

the laws of the country in ques tion being prosecuted in the normal manner. Heavy fines, imprisonment or seizure of the offending yacht would act as a deterrent to any crews who have criminal intentions be hind their travelling.

Although accused of not having done my homework properly, I did ask Inspector Lavaki of the Vava’u police for details of any misbehaving yachts, which was quoted in the article. As to the removal of black coral, it should be pointed out that this grows at great depth, where it can only be reached with scuba diving equipment, which most yachts do not carry. In a recent survey for a yachting magazine carried out in Suva, I found that out of 50 boats, only one carried a compressor for filling tanks.

In Vava’u it was local men who were offering black coral

for sale to the visiting yachts men and when I pointed this out to Inspector Lavaki, I was told that Tongans had the right to harvest it. More to the point, the local carver Leonasi re quested a visiting yacht with diving equipment on board to supply him with black coral for his artwork. If this is an endan gered species, then it should be

protected by appropriate laws.

Visiting yachts should be in formed clearly on arrival of any such laws.

Your two letter writers, who write from Australia, dismiss

the foreign exchange brought

in by visiting yachts as unim

portant, giving the impression

that the sale of handicrafts to visitors is demeaning to the

local people. Selling souvenirs

to tourists is an accepted com mercial venture throughout the world, from the streets of Rio de Janiero to the Tower of London.

The tone of Tevita Sioka tame’s letter is typical of the attitude I’m complaining about. At least he is straight

enough to identify the problem

as one of colour and race. He would like to see the ‘palangi’

yachtsmen, among whom he queries that there are any good ones at all, pay the price for all past ‘palangi’ misdemeanours.

Yet many of these undesirable yachtsmen, especially the re spectable retired couples, have paid or are still paying taxes in their country of origin. These are the taxes which have paid for new hospitals in Vava’u and Ha’apai (NZ aid), water catch ment facilities in Ha’apai (US aid) and a sewerage system for Nukualofa (UK aid), to men tion just a few examples of the ‘selfish attitude of the palangis, who have exploited our shores for centuries’, to quote Mr Siokatame in full.

Or how about the selfish palangi yachtie who rescued a girl from drowning in the Gil berts (PIM, July 79), the count less yachties who have repaired outboard motors, generators, etc. in outlying islands, or the doctors on yachts who have given emergency treatment where no medical facilities were available.

The long distance cruising

yachts that pass through the Pacific form a community that doesn’t differ all that much from communities found ashore. They are young and old, families with children, singlehanders and retired couples, some rich, some poor.

The vast majority of these are decent, responsible, law

abiding people and the only

thing that sets them apart is their love of the sea and sailing.

This is something one would expect the peoples of the Pa cific to understand.

Jimmy Cornell.

C/- S. Y. Aventura, Honiara, Solomon Islands

When left-wing

is a dirty word

You state (PIM Nov, p 11) that the Pacific People’s Action Front is a Suva-based left-wing group. I should point out; (1) PPAF is a regional organis ation, with its sister group, the Micronesia Support Com mittee, which was formed at the Nuclear Free Pacific re gional conference in 1975.

Among other things PPAF sup ports independence move ments and the creation of a

nuclear free zone in the Pacific ocean; and opposes the passage of nuclear powered vessels anc submarines in the region, the dumping of nuclear wastes in the Pacific, the mining ol uranium for nuclear tech nology, and all nuclear test

ing.

(2) The term ‘left-wing’ indi cates biased value laden reporting which is not usual ol PIM, nor worthy of you. I have recently taken issue with other groups on this matter; it is irri tating and intended to turn readers or hearers against the group or person concerned. It is used as a dirty word.

My understanding is that the terms ‘radical’ and ‘left-wing’ represent positions that are dif ferent from that held by the majority, or the rulers, the government, or whoever. This is clearly not so, as almost all Pacific governments have a stated policy against nuclear testing in the region. Whether individuals agree with these positions or not, they are official policy of many of our governments - ergo! those of us who promote them cannot then by definition be left-wing or radical.

I personally do not regard either as a dirty word, and at times they are a compliment.

My Oxford dictionary had

them as ‘the more advanced or innovating section of a philo

sophical school, a religious

sect, a political party etc’, and ‘one who holds the most ad vanced views of political re form on democratic lines’.

But I object to their use as value laden or do I misjudge

your usage? The point being

that I cannot understand why you had to use the adjective when describing the incident it was not straight reporting. I have recently had a similar dis cussion overseas regarding my own so called ‘radical stance’ it happens that my understand ing of the gospel and my own Christian commitment take me in certain ways that the ‘world’ may well regard as radical then the commitment is ines

capable, but not political,

humanitarian rather, and therefore should not be used as a dirty word ... I am getting tired of it.

Ruth E. Lechte

Nadi, Fiji

Jim Cornell, wife Gwenda, and children Doina and Ivan (above) are experienced cruising yach ties. Jimmy defends yachties as being decent, responsible, law abiding, despite some critics.

New Hebrides After The Poll

The sweeping win by the Vanuaaku Party in the New Hebrides’

November 14 elections was followed by troubles created by sep aratist elements on the two islands of Santo and Tanna. As well as winning the national elections, the VP won majorities of 8-7 in the regional assemblies on these two islands. Alleging elec toral fraud, non-VP forces on the islands refused to accept the results. Full report begins pi 3.

Ratu Mara Wants Pacific Secretariat

Fiji’s Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara wants a Sydney based secretariat for members of the British Commonwealth in the Pacific region. He will raise the matter at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional Meeting (CHOGRM) in New Delhi later this year.

Fiji’S Biggest Quake In 26 Years

Roads on several islands were torn up and landslides blocked others when an earthquake, recorded at 6.5 on the open-ended Richter scale, shook several areas of Fiji in the early morning of November 17. A church and houses were damaged on Taveuni, stock was damaged in Labasa supermarkets and dam age was reported to houses on Rabi, Laucala, Vanua Levu and other islands in the northern part of the country. It was Fiji’s strongest 'quake in 26 years, but no one was injured.

High Tides Flood Majuro

Floods caused by unusually high tides destroyed about 200 houses on Majuro in the Marshall Islands late in November. A state of emergency was declared in the Darrit-Uliga-Dalap area of the island, which averages only 1.8 min height. Damage was estimated in the millions of dollars, and more than 500 residents had to be moved to 14 relief centres. No lives were lost, but three people were injured, one seriously.

PNG: JUDGE MARI KAPI ON THE BENCH Crimson robed judges all of them Australians in December welcomed Papua New Guinea’s first native-born judge, Mr Jus tice Mari Kapi (PIM Nov p. 29), at a National Court ceremony.

Judge Kapi, until recently the public solicitor, told his brother judges, lawyers, politicians and diplomats at the ceremony that he would work for the integration of customary tribal law and adopted law.

Upton From Suva To New Delhi

Gordon Upton, Australia’s High Commissioner to Fiji since July 1976, is going to New Delhi on a double-barrelled assignment: High Commissioner to India, and Ambassador to Nepal. He suc ceeds Peter Curtis, who went to New Delhi about the same time as Mr Upton started his work in Fiji.

Fiji’S Parliament To Debate Lottery

Fiji’s parliamentarians will debate and have a free vote on a pro posal to set up a state lottery. Announcing this, Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kanisese Mara said the recommendation of a special committee that a lottery would be both desirable and practicable had been endorsed by the Financial Review Committee. The lot tery would provide a new source of funds for the government’s social and other objectives. But as it was a subject of consider able public interest it would be debated in parliament

Tongan Royals Meet A Bismarck

King Tauf’ahau Tupou IV and Oueen Halaevalu Mata'aho of Tonga paid a 10-day state visit to Germany in November. In Hamburg, the Tongan royal couple were guests of Countess Gunilla von Bismarck, a descendant of ‘lron Chancellor’ Otto von Bismarck who in 1876 signed a friendship treaty with

Tonga.

Yap: ‘Be Proud Of New Hospital’

Yap’s new 50-bed Memorial Hospital began full-time operation in November. Said Yap Governor John Mangefel: ‘The new hospital cost SUS 4 million. It is the most modern and the biggest building in Yap, and the people of Yap should be proud of

Sigatoka, Levuka Happy With Councils

Two Fijian towns, Sigatoka and Levuka, created some kind of history in December when members of their municipal councils

were all returned to office without a single councillor being opposed.

John Kaputin Comes Out Fighting

Papua New Guinea’s former Minister for National Planning and Development John Kaputin (PIM Dec p 22) emerged from gaol in Port Moresby in December to launch a stinging two-pronged attack on the use of ‘foreign laws’ in PNG, and on the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Ebia Olewale. Mr Kaputin was gaoled for 10 weeks on October 10 for failing to comply with a court order to file company returns. He later filed the returns. On his release he said he believed the charge against him was ‘unnecessary’, and accused Mr Olewale of ‘intolerable misuse of political and executive power’ in failing to act on a recommendation for mercy made in the case by PNG’s Constitutional Advisory Committee.

Mr Kaputin is now a minister without portfolio.

Violence Forecast In New Caledonia

Mr Yann Celene Uregei, leader of the United Front for Kanak Liberation in New Caledonia, forecast late in November that viol ence would occur in his country and that France must accept responsibility because the French Government was protecting a fascist anti-independent group, the Movement for Order and Peace, formed by French colonials who moved to New Caledonia after failing to prevent independence in Algeria. Mr Uregei made his allegations in Port Moresby where he had talks with PNG Foreign Minister Ebia Olewale.

Solomons ‘No Confidence’ Motion Fails

Solomons Prime Minister Peter Kenilorea has survived the fourth ‘no confidence’ vote moved in parliament. The motion moved in mid-November against a government decision to release a Taiwanese fishing boat, which grounded on the reef at Ontong Java in July, was beaten by 21 votes to nine with eight absten tions. Later in the session, Mr Bartholomew Ulufa'alu led the Opposition in a walk-out in protest against the 1980 Budget.

Suva Starts A World-Wide Mission

A choir of a thousand voices and a march of 20 000 people in Suva on January 6 will launch a world-wide religious drive, the Mission to the 80’s planned by the World Methodist Council.

From its launching in Suva, the mission, with public services, demonstrations and conferences, will circle the world. On New Year’s Eve, a Round the World Prayer Event will begin in Tonga and then continue in all the countries.

Success Of Hebrides Arts Festival

The New Hebrides’ December National Arts Festival (PIM Nov p 24) was voted a big success, despite efforts by some, notably on Tanna Island, to prevent participants going to Vila. Purpose of the festival was to bring together people from all islands in the archipelago to display their many and varied forms of arts and crafts. (Full report PIM Feb.) BRITISH COUNCIL AID TO SOLOMON IS. CUT The British High Commissioner to Solomon Islands, W. D. Stump, has said overseas aid from the British Council had been cut.

As a result, the council was unable to offer training awards for 1980-81. The cut would not affect trainees already committed to awards whose studies continue into 1980-81. A spokesman for the SI Ministry of Education and Training said the cut would mean that the ministry would have to find outside sponsors for students wishing to study in the United Kingdom.

Australia Waives Nadi Debt

The Australian Government has waived an $BOO 000 debt to allow Fiji to assume full ownership of Nadi Airport.

Marianas Throws Out Casino Act

Voters in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas in December overwhelmingly defeated the casino gambling act and elected at least eight Democrats to the House of Represen tatives, assuring them of taking control of the chamber from the former majority, the Territorials.

Radio Cook Islands Is Tops

Radio Cook Islands was voted 1979’s Station of the Year by the North American Shortwave Club, California. Club president Robert Leingang has sought information about the radio for pur poses of publicity in the United States.

Keeping It In The Family

The Pacific Area Travel Association (PATA) reports that of a record 18.5 million visitors to the Pacific area in 1978, 53.7% came from within the Pacific area.

New Hebrides: High hopes are haunted by high dangers

‘Lini.’ ‘Walter Lini,’ ‘Father Lini’ ... the gravel voice of Aime Malere, member of the New Hebrides Representative

Assembly, was reading aloud

the votes cast in the election just held for chief minister at the first session of the assembly since the elections of November 14.

The scene in the New Hebrides Government Build ing in Vila on November 29 was one of vote-counting, Melanesian-style. No nonsense here about self-important scrutineers rushing off with ballot boxes to do the job in some hidden backroom. Each voting paper as it was opened was read to the assembly in exactly the form in which it was written down.

But whatever the method of counting the votes, the result was predictable: Fr Walter Lini, president of the Vanuaaku Party, received 26 votes exactly the same num ber as his party had won seats in the 39-member assembly on November 14. There were three votes for Father Gerard Leymang, chief minister in the former Government of National Unity, and three abstentions.

As the applause died down after announcement of the re sult, it was impossible not to think back to the scene in Vila two years to the day, to November 29 1977 to the boycott by the VP of the (uncontested) ‘elections’ held on that day, to its proclamation of a People’s Provisional Government, and to the civil strife to which these events gave rise in Vila. The official claim was that the timing was ‘pure coincidence’. But like many official claims it strained belief. The VP leaders can read calendars as well as if not better than most people. But the sym bolic flourish was probably

generally accepted as justified

by the recent sweeping elec toral success of the VP, and by the dramatic change in its for-

The 1980 s open with the British-French Con dominium of the New Hebrides on the threshold of independence. Some time this year, between May and July, the New Hebrides becomes the Republic of New Hebrides. The foundations for independence were laid at the end of 1979, with the promulgation of a constitution and the in augural session of the New Hebrides Represen tative Assembly, following general elections. RIM associate editor MALCOLM SALMON was in New Hebrides for these events, and visited the important regional areas of Santo and Tanna.

Here he gives the first detailed report of what took place in that heady period.

tunes from that of the ‘outlaw’ party reviled by many just two years before.

After electing the chief minister, the main business of the day was announcement of the new government. Specu lation had been rife in Vila for days as to whether the new government would be a mixed one, or one made up exclus ively of VP ministers. The

speculation was probably

fuelled by the precedent of the GNU, which was made up of five VP ministers and five non-VP, with a casting vote in the hands of the non-VP Chief Minister Fr. Gerard

Leymang.

Political insiders in Vila con cede that the GNU was a pol itical success, paving the way as it did for a unanimously agreed constitution and for the November 14 elections. But from an administrative view point it was a different story, with the GNU causing endless frustrations because of its incapacity to take firm de cisions on matters of any sub stance.

In the event, the names of the nine new ministers read out to the assembly by Walter Lini on November 29 were all of men elected on the VP ticket

(see accompanying panel).

This too was really predict able. The VP had always

strongly upheld the principle of

majority rule - that if a party can win a majority in a parlia

ment it has a right to govern.

The absence of a guarantee of majority rule was in fact one of the reasons for its boycott of the 1977 elections. It also had to face questions of an inner party character the pressure exerted for positions of re

sponsibility by many talented,

highly educated VP members in the assembly, who could under no circumstances be per suaded to stand aside for a member of one of the oppo sition groupings. Then, per haps most important of all, there was the position of the

party’s grassroots organisation

to be considered, especially the 70 or 80 ‘commissars’ who are the backbone of VP strength in rural areas.

One can imagine what their reaction to a mixed govern ment would have been. They would have reproached the VP leaders along the lines that ‘Here we’ve been slogging it out for the party in the villages for years, and you, sitting in air-conditioned comfort in Vila, make ministers of people who stood against our own VP candidates.’

So, hopes for some new form of‘coalition’ government, how ever sincerely held by some, were doomed to remain just

that hopes.

Despite the underlying ten

sions, the assembly session was quiet. As one with some experi ence of observing affairs from the vantage point of the

parliamentary press gallery in

Canberra, I was struck by the courtesy with which members treated each other. This was particularly notable in the re lations between Fr. Lini and his predecessor as chief minis ter, Fr. Leymang. Political

passions have clearly not

undermined the respect and affection existing between these two priests of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches.

After an exchange of views between these two, the as

sembly agreed to plan for the

proclamation of the indepen

dent Republic of New Hebrides somewhere within the three-month time bracket of May-July 1980.

The session closed with a prayer recited by Pastor Sethy Regenvanu, the new Minister for Lands. I couldn’t under stand his pidgin at all well and asked my neighbour in the gal lery whether it was the Lord’s Prayer we were hearing. I was told that it was not. It was a

prayer improvised by the

speaker as he went along, and that it would become the cus tom of the assembly for the Speaker, Pastor Fred Timakata, to nominate one or other of the numerous minis ters of religion in the assembly to do likewise at the close of each session. (The-Presbyterian Church in the New Hebrides is believed to have held a crisis meeting in Vila on the week end of December 1-2 to decide what to do about the sudden drain on its pastoral strength created by the new as

sembly!)

One left the government building with the feeling that for the first time in history a

freely elected and authentically

representative government

existed in the New Hebrides, and that it would be an honest and determined government in

grappling with the country’s

problems.

Problems there are in plenty.

For example, careful readers will have noticed that while

there are 39 members of the as sembly, only 32 took any part in the election of the chief minister. The session was in fact boycotted by seven Mod erate Party members for Santo, Tanna and Aoba/Maewo.

At a brief inaugural as sembly session on November 28. Guy Prevot, Federal Party member for Vila (and the onJv person of all-French extraction in the assembly) had read a statement on their behalf in

which they alleged ‘numerous

and large-scale electoral frauds on the part of the Vanuaaku Party’ in the November 14 poll ing. Their statement added: ‘We have decided that when we have completed our investi gations and within the time al lowed by the law, we shall lodge a complaint on the sub ject of these frauds with the Electoral Disputes Committee ... Until the committee has given its decision we feel it is our duty to refrain from par ticipating in the work of the

Representative Assembly.’

The fact that most of the boycotters came from Santo and Tanna is of the greatest sig nificance. As reported earlier (PIM Nov. p 14) the New Hebrides constitution provides

not only for a national Rep resentative Assembly to sit in Vila, but also for Regional Assemblies on the two islands of Santo and Tanna. Voting for these regional bodies, which

were clearly designed as safety

valves for the particularist. not to say separatist, sentiments which are most marked in these two islands, took place simul taneously with the elections to

the Representative Assembly

on November 14.

The rub was that the Vanuaaku Party won these elections as well as the national ones, with 8-7 majorities in both Santo and Tanna. To say that this surprised the non-VP par ties would be gross under statement. They were flabbergasted and angry. Their mood was expressed in the ‘We wuz robbed’ claims voiced in

the boycott petition to the Rep

resentatives Assembly.

On Santo, Nagriamel leader

Jimmy Stevens expressed the

sentiments of the defeated groups when he told the

French/Bislama weekly

Nabanga (November 24); ‘l’m shocked and feel like a man who’s been played a dirty trick.’

But Jimmy Stevens did not

limit himself to expressions of shock, hurt and surprise. He took action.

Reasoning that the regional

assembly had been lost by his side by a margin of about 300 votes, and that the opposition VP had probably received these votes from the several hundred residents of Santo who came from other islands, he and his advisers decided that if these ‘foreigners’ could be forced off the island, and if at the same time the petition alleging electoral fraud suc ceeded in winning a re-run of the election to the regional as sembly, his side would win after all.

So, on November 19, groups of Nagriamel supporters and supporters of an associate movement. Tabwemassana of Port-Olry, took to the streets, some carrying clubs, and. gen erally bows and arrows in the case of the ‘man bush’ of Jimmy Stevens (known as ‘naked men’). In trucks

equipped with loudspeakers

they passed through areas such

as Sarakata, where there was a concentration of people from Pentecost Island, and Mango Station, where the inhabitants were predominantly from the Banks group. Their message

was simple : ‘Foreigners out.

Get back to your islands, or else ...’

Fear spread rapidly among

those who were threatened.

They fled the centre of Lugan ville, or Santo town, some taking to the bush, others head ing off to board boats at the

wharf, others again taking

refuge in the Anglican church compound and a number of other safe places. There were at

one point 359 people living in

the Anglican compound.

According to estimates, be tween 300 and 500 people actu ally left Santo as a result of the threats.

What of the police? If man)/ Third World countries suffer from overactive and inter ventionist police forces, New Hebrides appears to have the opposite problem. The twc resident commissioners were unable to agree on the use ol police during the troubles on Santo.

It is sometimes argued that the British and French concep tions of the use of police are so far apart as to be forever in compatible. The British, it is said, see the despatch of police primarily as a means of restor ing calm without resorting to force. The French on the other hand feel that police forces should be kept hidden before they are suddenly moved in and that this should be done only when the moment has come to start cracking heads.

Not even 73 years of ‘marriage’ in the condominial set-up in the New Hebrides have created a meeting of minds on this issue.

While no police were used, two senior British and French officials, Messrs Turner and Peres, went to Santo and talked to Stevens at his Fanafo encampment. To his credit, British resident commissioner Andrew Stuart also visited Santo on November 22.

But most important of all in restoring some degree of calm was the visit on Saturday, November 24, of a high powered party of New Hebridean political figures: the then Chief Minister Gerard Leymang, his then deputy Walter Lini, and two other top

politicians, George Kalkoa andl

Maxime Carlot.

Father Gerard Leymang ... from Chief Minister to backbencher, but without bitterness. Na banga photo.

Calm had by and large re turned to Santo when I visited the island on November 30. A number but by no means all - of those who had fled to the bush had returned to the rusted old US military Quonset huts that are home to about 60% of the population of Santo town.

Although the affair was ‘black man against black man’, longtime Santo resident, den tist and cattleman, Ken Hut ton, told me he had been threatened by a youthful mem ber of one mob. ‘You British, get out!’ he yelled at Mr Hut ton. ‘You cheeky little little c . . ~’ said the forthright Mr Hutton. ‘Anyway, get your facts right.

I’m not British, I’m Australian.

And don’t wave that bloody stick in my face!’ (Meek depar ture of the youthful demon strator.) I’ve referred above to Stevens’ ‘advisors’ in this sorry affair. Wherever one inquired on Santo as to their identity, the same names would crop up.

One was that of Georges Cron steadt, a mixed-race member of the Representative As

sembly representing Santo

town, and another was that of Jean-Claude Creugnet, a businessman, of the Santo

Development Corporation.

Cronsteadt himself, in an interview in Nabanga (Nov 24) described the expulsion of the people from other islands as a

‘logical’ reaction by ‘Man

Santo’ to the defeat in the re

gional assembly elections. He

added: ‘There are lots of people who think that I’ve been somewhat responsible for what has happened. Far from it. On the contrary, I’ve restrained them greatly in what they have

been doing, things would have been worse if I hadn’t been around with them.’

Restraint, yes. When things appear to be ‘going too far’ it is normal for leaders to urge re straint even after they have offered encouragement in the

first place.

An opinion offered by ‘J. M.’ in the same issue of Nabanga as to how the affair unfolded deserves quoting. ‘J. M.’ wrote that, leaving the obvious politi cal motives aside, ‘there is one explanation that’s worth think ing about. “The man bush,” the “naked man” [such as Stevens’ followers] is, for the coast dwelling Melanesians, the “man soltwater”, rather like the Huns were for our ances tors back in the sth century.

Certainly, for many years now, there have no longer been armed conflicts between them, but an ancestral fear persists.

The naked man, carrying a club or bow and arrow, revives a certain sense of terror that was thought to be dead but in fact had only become hidden.

Perhaps this explains the scope of the panic that gripped Santo town, even among those who never saw any “naked men” but had heard by word of mouth that “they” had come.’

There is the closest relation

ship between what happened

on Santo and the events

though much less publicised,

actually much graver far to the south on Tanna. In each case the motivation was the same refusal to accept defeat in the regional assembly elec tions.

Co-ordination of ‘tactics’ be-

tween the electoral losers on both islands was plainly to be seen in the visit to Vila, and then to Santo, by Alexis Yolou, member of the Representatives Assembly for Tanna under the banner of the cultist John Frum movement. On arrival at Santo, Yolou was taken straight to Fanafo to confer with Jimmy Stevens. On his return to Tanna a move was started, exactly as on Santo, to expel non-Tannese islanders, mainly people from the small island of Futuna (not to be confused with Wallis/Futuna), about 70 km off Tanna’s east coast. It was widely said on Tanna that Guy Prevot was probably no stranger to the arz rangements necessary for Yolou’s Santo visit.

An Australian settler in the New Hebrides of 33 years standing. Bob Paul, who has lived on Tanna for many years, was in the thick of the troubles there, which included acts of arson against a ‘bush market’ greatly valued by the local

people, the uprooting of family

vegetable gardens, and the

potentially murderous action of digging holes and a trench across Tanna’s grass airstrip in an attempt to prevent the land-

ing of French and British mo bile police forces, Bob Paul has given the following account for PIM ; ‘The period prior to the elec tions on Tanna was punctuated by a series of visits by French resident commissioner Robert

handing out large quantities of

rice, tinned fish, boats, out board motors, and so on. The people of Tanna were some what taken aback by all this and the custom people re turned the gesture by deliver ing a large amount of sugar cane, taro, manioc, etc, to the French contact in the area (one Tuk Niau) to avoid being under any obligation, ‘The election itself was well run and no serious problems came up. ‘The results were a shattering blow to the “moderates”. Im mediately a planned move got underway, protests were lodged under various pretexts and a demonstration was held with club-bearing “moderates” protesting that they had been cheated ...

‘People leaving for the

National Arts Festival, an his toric event for the New Hebrides, were told by the “moderates” that as the elec

Voters wait their turn in a polling booth in Vila on November 14.

Nabanga photo.

Father Walter Uni ... from Deputy Chief Minister to CM, but with humility. Nabanga photo.

tions had not been “straight” the John Frum and Kapiel would stop them going to Vila until a new election was held. ‘The people for the Arts Fes tival gathered at our property waiting for the ship and 120 Kapiel one of the many cults on this “island of cults” and John Frum standover men arrived armed with clubs and with red bands around their heads. They moved over to where the people were as sembled and their leader an nounced loud and clear in pidgin “Anyone who goes to the Arts Festival we will kill his wife and children and burn his house”... ‘After abortive talks with representatives of the British and French residencies who had arrived from Vila, and who

appeared interested in doing

nothing, I returned in disgust to my workshop where I found

people carving out weapons

they had made they had had

enough.

‘The standover men an nounced that they would be back the following morning to a) remove the Futunese on my property (80% of my staff are Futunese) as they were VP fol lowers, and b) they would burn out all the villages on the west coast from Loanei to Bethel, and c) they would prevent the projected election of five chiefs to the regional assembly due to be held the following day. ‘A night of feverish activity on my property resulted. The Futunese moved out and up into the bush as they did from the other three Futunese settle ments. The people of White sands started arriving and positioning themselves around the plantation to intercept any attackers. I was astounded when at daylight I found some

300 people busily making

weapons in and around my

workshop.

‘A message that the mobile police would be down at Tanna from Vila at 8.00 am the next morning was passed on at 10 pm. We monitored every ve hicle which passed along the road and the only one from the Agencies was the French

Toyota. Presumably this car

ried the message that the air craft were due from 8 am on and that the British police were on the first three aircraft. ‘During the night a group

moved out from the area of Alexis Yolou’s village and dug a trench across the airfield, as well as 19 holes at the landing area and invisible from the air, as the spoil from the holes had been scattered around the air field. ‘At 7.10 am Air Melanesiae advised me from Vila that the special mobile force were due from 8 am onwards. At the same time word came down from the airfield of the damage done there. How word got as far as Vila I don’t know. ‘I called on the local share holders of the New Hebrides

Airways, mostly Melanesians,

and told them that if they ral lied with me we could use the remaining 40 minutes to repair

the airstrip. Fifty-one adults,

plus children, toiled with me using three vehicles and filling the airfield markers as well with soil to carry to the holes.

Women were actually carrying

soil in their skirts. A mag nificent effort by the people to restore “their” aerodrome.

During this operation two

senior local French officials arrived on the scene, drove around but made no effort to help tried to talk to some of the people who ignored them, so they just drove off. Not a single person, truck or machine was offered by them. The air

strip was nevertheless repaired

in time. ‘Meanwhile a force of “mod erates” armed with clubs com plete with their red headbands left from Loanatum Alexis Yolou’s village and headed towards Lenakel. The crowd at my place by now was over 500 and they were spoiling for a fight. The “moderates” did not attempt to burn out the Futunese but continued on to the British and French agencies at Isangel. The Kapiel from the Middle Bush area moved and destroyed the bush market and gardens in that area. ‘We persuaded the mob at our place not to proceed to Isangel as they were too excited and, having attained a local

majority, and being armed

with various vicious weapons,

a cooling-off period was

indicated. ‘All this time, expense and misery should never have hap

pened. It will happen again and

again. I have been putting in

writing for two years now the cause of this misery. I say it

again. Stop this using of the

cargo cultists by unscrupulous characters and incredibly stu pid government officials be fore we have a real tragedy on our hands.’

Bob Paul’s account confirms the dominant impression I gathered on my short, week long visit to the New Hebrides.

It was that the real line of div ision in New Hebrides political life is not between ‘Anglophone’ and ‘Franco phone’, nor even between the British and French on the one hand and the New Hebrideans on the other. It is between New Hebrideans who have been more and those who have been less influenced by the modern world in particular those who have been influenced rather strongly by the missions, for example not so much in many cases by their religious teachings as by their edu cational, medical and other social activities. Most of these activities just happened to have been carried on in English,

although the French, especially

in recent years, have made massive efforts in the edu cational field. For example, Fr.

Walter Lini, an Anglican priest trained in New Zealand, will under no circumstances be threatening Fr. Gerard Leymang, a Roman Catholic priest trained in France, with a club.

Two short statements from

directly opposite New

Hebridean sources seem to sum up these divisions. One is an election slogan of the VP.

One saw it often on the walls of Vila in the post-election period. It said: ‘Vote for the VP the party with 10 years ex perience of politics at home and throughout the world!’

The election result shows that this kind of outward-looking, modernist approach has

obviously won the majority

support of the New Hebrides

population.

But now listen to Jimmy Stevens’ vision of politics in the New Hebrides: ‘A regional council should be formed for each island. Independence should not come all at once for the whole country. Each island should first have its own auton omy . . . There can be no New Hebrides with a strong and

authoritative central govern ment. There’s no question about this.’

As far as foreigners are con cerned, the great danger lies as Bob Paul indicates in the

manipulation of people like

Stevens and his ‘man bush’ fol lowers, and Tanna’s Alexis Yolou and his John Frums by interests as diverse as the American financial adven turers Eugene Peacock and Michael Oliver (with their way-out brand of private

enterprise fundamentalism),

conservative political figures

like Cronsteadt and Prevot,

politically prejudiced district

agents, and unwanted figures like Antoine Fornelli, who although a prohibited

immigrant after his previous

activities trying to start a cultist movement on Tanna (the so called ‘4-Corners Movement’), turned up there briefly again in November in an obvious attempt to fish in the troubled waters.

There is no doubt that the condominial powers ‘want out’, and it is certainly time they went. The whole context of their political and economic re lations is such that their situ ation in New Hebrides is rather an embarrassment to them than anything else.

It is obvious that in the pre sent situation, the French have an effective veto over con dominial actions, since the Bri tish have concluded that while New Hebrides matters little to them, it matters much more to France, especially in view of the unsettled situation in that country’s territories, par ticularly New Caledonia. It simply can’t be imagined that the British are going to do any thing to annoy the French in New Hebrides, especially in view of the delicate nature of their relations in the Common Market.

So, it is certainly time they went. New Hebrides does not need government whose de cisions are coloured by Com mon Market or NATO anxieties.

These people need a govern ment whose prime concern is the New Hebrides. There is no doubt that, whatever the prob lems it will face in the future, the government headed by Walter Lini is such a govern ment.

Political Currents

From Africa

Dr Frances N’Gombe, a Zam bian and millionaire medical practitioner, who made his for

tune by successfully welding

Western medicine to tra ditional African medicine, completed a tour of the South Pacific Islands in November with a ’phone call to PIM.

He liked most of the things he had seen in the Islands, par ticularly in Fiji, he said. But not everything. He hadn’t liked some things in New Caledonia and Tahiti. ‘From what I saw in New Caledonia,’ he said, ‘there is no difference between that country and Zimbabwe - Rhodesia. The white French want to make New Caledonia into the Rhodesia of the Pa cific. ‘That is what I think, but I also wonder why, because the French did much better in Africa than Belgium or Britain did. The people of the Ivory

Coast, Senegal, Togoland,

Guinea, were much happier before independence than the people in other colonies. ‘Here you have a country

where the indigenous people

are black and yet they do not attend public functions. Nor

are they given jobs. Even a

receptionist at the hotel must come from Paris. All the jobs for men are taken by men from Paris whose wives also get jobs with excessive pay. The reason for discrimination which is given is that the black man is not intelligent. That is untrue.

The black man isn’t given a chance. ‘lt’s the same in Tahiti.

When a man with a real black skin goes to a public place, he is considered to be primitive

even though they know

nothing of his personality or value. That is what I encoun tered when I went to a res taurant. I bought a bottle of champagne for about CFP 6000 but the waitress, who was white, wouldn’t serve me by pouring it into a glass. The people at the next table bought a bottle of table wine for about CFP 300 and the girl served them. I complained to the man ager and he served me. ‘That happened in nine

places. Then, in one place, I gave a CFP 5000 tip. From then on I got service.’

Dr N’Gombe believed that

Fiji had improved greatly.

There seemed to be few colour problems, he said, but the Fijian people would have to ensure that their rights as the

indigenous people were not

lost. ‘lt is most important that they remain owners of the land.

The regulations that have been made to ensure that they kept their lands is something for which Fiji is to be congratu lated, but I wish more was done to involve the Fijians in business.’

The doctor was also impres sed with the New Hebrides. ‘I could see there,' he said, ‘that the native people were working everywhere; in the hotels, in shops, everywhere that is nor mal. The only trouble there is that there are one or two who want to confuse the people but the New Hebrideans should be aware that France and England don’t matter; language doesn’t matter. They are one people.’

As befits a doctor, Dr N’Gombe had a prescription for the Islands. ‘The best sol ution for all the islands of the South Pacific,’ he said, ‘is for all the people to be close together. They can’t deal prop erly with their former colonial masters. They must co-operate, island with island, and those who are called Part-Europeans

should also realise that they are all one people, all one with the rest of the people in the Islands.’

Palau’S Big

‘NO’

Palau voters have rejected the revised version of the Palau constitution by a close to 70% margin in a referendum. A

group supporting the original

version of the constitution im mediately asked the US government to delay resump tion of the political status nego tiations until the new legislature takes office this

January.

All but one of the members of the new legislature elected in September ran on platforms supporting the original consti tution, which had been ap proved by 92% of Palau voters in July. But ignoring this popu lar support, two months before the September election, the current legislature voided the original document and revised the constitution to meet US objections.

The People’s Committee for the Palau Constitution, comprised of former Consti tutional Convention delegates, legislators-elect and others, cabled the US High Com missioner stating that Palau Political Status Commission Chairman Roman Tmetuchl, outspoken critic of the original constitution, no longer speaks for the people of Palau. ‘We need not remind you that he (Tmetuchl) as a member of the present leadership does not have the support of the people of Palau,’ the cable said.

Tmetuchl has been the

official head and strongest force in the status commission since its creation by the legis lature in 1974. But the com mission opposed the original constitution, urging accommo dation of US military interests to gain a larger economic aid

package.

The emerging pro constitution leadership has taken a strong stand against US military plans for Palau, but adds that Palau’s constitution, with its nuclear ban and restric tions on foreign use of Palau land, can accommodate the ‘free association’ status under negotiation.

Observers speculated that the new legislature, once taking office in January, may rescind the legislation voiding the orig inal constitution and let the document stand as it was ap proved by Palau voters. What ever the case, American Ambassador Peter R.

Rosenblatt stands accused by Con-Con members of inter fering with Palau’s internal constitutional processes. He has lost some credibility with the new leadership and could be a liability to a quick resol ution of the status negotiations, not alone in Micronesia, but also in winning approval of any agreement in Washington.-

Gijf Johnson

Mara: What

Fiji Needs

In an official visit to Australia in November Fiji Prime Minis ter Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara made the following points at a nationally broadcast lunch at the National Press Club, Can berra: • Preservation of our island culture has received a new im petus with independence in the Pacific and the re establishment of our national identities. We have therefore been greatly heartened and helped by the generous grants by Australia and New Zealand for numbers of projects de signed to preserve and strengthen our traditions. For instance we in Fiji are engaged on a monolingual Fijian Dic tionary and Australian funds have assisted us in continuing with this project. • We are getting away from

Dr Frances N’Gombe

Roman Tmetuchl

simply being plantations to supply raw materials. More and more processing is going on in the islands, with the con sequent added value and the increase in our versatility and self-respect. We are doing this both in the larger scale indus trial fields and also in the smaller but no less important areas of intermediate tech nology. For example, in my own island of Lakeba we are

just establishing a factory to

make much fuller use of the coconut. We intend to make oil, coir, charcoal and coconut meal. • Quite apart from the financial benefit, we are get ting away from the situation where our people’s role in the copra industry was that of bearing heavy burdens of nuts, cutting out copra and manhan dling it into driers and on to vessels. With just a few steps upward in technology, nuts can be collected at the roadside and taken in by collectors to the centre for processing. Of course, the government in co

operation with the people’s

own effort has provided the road to make this possible, and

the factory equipment comes

under aid schemes. So this is the sort of aid which helps us to help ourselves. • Regional shipping and air lines have, I am afraid, not proved a success. However, in this we do not greatly differ from many parts of the world, and quite apart from the need

for absolutely top-class man

agement it may be that,

inherently, such regional oper

ations are almost doomed to failure because of the compet

ing interests and requirements

of the various countries. Nor is it any easier because such needs are quite legitimate and justifiable. Hence Air Pacific, where Fiji has been almost obliged to take a major

shareholding.

• On the labour front we have been sorry to see the tentacles of Australia and New Zealand metropolitan trade unionism reaching out to our islands. We are at a different stage of development, we have dif ferent problems and we have different traditional patterns of settlement. I must say the efforts to push into our indus-

trial scene received a resound ing rebuff a year or two back, when a spontaneous march of thousands of our citizens led by the women folk protested

vigorously against these

intrusions. But in any case we are now trying to handle these matters in the Pacific Way.

And that is by sitting down together in what we call the Tripartite Forum Govern ment, Employers and Trade Unions. True, we are con cerned with wage levels; and the participation of all these partners ensures that the views and positions of all are at least known to all and taken into account. • We have seen our University of the South Pacific grow so that we have an institution whose educational efforts are geared to our own require ments. But we have only been able to do this with most gener ous aid from many developed countries including Australia. • Another area where we shall, I am sure, be looking for aid is in connection with the re sources of the sea, where the new developing Law of the Sea is offering vast opportunities for exploitation. But they not only offer scope for exploi tation to us, the owners, but also to others from outside.

Surveillance will therefore be an important element in con servation. Even those of us with naval resources and airlines operating among our islands will find the task a daunting one. That is why we have wel

corned Australia’s offer to con duct a survey of all surveillance resources in the region. This will enable facilities to be measured by a common yard stick and at the same time see what supplementation is re quired in a way whereby co operation will make the most telling and economical use of resources. • The fishing resources of our countries must be vast and in seeking aid for their develop ment we are really asking you to give us an opportunity to do without aid. For once, some quite small countries have the

opportunity to develop viable

resources. By helping us, you not only enhance our economic position but also our self re spect.

Forum

Woos Asean

Initiatives have been taken to

develop a closer relationship

between the South Pacific Forum and the Association of South-East Asian Nations

(Asean).

The idea of a closer dialogue between the two regional groups was promoted at the 1979 Forum in Honiara by the

Papua New Guinea delegation.

It received strong backing from the Forum because the region’s leaders realised that their coun tries can learn a great deal from the ASEAN experience.

ASEAN was formed in 1967 to accelerate economic, social and cultural progress and has

become a viable regional force

embracing Indonesia,

Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand

and the Philippines.

The approach to ASEAN was made through the Forum secretariat, the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co operation (SPEC). SPEC direc tor Mahe Tupouniua recently met ASEAN general secretary Datuk Ali Abdullah in Jakarta to discuss ‘appropriate areas of

co-operation.’

Mr Tupouniua describes the talks as ‘cordial.’ They focused on energy, transport, tourism and industrial co-operation.

He was impressed by the posi

tive attitude of the ASEAN and Indonesian officials to a con tinuing ASEAN-Forum dia

logue.

At Datuk Abdullah’s sugges tion he will discuss the question of SPEC representation at the next ASEAN meeting in Kuala

Lumpur (probably next July)

with the Malaysian foreign

minister.

There is obviously a degree of self-interest in seeking closer ties with ASEAN. Vulnerable Island economies face strong competition for Australian and New Zealand markets from the ASEAN countries.

Mr Tupouniua explains the

attitude of Forum nations: ‘ASEAN countries may need Australian and New Zealand aid but Pacific Island needs are greater because ASEAN coun tries are quite advanced indus trially and can guarantee more

job opportunities and higher

Fijl Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara (centre) in Canberra during his recent visit to Australia with Australia’s Acting Prime Minister Doug Anthony (right), and Foreign Minister Andrew Peacock.

incomes for their people, as a result. ‘Pacific Island countries wel come Australia and New Zealand aid programmes which in money terms are sub stantial but we do not wish to vie with ASEAN for such aid.

It is not the Pacific way to be greedy but to share the little we have. ‘But on the question of trade access Pacific Island nations cannot be treated on equal terms,’ says Mr Tupouniua. ‘Special consideration will have to be given to Pacific Island countries because by Pa cific standards we are dealing with industrial giants and we will not have a show of compet ing with ASEAN.’ James

Tally.

U.S. Won’T

Dump Waste

The United States has been re assuring Pacific Island govern ments that US plans for establishing a temporary spent nuclear fuel storage facility somewhere in the Pacific Islands has been the subject ‘of considerable misinformation’ in so'me parts of the Pacific. It’s been making it clear through diplomatic channels that it has no plans to turn Palmyra, Mid way or Wake islands into

‘dumping grounds for nuclear

wastes’.

The US has found it necess ary to make these denials as a result of publicity which fol lowed a State Department an nouncement of last June 14 which said that several US government agencies were

collaborating in preliminary

studies on the feasibility of establishing somewhere in the Pacific Islands an ‘interim spent fuel storage facility to serve the needs of Western Pa cific Basin countries’. The State

Department announcement

said that preliminary evalu ations would be made of Pal myra, Wake and Midway as possible sites.

The US has since made available fuller details of its thinking, and is going to some pains to stress that it is very early days yet. This is what it is telling Islands governments about its concept:

The US Nuclear Non- Proliferation Act is designed, among other things, to dis courage reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods from the world’s commercial power plant reactors before the material is actually needed commercially and before there are international agreements to reduce the risk of widespread proliferation of material from the rods that could be used for weapons, such as plutonium.

Plutonium can be extracted from the fuel rods through

reprocessing techniques but

currently it is not economic to reprocess the fuel for commer cial use.

If the material is not to be

reprocessed immediately then

it has to be put in safe storage.

The US has suspended indef initely the reprocessing of any of its own spent fuel, and is storing it in the US, and will continue to do so.

Under the Non-Proliferation Act it has offered to take back limited quantities of other people’s spent fuel for storage, to help guarantee it doesn’t get into the wrong hands. It fore sees the time approaching when it might need to find a temporary storage site for spent fuel from the Western Pacific, particularly from Japan, which is going into nu clear power in a big way. It is possible that South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines might also need this facility.

The US has been stressing

that spent fuel stored for poss

ible reprocessing has nothing

to do with the problem of the permanent disposal of nuclear wastes, and that the Pacific is not being considered for waste

disposal.

Spent fuel would probably

be stored above ground in sealed silos made of about 100 to 200 tons of reinforced con crete. Each silo would be about seven metres high and four metres in diameter with walls about one metre thick. They would be expected to have to hold the spent fuel for up to 30 years.

The spent fuel, still con tained as pellets within the sealed rods of the rigid reactor assemblies, would originally give off considerable heat but would cool after a few years.

The US thinks storage facilities would be needed in the Pacific for 10 000 tonnes.

The ideal site would be an island that was isolated, that had regular rainfall but away from the storm and hurricane belt, with stable geography (obviously not in a volcanic belt) and with a harbour fa

cility.

Preliminary surveys have indicated that Palmyra, Mid way and Wake might be suit able, in that order of importance. Wake suffers from occasional typhoons. No other islands have been looked at, and if any are, it will be an nounced, the US says.

The inquiry is only at the preliminary stage. The US has

asked Japan to join with it in a full feasibility study of the proposal, and says that ‘further consultations with interested nations and other parties will be undertaken as this evalu ation proceeds’. The US hopes

the joint study might start this

March, and says the results of the study will ‘be made avail able to everybody’, but at least five to eight years can be expected to elapse before there are any firm decisions, if then.

The US Congress would be informed at every step in the

plan, and by law Congressional

approval would be required

before it could be put into op eration.

The US Consulate in Sydney told PIM: ‘A primary consider ation in reaching a decision will be assurance that such activity on any site does not present health, safety or environmental hazards. In ad dition, the social and political aspects will be evaluated. A range of views will be solicited and given full consideration in the evaluation process. ‘The US has instructed its embassies in the region to inform South Pacific nations.

Western Pacific nations, and many other capitals of the nature of the proposed study.

We have informed Micro nesian representatives and other islands officials. Gover nors of the state of Hawaii and of all US Pacific territories have been informed. The State Department has offered to brief members of Congress as well as representatives of any governments on this activity.’

Autonomists

Hard At It

‘lmmediate independence is not what French Polynesia wants,’ says Francis Sanford, who as vice-president of the Government Council of

French Polynesia, is Poly

nesia’s chief minister. ‘What we have got is genuine self government the right to run our own internal affairs, to use our own language officially, to fly our own flag, and that is enough for now. The rest will come.’

And Mr Sanford’s views are echoed by Frantz Vanizette,

Preliminary US surveys have indicated that the Pacific Islands of Palmyra, Midway and Wake, in that order of importance, might be suitable for the storage of spent nuclear fuel. But no decision is likely for five to eight years. Picture shows Midway Island.

president of French Polynesia’s

Territorial Assembly, who says, ‘Freedom is fine, but you still have to have connections with other people. Small territories can’t survive on their own.’

The reality of self-govern-

ment has taken the heat out of the independence movement in French Polynesia. Men like Sanford who were in the vanguard of the demand for autonomy are now more busily

occupied in handling the

autonomy they’ve won And most of the population agree with their approach.

The demand for ‘independence now’ comes only from small groups with minor support, which is the reason why nobody, either in the French

establishment or the territory government, got much excited recently when PNG Deputy Prime Minister Ebia Olewale and New Hebrides Deputy Chief Minister George Kalkoa made stirring speeches at a

Papeete independence rally

(PIM Dec p 15). „,„ , . .

French Po| y nesia has been running its own affatrs, includ >"g co , nt I ro *>"S I ' s ° wn budget, since July 1977. It does it under “ ne r w constitution which both San [ ord and , Y 311126 sa y wor , ks - and whlch can and wlll evo ve ’

Mr Vanizette says the consti tution is responsible for the best relations that have ever existed between metropolitan

France and French Polynesia.

The new constitution clearly defined the State’s and Poly nesia’s responsibilities. ‘Before, there was too much ambiguity,’ he says. ‘What we got from time to time depended on who was in power in France, but not now. Power genuinely is in the hands of the Government Council for the first time. They run the

country.’

Mr Vanizette predicts that the next change will make the vice-president of the Govern ment Council into the official president of the Government Council (that title is at present held by the High Com missioner). He thinks there will also be more direct powers given the councillors who at the moment, for example, do not have the power to remove the head of a department that has to be done by the High missioner. ‘The evolution will be in the spirit of the French consti tution,’ he says, ‘which allows a local constitution to evolve with discussion.’

He believes the present con stitutional arrangement with France is more satisfactory

than complete independence,

because it enables Polynesians to discuss their needs with France ‘on a basis of equal-to

equal’.

If French Polynesia were independent today it could not possibly meet the money that was expended by France on the

development of the territory,

particularly its expenditure on

public servants, he said.

This did not mean that French Polynesia was not con scious of the need to build up its own economy. There was a time, only a few years ago, when France’s nuclear centre in French Polynesia was re sponsible for generating 60% of of the local economy. It had since been lowered to 30%, and each year French Polynesia was lowering the percentage even more, Vanizette said.

Under the constitution, France still controls French

Polynesia’s foreign affairs, citi

zenship, defence, police and

justice, and secondary edu

cation. Neither Francis San ford nor Vanizette sees the need for any of these responsi

bilities to be passed over right now, but Sanford thinks when the time does come for changes he would want to see foreign affairs passed over first be cause of its close involvement with trade.

Mr Sanford foresees a closer involvement between French Polynesia and the rest of the Pacific Islands. ‘What I woud like to see is all the groups of the South Pa cific coming together to form a kind of common market, work ing closer together on trade matters. That way we can all get stronger.’

Mr Sanford recognises the fact that some of his supporters fear he may have lost the drive drive that he once had towards full independence for French Polynesia. He doesn’t apolo gise for it; he says that once French Polynesia got the reins of government it was inevitable that it should consolidate be fore the next step.

He says: ‘Some people I know who were for indepen dence right away make visits to other places outside French Polynesia and see what is going on, and change their minds.

The fact is as long as we have the right to run our internal affairs, we are better to concen trate on developing our econ omy. That’s the big task. We have to create employment, and we are doing it’. Stuart Inder

Atmospheric nuclear tests like this one on Moruroa Atoll, French Polynesia, are a thing of the past. So are the times when the territory got as much as 60% of its budget from the nuclear testing pro gramme. According to French Polynesia’s leaders, the programme now accounts for only 30% of the budget, and this percentage will go down further.

Above: Francis Sanford; below: Frantz Vanizette.

The man sometimes referred to as Japan’s ‘Godfather’, Riyoichi Sasakawa, is Tonga’s

honorary consul in Tokyo.

Along with the Nauru con sulate and the Papua New Guinea embassy, he is there fore one of the tiny handful of Pacific Islands diplomatic ‘presences’ in Japan.

Suggested as a recipient of the Emperor’s highest order for meritorious services by the

Japan Shipbuilding Foun

dation (of which he happens to be chairman), Sasakawa finally received his award last year.

The event raised some contro versy, for Sasakawa, as a politi cal powerbroker, gambling tycoon and former ‘Class A’ war crime suspect, seemed to some to have questionable credentials. However, the then Prime Minister, Takeo Fukuda whom Sasakawa had served as a kind of political counsellor, was among those who ap proved of the award.

Sasakawa’s links with the Pacific date back to trips to PNG, where he has encou

raged Japanese war veteran

groups to organise the collec tion of bones from the old battlefields to return to Japan.

On one mission he met a little known journalist named Michael Somare whom he brought to Japan for an expenses-paid tour that in cluded a stay in the home of Fukuda, then minister of finance.

Sasakawa’s present Pacific connections include what many believe to be a deep in volvement in Tonga’s $3O - development scheme for its international airport and two 40 ha industrial parks.

With a personal fortune of around $6O million and land holdings of up to $5OO million, Sasakawa is either chairman, president or director of count

less organisations. Legalised

gambling from his motorboat racing monopoly ropes in more than $5 billion a year.

He and the notorious Yoshio Kodama, a key defendant in the Lockheed scandals, were founders of the strongly nationalistic Patriotic People’s Mass party in 1931, a black

shirt style organisation that

played an important role in whipping up militarism.

‘The Pacific War was un avoidable if Japan was to de fend herself and maintain the right to survive,’ asserts Sasakawa. ‘lt was never a war

of aggression.’

At the end of World War II Sasakawa and Kodama shared a cell at Sugamo Prison, where another war crime suspect Nobusuke Kishi, was also in detention. Kishi managed to become prime minister in 1958.

Unlike post-war Italy and Germany, where most war criminals were either executed or disgraced before the new democracy was born, in Japan sentences were often stag geringly lenient. The only con victions were made by the occupation authorities, many of whom were impressed by the militant anti-communism of their former enemies.

Sasakawa, who has de scribed himself as the ‘world’s richest fascist’, promotes filial

worship, patriotism and him

self in a series of strange but

apparently innocent prime

time television commercials.

One of his leaflets pictures him with his idol. Benito Mussolini,

during a special meeting in

Italy in 1939. ‘Mussolini was a first-class person,’ enthuses Sasakawa. ‘He had the charac ter. the spirit and the convic tion of the old Samurai of Japan. He was the perfect fas cist and dictator.’

At 80, Sasakawa remains as bold as ever, still dismissing his critics as a bunch of Reds who

are jealous because they

haven’t received their slice of

the spoils. Expressing himself

with a total absence of tra ditional Japanese modesty, he boasts of currying the favour of Arab oilmen with gifts of

Japanese pornography, and

claims to have made love to

more than 500 women, includ ing one distantly related to a former Emperor. Wayne Brit tenden.

Paul Sangio, switchboard op erator at Papua New Guinea’s

parliament building, is well

known for his unfailing cour tesy and efficiency. What most callers will never know is that Paul is totally blind. Besides being chairman of the St John Association for the Blind, Paul is also involved with other or ganisations for the disabled.

Between writing his autobi ography and acting in some plays for the national radio, he finds time to strum the guitar.

He lost his sight at the age of four, and considers himself lucky that in the earliest years of childhood he enjoyed the sights of sky and sea, hills and flowers at his Ablingi village, Gasmata, West New Britain.

Gwenneth Deverell has been appointed the first woman member of the faculty of the

Pacific Theological College,

Suva. Gwenneth Deverell is a teacher at the neighbouring University of the South Pacific, and has previous experience in Western Samoa. She will serve as Co-ordinator of Extension and the Women’s Pro gramme.

Mrs Legu Lee, Papua New Guinea’s first woman to head a diplomatic post, has taken up the position of Consul for Queensland in Brisbane. Mrs Lee, 33, mother of a boy of nine and a girl 10, was formerly with the post liaison and infor mation branch of the PNG

Department of Foreign Affairs

and Trade in Port Moresby.

Originally from Milne Bay, she was a school teacher in Port

Moresby before joining the

Department of Tourism where she became training super

visor. She joined Foreign

Affairs and Trade in 1974.

Raymond Greet has been

appointed Australia’s High

Commissioner to Fiji. He is also accredited as HiCom to Tuvalu. Mr Greet, 45, succeeds Gordon Upton who has been HiCom in Suva since 1976. To take up his new post, Mr Greet leaves the job of Minister and

Deputy Permanent Represen tative in Australia’s mission to the United Nations.

The legal action launched by Nauru’s President Hammer Deßoburt against the Gannett Company Inc (PIM Dec 1978 p 55) moved a stage further in November when Judge Samuel P. King of the Federal District Court in Honolulu ruled that his court was competent to hear the case.

President Deßoburt is suing the company, which owns the largest newspaper chain in the United States, for libel dam ages totalling $U537.5 million.

The alleged libel was pub lished in Guam’s Pacific Daily News on May 30, 1978. Gan nett acquired the paper, which has a circulation of about 18 000, in 1972 as part of its ac quisition of The Honolulu Star- Bulletin.

The passage complained of appeared in a despatch from Cisco Uludong, a reporter based in Saipan, capital of the Commonwealth of the North ern Marianas. The report said that ‘the Republic of Nauru is

secretly backing the separation

of the Marshalls from Micronesia’, and contended that President Deßoburt had delivered a $6OO 000 loan from Nauru to the Marshall Islands Political Status Commission, which was supporting separ ation of the Marshall Islands.

President Deßoburt, calling the article ‘untrue in every sig

nificant respect’ responded by

filing a defamation suit in Fed eral District Court in Honolulu on October 2, 1978.

Mr Uludong is now in New

Riyoichi Sasakawa

Hammer DeRoburt

York on a Dag Hammarskjold Fellowship to report on the United Nations.

The Gannett lawyers moved to dismiss the suit, claiming that Mr Deßoburt was a public figure and would therefore be required to show that the article had been printed not as a political comment but with the intention of causing him injury. They also argued that the case should be conducted under the law of Guam.

President Deßoburt replied:

‘Having voluntarily chosen to

serve as the voice of the Pacific region and to extensively cover Nauru, defendants should not be permitted to hide behind the law of Guam merely because their newspaper is printed there.’

Judge King ruled that

Nauru’s libel laws are based on English common law, as are those of the United States. The only difficulty he found was a succession of cases, beginning with The New York Times vs.

Sullivan that create special

problems for public figures

who contend that they have

been damaged by untruths

printed about them.

He wrote in his opinion: ‘Application of the libel law of Nauru together with the First Amendment safeguards of The New York Times vs. Sullivan and its progeny would provide a satisfactory accommodation of the relevant policies of this forum.’

The Pacific Daily News has only one subscriber on Nauru, the Australian High Com mission. But President Deßoburt contends that other copies come in by hand on Air

Nauru jets.

Suva’s new city councillors made a deal in November over the mayor’s office and so avoided their first problem in running a council on which the Alliance and National Feder ation share power equally.

The deal is that NFP lawyer Cr Gyaneshwar Lala will be Mayor for the next 12 months and former SCC worker and Alliance supporter Cr Tui Smith will be his deputy.

After that the Alliance will provide a mayor for the next two 12-month terms of the council’s office.

Australian film producer/ director Ted Morrisby, fresh from the success of a five-part series of ‘documentary his tories’ ( Castaways) on a variety of Pacific Islands subjects made for New Zealand tele vision, is looking for fresh fields to conquer.

In the works is a similar series devoted entirely to

Papua New Guinea. Morrisby

believes that in film and tele vision ‘the Pacific is the last great unknown’. He also be lieves that his films will not

only entertain and enlighten

audiences in far-off places, but could also attract tourists and investment to Pacific countries as well.

Not that the stories of people

like Mikloucho-Maclay, Luigi

D’Albertis and Queen Emma among the subjects planned for his PNG series are not also interesting to Islanders. Mor risby, like many others, doesn’t ‘approve precisely’ of all that the early Europeans did in the Pacific, but he feels strongly that their place in Pacific his tory deserves attention, and is especially keen to capture on film the recollections of old timers who were part of an era which is now gone.

If he succeeds in raising the estimated million dollars re quired to finance the project, filming could start either this year or next.

Ken Morton, British Airways public relations officer Aus tralia for the past two years, will become public relations manager Southwest Pacific from February 1. He succeeds Richard Baker who takes up the position of public relations manager Orient, based in Hong

Kong.

The Very Rev Fr. Ron Williams, his wife Katie and their family have left Suva after nearly 12 years in the Dio cese of Polynesia of the

Anglican Church.

Nineteen seventy-nine isn’t expected to be recorded in the memoirs of Ricardo Bordallo as a particularly healthy year.

But it was certainly an eventful one for the former Democratic governor of Guam.

In January, Bordallo raised the wrath of Guam’s Republi can Party when he failed to show up for the inauguration of his successor. Paul Calvo.

Bordallo said he hadn’t been invited, although others saw it as a snub against his political opponent who had narrowly beaten him in the November 1978 election.

That was just the beginning.

A couple of months later, Bor dallo’s dream to build a 120 m high latte stone on Guam’s cliffline was shattered when directors of the non-profit making Latte of Freedom Cor poration voted not to pursue the project as planned. Ironi cally, Bordallo had formed the

organisation and had only called in prominent Guam businessmen to sit on the board to take away the corporation’s

political overtones.

Smarting from the defeat Bordallo still adamantly main tained he wanted to go ahead with the plans for the massive and expensive monolith. So far, due primarily to Bordallo’s efforts, the corporation has collected more than $2OO 000 for the project.

But the cruellest and most humiliating blow to Bordallo last year came in September and October (1979) when he was called to court to tell the judge why he hadn’t been mak ing payments to the Jose Maf nas Cruz family to whom he owes about $5OO 000. Bordallo became indebted to the family back in the early 1970 s when he bought a lot of the family’s land during the land price boom which later failed.

In one September hearing

Superior Court Judge Paul

Abbate ordered Bordallo to turn over his shares in seven Guam businesses to pay off his debts. About a month later, Abbate found Bordallo, gover nor from 1975 to 1978, in con tempt of court for ignoring the judge’s order. At the time Bor dallo faced a maximum six month jail term if he continued to fail to comply.

Beside the shares, Abbate also ordered Bordallo to turn over an expected $225 000 tax refund, and to make an afford able monthly payment to the Cruz family. And after Cruz’ attorney Robert Klitzkie asked Bordallo about the timepiece he was wearing that day, the former governor stripped off his $BOOO gold Swiss watch and said he wanted to give it to the

family.

Bordallo defiantly says he’s waiting for the time when he can buy an advertisment in a local newspaper and proudly challenge anyone to say he owes them money. Some ob servers comment he may only be able to do that by declaring

bankruptcy and starting afresh.

But others note that as a proud Chamorro, Bordallo may pre fer to keep working hard at Guam International Insurers Inc and try to pay off his debts that way.

Ted Morrisby

‘Eating to win’ in Pacific Islands athletics

In the wake of the Sixth South Pacific Games and the furore caused in Fiji by the physical collapse during games events of a number of Fiji women athletes Suva-based nu tritionist Susan Parkinson looks at the special problems of nutrition faced by Pacific Island athletes. Mrs Parkinson wishes to acknowledge help received in preparing the follow ing article from Dr David Brown, lecturer in physiology at the Fiji School of Medicine.

Most people who are involved in modem sport or athletics are aware that the food they eat will have some effect on per formance. Everyone naturally wants to eat to win, but often the way they go about it makes nutritionists wonder how they survive at all. The recent sight of women runners collapsing at the South Pacific Games in Suva led many a startled spec tator to question whether the Pacific Island diet was suitable for the demands of athletic per formance.

The current widespread interest in nutrition and ath letic achievement in other parts of the world received little pub licity in South Pacific sports programmes and journals be fore the games. Although most coaches mentioned the need for good food, some of their recommended diets based on eggs, steak, vitamins and glu cose bore little relationship to what people could afford, and even less to what they actually needed.

A pre-games paper prepared by the Fiji national food and nutrition committee, entitled Food for Action, stated em phatically that ‘Fiji food is the best food for Fiji athletes’. The unanswered question is ‘What

went wrong?’.

Over the years, athletes and coaches have been looking for a magic food or drink which

could dramatically improve

performance. Probably no field of human endeavour has been so beset with costly food fads and beliefs. Research at human performance labora tories in Britain and the US has proved conclusively that no single food will greatly alter human performance on the field. Any claim by an athlete

that bees’ pollen, honey, the avoidance of coffee or tea, are beneficial, may be attributed rather to psychological reac tion than to physiological fact.

The nutritional needs of ath letes in training are much the same as the general population except that they need more of the energy-giving carbo hydrate foods, such as root veg etable, rice and bread, and extra minerals, salts and water to replace losses in sweat.

One important difference between athletes and the gen eral population is that the re sults of poor quality diet show up more quickly in a person involved in strenuous exercise.

Because women need more of the blood-building mineral iron than men they will show signs of strain before male ath letes, when both are on poor quality food.

All authorities agree that athletes need to train on a good mixed diet. The necessary pro tein, carbohydrate, fat, mineral salts and vitamins, can be found in food from any dietary background. Good Pacific Island meals which include fish, green leaves, coconut and root vegetables would certainly provide for the nutritional needs of any performer.

However, in most urban centres today Suva, Apia or Port Moresby such a way of eating is beyond the incomes of many young people. The daily diet of many modern islanders consists of bread and tea for breakfast, a poor quality snack lunch and possibly a serving of root vegetables and tinned fish at night. The nutritious green leaves and fruits of the Islands are eaten once or twice a week, instead of once a day, as in

times gone by. Such a dietary regime could be deficient in the vitamins and minerals needed for good health and perform ance.

A recent survey in Tonga of 265 preschool children by Drs W. F. Clark and Mary Richards found that this type of urban diet was related to signs of poor nutrition. Urban children had lower heights and weights than rural children.

Other tests such as arm circum ference and skinfold measure ments, and an examination of the hair, all confirmed that rural children were better nourished.

Another indication that all is not well with modem urban food of Pacific Islanders is revealed by the tendency for

Fijians to suffer from the nu tritional disease anaemia. The results of routine medical

inspections of people undergo

ing pre-service examinations in

Suva between 1971 and 1976 were studied by Drs P. Ram, A.

S. Parmar and B. K. Jha. They found that 26% of the Fijian males and 36% of the females were anaemic. This report is in sharp contrast with that of two well-known nutritionists, Drs Muriel Bell and Lucy Wills, who after undertaking the first anaemia study in Fiji in 1948, said ‘lt is clear from the popu lation sampled that there is no serious anaemia in Fijians’.

Strenuous exercise requires the presence of sufficient oxy gen in the body to provide for the conversion of food to en-

Top: M. Kelesi, of the Solomons, in trouble after the women’s 3000 metres at the South Pacific Games, Suva, Below, Janice Joruru, of PNG, receives medical aid after coming second in the 800 metres women’s final. Are there special problems facing Islands athletes?

ergy. The B group of vitamins, found in root vegetables and wholegrain cereals, are also needed for this process. A lack of the mineral iron, together with a lower protein and vitamin intake, will eventually cause anaemia. Even a mild degree of this disease can seriously affect the amount of oxygen carried round the body, and thus impair the rate at which food is converted into energy.

Nutrition research shows that a good village diet provides a high proportion of the energy, 70-80%, from starchy roots and fruits. Athletes are today advised to obtain at least 60% of their energy from carbohydrate foods like this.

The traditional diet also provided enough of the Vitamin B group to allow for the efficient bodily conversion of carbohydrates into energy. Modern refined carbohydrate foods like rice, flour and sugar contain few vitamins none in the case of sugar. When rice and flour meals are not supplemented with enough meat, fish, and green vegetables, these important energy vitamins are just not taken in sufficient amounts to provide for good nutrition.

In addition to food, athletes also have a greatly increased

need for water. A failure to re place water lost in sweat and breath can lead to the danger ous overheating of the body, This is one of the greatest haz ards of sportsmen and athletes

competing under tropical con

ditions. Careful drinking schedules need to be planned as part of training exercises, Additional mineral salts, in

particular salt and potassium,

are needed in very small amounts to replace sweat losses. In general, these can be

provided by adding a little

extra salt to food and eating more fruit or drinking fruit

juice. Training cannot be

separated from nutrition. It is questionable whether some coaches have emphasised this

relationship enough. Pro

longed strenuous activity

causes changes to take place in nearly all the cells of the body, If a plentiful and good diet is

not taken during training,

stresses will develop which cause poorer performance, Modem research suggests that body enzymes involved in the conversion of food to en ergy can be ‘trained’ to convert energy more efficiently. This process can be developed by an athlete who eats good nu tritious food over the training period. If the daily food lacks the vitamins and minerals

essential to the process, energy conversion will not be as good

as possible.

It is also important for the athlete to know about the types of food best eaten before an event. The modern rule is ample meals the day before so that muscles and liver are well stocked with reserves of

energy-giving carbohydrate,

On the day of the event, a light

meal must be taken several hours beforehand. Some of the younger Fiji women admitted skimping on food, and this could have been a cause of col

lapse.

Dr David Brown, lecturer in physiology at the Fiji School of Medicine, thought that one likely cause was that the less experienced women ran too fast at the beginning of the races, thus putting their bodies into oxygen debt in other words, using oxygen faster than they could take it in. He found no obvious sign of poor nu trition in any athlete, except that a few were slightly over

weight.

Without a good deal of re search it is impossible to pin point the causes for the collapse of some female ath letes during the games; how ever, there appears to be enough evidence to show that failure to co-ordinate good nu trition with training may have been a contributing factor.

At the height of the uproar over what the Fiji Times re ferred to as ‘Our Fall-Down Athletes’, games supremo Commander Stan Brown sug gested that there should be a regional conference on sports medicine. It is to be hoped that this takes place before the next games so that commonsense in formation about food and training can be handed out to

competitors.

These Fiji medal winners demonstrate why athletes today are encouraged to get most of their energy from starchy roots and fruits, like those shown, found in the traditional village diet.

Target: A better food deal for Fiji pre-schoolers

All familiar with the custom and etiquette associated with the traditional Pacific meal are

aware that protocol required

adult males and guests to be served first, the women next, and all others later, so that from the time that a child is weaned until it is old enough to compete effectively with other children it is the first to suffer deprivation, and it is to this group that investigations into malnutrition are first directed. The problem, however, is also compounded by other factors, especially those

associated with tabu, poverty,

and ignorance,

Fiji has a long history of

active interest in nutritional

problems, and especially so

since the establishment of the Nuffield Department of Social and Preventive Medicine in 1959, and the associated department of nutrition and dietetics, under the direction of Mrs Susan Parkinson provided by the Freedom from Hunger

Campaign in 1966. Many

papers have since been written on the subject the present

monograph* lists eight such

puonsneo m me preceding seven years.

Mrs Parkinson’s long experi ence as a nutritionist in Fiji and her concern for associated problems led her to establish the YWCA nutrition com mittee, and, from this, for the Fiji Government to initiate the

present investigation, having

special reference to protein en ergy malnutrition in pre-school children. This programme has been assisted with financial support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID, and Amex Exploration (Australia) Inc.

The present investigation differs from previous ones in several respects. Firstly, in the very large, varied, and comprehensive team, which involved not only the Fiji ministries of health, rural development, and agriculture, but also non-government part ners, the YWCA, YMCA, the Catholic church and missions, N.Z. Overseas Aid, and the Red Cross, together with expert paediatric and medical advisers from overseas.

Secondly, accepting the premise that the basic causes of malnutrition in Fiji had long been well established, the in

vestigation was designed to

determine the specific prob lems in two defined areas: one, an urban village (Tovata) about 10 km from Suva, con sisting of both Fijian and Indian nuclear families on a cash economy; and the other (Namosi) a rural village, almost 60 km from Suva, of

entirely Fijian extended famil

ies on a mainly subsistence economy, but currently in a state of socio-economic change due to the recent impact of

nearby mining exploration

activities.

Thirdly, to provide immed iate aid to relieve urgent mal nutrition, and to devise programmes for improvement and future prevention.

The first phase of the cam paign was to carry out a very detailed and comprehensive survey of every aspect of the health and social life of the inhabitants of each village, together with an assessment of the sanitary state of the environment. Of 203 children

in the age group under special study in the rural village, 65 were discovered to be so ser iously malnourished as to be ‘at risk’. In the urban community, of the 88 Fijian and 33 Indian children, six of the former and 22 of the latter were similarly

endangered. Many children in

both areas were very ill from enteric, respiratory, and skin infections, to which their poor nutritional state rendered them

especially vulnerable.

From the survey it was concluded that urban malnu trition was a function of the socio-economic status of any

particular family, whilst rural

malnutrition resulted from a combination of socio economic status and the gen

eral unavailability of protein,

and fat-rich foods, and in both situations from a failure of many to understand the re lationship between food, work, and money.

The effect of the entry of Amex Exploration into the rural scene was ambivalent. By building access roads and providing transport, the vil lagers were enabled to travel and export some produce, and by making the services of a company nurse and medical supplies available, as well as visits from a doctor, and the financing of homecraft classes at the YMCA the company aided the community. By the employment of local labour they created a new market for

locally grown vegetables. How

ever, by taking men from the

village, the gardens were

neglected, so that not only was there no produce for market, but also a severe shortage for local consumption. Moreover, the increase in cash flow in the village did not compensate, as much of this was spent on alcohol, and the women had budgeting difficulties when changing from their traditional subsistence economy.

Having determined the specific deficiencies, the first priority was medical care for the sick including treatment of the almost universal iron deficiency, and hookworm anaemia, of the women and the urgent renutrition of the children at risk. The former

was accomplished by specialist

medical attention, and the lat ter by an intensive supplemen tary supply of powdered dried milk to a modified diet. An attempt to establish a poultry farm for a supply of eggs failed owing to the death of most of the birds from parasitic disease.

The next priority was to establish a plan for the future.

Recommendations include

general public health measures

including drainage and excreta

disposal, together with a piped

water supply. This latter, how ever, is opposed in Tovata on the grounds that it will encourage more squatters.

Secondly, in Namosi, to encourage the raising of goats, pigs, and fish in ponds; and to compensate for the shortage of

manpower and locally grown food, it is planned to introduce mechanical farming. The intensive cultivation of the ‘wing bean’ (PIM Sep pB9) in both rural and urban situations is recommended as a source of protein-rich pulse.

However, all these measures must be supplemented by edu cation and to this end a pro gramme has been prepared for the establishment of village women’s clubs for discussions, instruction and demonstrations by resident teams of com

munity workers especially

trained in basic nutrition, child welfare, homecrafts, and dom estic economics, supplemented with volunteer workers to assist with health and agriculture. It is also recommended that craft workshops should be established to provide cash income, and co-operative stores to encourage wise and

cheaper shopping.

The YWCA continues its educational programmes for adolescent girls in the hope that the mothers of the near future may be better able to understand the problems, and so not only prevent malnu trition in their own children, but become educated nuclei for their own villages.

However, the final con clusion of this very comprehen sive and valuable report is that whilst, in general, the immediate effects of inter vention in these two areas has been encouraging, the overall position in Fiji remains grave.

The dominant fact emerges from this survey that education is the essential factor in the elimination of malnutrition, and that this is likely to involve considerable financial involve ment, much effort by dedicated workers, and take a long time.

The present survey restricted its activities to two areas in Viti Levu near Suva. It would be most interesting if similar in vestigations could also be car ried out elsewhere in Fiji for example, in the Indian enclave at Vuna, Taveuni, and, per haps, on one of the more re mote islands in the Lau.

Leonard Goodman. * Malnutrition in Preschool Children in Fiji, by Verona E.

Lucas. Published by the Foun dation for the Peoples of the South Pacific, Inc, New York.

I Ropicalities

wows Chathams

The King of Tonga Taufa’ahau Tupou IV had an unexpected bit of advice for New Zealanders when he visited them in October. develop trade with the ‘Mongolian’ people of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and China.

Somehow New Zealanders lived with the illusion that they floated in the North Sea, he said. ‘Let me assure you it is an

illusion.’ By comparison, the

tiny kingdom ot Tonga, with its

100 000 people, was ‘well

adjusted to its geographical

situation’.

The unheralded message

came during the king’s epoch

making visit to the Chatham Islands, a group of 10 dots that are home for about 600 people some 650 km off the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand.

Royalty is a rarity on these islands where the people live off farming and fishing, includ

ing large succulent crayfish

that caught the King’s eye. Up

to that point his visit to New Zealand to look and learn

about agricultural develop

ments such as deer-farming had been humdrum and according to plan.

His size and bulk 193 cm tall and 170 kg make the 61-

year-old king an impressive

figure and his two university degrees bachelor of arts and bachelor of laws from Sydney University attest to his keen mind.

He said that while he ap preciated that New Zealanders came predominantly from Bri tain and had traded mainly in that direction, the country had a dual heritage and now was the time to develop the other half. The Maoris in New Zealand appeared to come from Indonesia and Malaysia, and those people in turn came from southern Chinese prov inces and were ‘Mongolian’, said the King in a lesson on his

torical migrations.

Since New Zealand faced the threat of being shut out of the European Economic Com munity it was time now to make use of its Mongolian heritage, the king said. ‘lf the right approaches were made, good markets could be made in the countries of the north,’ he added.

In an interview with the only

journalist covering the Chat

ham Island visit, David Mitchell of the Christchurch Star, the king gave examples of his country’s links with those ‘countries of the north’, includ

ing Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.

He added; ‘We have ex

tremely friendly relationships

with India. Most of our mili tary cadets are trained in India at just the cost of getting them there and back.’

The king places great im portance for the future of Tonga on development of its international airport which he sees as an important link be tween the Far East and South America. ‘Tonga will be one of the air ports of the Pacific that can take direct flights from Los Angeles. When I go to Britain soon I will be talking to Sir Freddie Laker, because his Skytrain at present terminates in Los Angeles.’

While the King and Queen Halaevalu Mata’aho tended to keep their distance from Ton gans greeting them with great enthusiasm at Wellington air port, the Chatham Islands

informality pushed Tongan

protocol into the background a bit. The queen surprised diplo mats by rubbing noses with local Maori elders, since physi cal contact is considered im proper in Tonga except with someone of royal blood. Then the Queen shared a picnic lunch on a rug on a beach on the island another break with

Tongan practice.

On the New Zealand main land the visit generally was recorded and noted with pleasure. But the impact of roy alty on the Chatham Islanders was much more pronounced. ‘This will go down in history as the Chatham Islands’ finest hour.’ said an enthusiastic chairman of the local county council, Albert Preece, as the

king’s specially reinforced

‘super-king-size’ bed 198 cm by 183 cm was loaded on the RNZAF VIP flight and flown back to New Zealand.

William Gasson

Tuvalu and its

rabbit quartet

Tuvalu’s Agricultural Division has imported four rabbits into Funafuti, in an experiment to evaluate their suitability for farming. The rabbits were brought from New Caledonia

where they are successfully

farmed and are considered a

delicacy by the French.

So far the animals have shown that they will feed ad equately on the foliage of Tuvaluan plants, but they have not yet mated. The officer in charge of the experiment feels that the climate in Tuvalu may be too hot.

As most Tuvaluans have never seen rabbits before, there have been some visitors to view the animals in their cages. Most Tuvaluans have not tasted rab bit meat either, so there has not been much real interest in the project. A few people who are aware that rabbits are serious pests in Australia and New

Zealand have spoken against

the experiment. But the ma jority of Tuvaluans are not

taking the experiment too

seriously.

The Agriculture Division’s Livestock Officer says that the rabbits are securely caged and that the risk of them going wild and becoming pests is minimal at this stage in the experiment.

The rabbits are a non

burrowing variety and are large

and slow running. On the

densely populated atolls of

Tuvalu it would be difficult for these animals to get out of con trol or so everyone hopes.

Peter McQuarrie.

A happy ending to

a Norfolk tale

Under the headline ‘Vale’, The Norfolk Islander late last year carried the following front page story by editor Tom Lloyd about an unpleasant experi ence just endured by him and his wife Tim: ‘lt seems ironical that in last week’s paper we wrote about the changing face of Norfolk and the slow but sure disap pearance of all those little things that made life on Nor folk Island so different from that of the mainland. ‘Unfortunately, another one flew out the back door last Saturday evening while Tim and I were at the RSL Ball see ing who Miss Norfolk Island would be. During our absence some person or persons un known calmly entered the house helped themselves to

King Taufa’ahau in the Chathams. They’re ‘not In the North Sea’.

Tim’s jewellery. The old fashioned idea of leaving the house unlocked made it very easy of course for our “visi tor/s”. and while they may have the satisfaction of now

possessing “man-valued”

Pieces of stone, they have de stroyed one of the treasured facets of Norfolk Island life the freedom of being able to say to anybody, “ef nobody dere, go straight in”.

Sorry for Norfolk.’ ‘(PS There are many now going around trying to find keys to doors that have never been locked).’

In the very next issue of their weekly newspaper, however, Tim Lloyd was back on the subject in a very different vein.

Under the headline ‘A Puzzle ment has Arisen!’ she wrote: As most people would have heard our broadcast message

over VL-2-NI on Tuesday

morning all my valuables were posted back to me on Monday. I did not pick up mail until Monday evening and opened it after the Guide meet ing when I got home later that

night.

‘I would like to record how grateful I am for the return of my “treasures” and how sad I am for the person who was “dared” to do this act, being a little “under the weather” at the time and who is truly sorry for having entered our home in that condition for that purpose.

In the letter accompanying the

goods asking for forgiveness

(freely given to the “dared” but not the “darer”) the writer, ap parently referring to the des ecration of freedom of access to people’s homes with respect and honour, said “...so the island need not worry”. ‘HOWEVER, a Puzzlement has arisen! Included in the collection sent back to me there was a ring which does not be long to me! I now must find the owner of quite a nice ring which has been worn for a con siderable time but could be of a fair value. Please, if you have lost a ring, let me have some details so that I can return it to its rightful owner as quickly as mine were returned to me.

Thank you. Tim.’

Paradise Lost

Air Niugini, the Papua New Guinea national airline, has proved it knows a thing or two about how to operate jets, but their technique’s not so pol ished when it comes to balloon

handling.

A helium-filled meteoro logical balloon was sent aloft from the poolside at the Islander Hotel in Port Moresby in November to launch the air line’s new book Paradise Plus.

At the experimental launch ing (in private) the balloon burst.

For the live performance it went a full 20 m sideways dragging colourful streamers across the lawn and coming down among some of the crowd of 300 at the cer emony.

But then it was given a shove and it soared up into the dark ness and the wind and was

quickly out of sight.

Under the balloon was a plastic-wrapped copy of Para dise Plus autographed by the Governor-General of PNG Sir Tore Lokoloko, who sent the balloon on its way. There was also a parachute to bring the book back to earth after the balloon burst at high altitude.

The finder of the book can claim two tickets to any desti nation served by Air Niugini, but days after the launching there was still no finder

clamouring at Air Niugini’s

doors. ‘Looks like Paradise Plus has become Paradise Lost ,’ was one comment.

The book, which is now on general sale, contains a collec tion from the past 18 months of the best articles and photo graphs which have appeared in

Air Niugini’s in-flight maga

zine Paradise.

It has been published by Pa cific Publications of Sydney.

Sir Tore told guests at the launching ceremony that the published collections from Paradise were part of the im portant national image that PNG and its airline were cre ating in the Pacific and South east Asia. Angus Smales.

Guam: Going to

too much trouble

Guam prison guards dis covered a 1m wide 1.2 m deep tunnel stretching 12m under

the penitentiary’s secondary

fence in mid-October, appar

ently dug by prisoners hoping

for a Great Escape.

The tunnel was cleverly hid den by a piece of plywood and dirt, with a planter box over the wood to give it a natural ap pearance. The tunnel’s entrance was near the prison’s No 2 dormitory, which guards said couldn’t be locked at

night.

Observers said they were surprised at the effort the pris oners had apparently gone to, as the prison is notorious for its easy exists. Scores of prisoners escape from the gaol each year, and many apparently go out to the bars in Agana at night and return in the wee hours. Last year, police stopped a car con

taining escaped prisoners and

returned them to the gaol be

fore guards were aware they had escaped.

In early November, an escaped prisoner called news men to his house for a press conference before giving him self up. When the police arrived he demanded a haircut and was taken by detectives to a barber’s shop for a quick cut

before returning to prison.

U.S. Navy fights

ear disease in TT

Teachers and health care workers have long known that serious ear infections are a fact of life in the tropical Pacific.

But until now, reliable statistics have been unavailable.

According to a feature article

published in Pacific Cross

roads, a bi-weekly US Navy newspaper printed on Guam, one child in three attending school in the Truk Islands has an infected ear. ‘Of all the people, more than half of them will have a hole in the ear drum,” the article says.

Navy specialist Dr George

Swanson, in charge of the ear, nose and throat clinic at the

Navy Regional Medical

Center, Guam, told Navy journalist Fred J. Klinken berger Jr that his 13 trips into the US Trust Territory of the Pacific had probably given him ‘more experience as an ear sur geon than any other sur geon...in the navy’.

The article notes that a phys ician would have to examine hundreds of children in the United States before encoun tering one with an ear infec tion. One in a thousand might have a perforated eardrum.

Swanson said: ‘The worst ghet tos in the United States prob ably have less than one tenth of the incidences of severe ear infection that are present in the Trust Territories.’

No explanation is given of the origin of these ear diseases.

However, Klinkenberger states that the ‘absence of trained doctors has allowed many

pathological cases to develop

to extremities not even seen any more in more advanced medical circles’.

The Trust Territory finances the trips of the navy doctors and their assistants.

Larry Lawcock.

Tom Lloyd

Travel

Polynesian oasis in backstreet Vancouver

It's been my privilege to number among my friends the legendary schooner skipper, the late Captain A ndy Thomson, writes Dr Bill Coppell. I cherish the memory of sitting w ith him at the long table in his house at Rutaki, Rarotonga, and listening to his yarns of the sea and of Pacific characters yarns which spanned nearly three-quarters of the twentieth century. On several occasions, after a couple of glasses had been downed, he talked to me of his friend Leeteg, giving him the supreme Thomson accolade: ‘What a man he was!' In Captain Andy's tales of escapades along the Papeete waterfront, Leeteg, like as not, would be the central figure.

Edgar William Leeteg, an American of German descent who was bom in 1904, achieved considerable fame for his mas tery of the art of airbrush paint ing on black velvet. This fame was due at least in part to Leeteg’s habit of ritualising his weekly drunken orgies in and around Papeete’s waterfront bars in order to build a repu tation for outrageous behav iour which would, in turn, attract buyers for his works, Andy’s stories about him would follow their course until there came the inevitable mo ment when, with genuine grief, he would tell how Leeteg met his end in a motor-cycle acci dent in 1953. After a pause, Andy would rise from the table, return with a map con tainer, and then roll out two of

Leeteg’s black velvet paintings,

which he’d acquired for a trifle many years before.

Captain Andy’s conver

sations infected me and my wife Merle with an abiding interest in Leeteg an interest which came alive with a ven geance for us a few months ago in, of all places, Vancouver, British Columbia. Canada.

Merle was browsing in a sec ondhand bookshop in Van couver when she happened to mention to the owner that we were interested in books on the South Pacific. As the conver

sation developed, Leeteg’s

name was mentioned, and Merle, to her great surprise, was told that there was a collec tion of Leeteg’s black velvet paintings in a hotel called the

Astoria along Hastings Street,

Vancouver.

So, on a cold, wet Saturday,

we set off along Hastings Street from the central shopping area into a wilderness of junk shops,

cheap cafes, rooming houses

and sleazy saloons. Reaching

the Astoria, we gazed at two entrances, one marked ‘Men Only’ and the other ‘Ladies and Escorts Only’. In through the latter we went to find ourselves

in a large saloon bar, with small groups of sad, silent men sip ping at draught beer. On the walls there was one adornment only: a grimy, poor-quality re production of a Velasquez painting. Certainly no Leetegs here.

The barman was puzzled by my inquiries about black velvet

paintings. Then a chord was struck in his memory and it be came clear that our bookseller had been confused. What we had to do was to walk a further seven blocks to the Waldorf. ‘Waldorf, ‘Astoria’ an understandable mix-up on the bookseller’s part.

As we walked on. the area became even more depressing, and the rain and wind com bined to wipe from our minds any thought of tropical para dises. Then 12 (not seven) blocks further on we found ourselves in the lobby of the Waldorf, in a building rather more imposing than the neigh bourhood seemed to merit.

The receptionist told us that there were indeed some paint ings somewhere in the hotel, and that we might start by looking in the coffee shop.

Here we saw our first Leeteg which, alone, made our day’s efforts worthwhile.

But soon we were on the trail of still better things. We were directed to the cocktail lounge.

We entered a bar which, with its decor and atmosphere, bet ter captured the spirit of the South Seas than most bars I have seen in the Pacific in re cent times.

The walls were lined with split bamboo and the ceiling, in deep blue, simulated the trop ical night sky. Across one sec tion of the curved walls an artist whose name no one could recall had created in flu orescent paints a vibrant im pression of Pierre Loti’s pool.

The whole room was insulated in subdued light, apart from four brightly illuminated rec tangles which gave an arresting

emphasis to four Leeteg paint

ings. There were examples of his most noted studies: Hina

Rapa, with the big yellow hat,

the adze man, the drummer

boy. The whole setting gave special and loving attention to

Leeteg’s unique technique of

black velvet painting.

We were lucky enough to find the Waldorfs manager.

Marko Puharich, and to find out from him how this hotel had come to be such a Pacific treasure house. For there were two more Leetegs two in the dining room, and another hid den away above the counter in the smoke-filled saloon bar.

The dining room walls fea tured an enormous piece of

highest quality tapa from Fiji.

The bar stools in the cocktail lounge were faithful, hand carved reproductions of the drum used by Leeteg’s drum mer boy. In a reception room, there was a huge mural which in stylised form set out in bold colours many of the features of pre-contact Hawaiian society.

To cap it all. the Waldorf’s menu cards carried prints of

Leeteg paintings.

How did it all happen?

The story goes that shortly

before Leeteg’s death the then owner of the Waldorf and his wife had gone to Hawaii on holiday. For the hotelier, the visit turned into a kingsize binge, in the course of which he became separated from his wife. When he joined up with her again he was in possession of his collection of Leetegs, which he had bought some where along the way for $5OO a piece a value which grew ten fold on the artist’s death.

The proprietor’s diversions in Honolulu left him obsessed with the wonders of the South Seas, and he set out to enshrine his ideal conception of the re gion within the walls of his own hotel. Among his customers were at least two men of con siderable artistic talent and a powerful attraction to the bottle. One was to devote much of his energies to carving stools and posts, and the other put his skills into creating the murals which adorn the walls. The inference was that they were paid, at least in part, with rights

of free access to the strong waters of their choice.

The Waldorf now struggles to maintain its Pacific Islands image in an alien environment.

Who, indeed, would expect to find such a place hidden away on the seamier side of a Canadian city? It seems there is talk of remodelling the Wal dorf and banishing these

glimpses of Polynesia forever

from Hastings Street.

Leeteg has a place of some significance in the body of Pa cific Islands literature, and he is noteworthy among those who have put down in paint their conception of the Islands way of life.

What a pity it would be if the display in the Waldorf, Van couver, were to disappear.

How splendid it would be if this treasure could be pre served, either in its present site, or perhaps back in the Pacific,

by some enterprising Pacific

hotelier intent on preserving some of the colourful features of a period in Islands life which has now become only a mem orv.

The Waldorf’s bar, ‘capturing the spirit of the South Seas’. A Leeteg painting, reproduced from one of the Waldorf’s menu covers, is depicted on p. 35.

Neiafu, and the chances of Tonga

By Ralph Jon Naranjo

Cultural change seems to be technology’s silent partner at least that is the emerging re ality in Oceania. The old way of life has been dealt a lethal blow by the West’s plastic Pan dora’s Box of chrome-plated hardware. But regardless of one’s opinion, there are a few indisputable realities. The cost of fossil fuel technology is increasing at a staggering rate and its future is anything but clear. In an age likely to be marked by massive fuel short ages, a self-sufficient lifestyle could become a priceless asset.

At Neiafu, Vavau, Tonga’s fiord-like harbour, one senses that today’s Tonga represents a rather positive anachronism, quite out of step with many of

its Polynesian neighbours.

Possibly it is the lack of econ omic abundance which has slowed the avalanche of Wes ternisation here. In any case, much of Tonga has so far escaped the contradictions of

overly abrupt socio-technolog

ical change. Ironically, the

archipelago’s meagre financial capacity may, in the long run, prove to be its benefactor. For Tonga and other Island cul tures sharing similar con ditions, there remain a variety of alternatives.

A closer look at the archipel ago’s contemporary culture is well worthwhile. Vavau has benefited from an amalga mation of Western and tra

ditional Polynesian lifestyles.

Years of slow transition have resulted in a compatible cul ture.

Unspoiled by surplus, outly

ing villages and the quiet city

of Neiafu co-exist, unthrea

tened by abrupt expansion.

Neiafu is nestled in an inaus picious corner of a superb South Pacific harbour. Vavau’s volcanic plateau straddles a narrow channel leading to the well protected upper harbour.

As we tacked our way across the tree-clad estuary, a fleet of locally built dories went about their daily chores. Some were returning school children to their villages, while others car ried woven baskets and other local craft works to Neiafu in preparation for the arrival of a scheduled cruise ship.

Ocean liners visit Vavau sev eral times a year and have be come a major market for

locally produced handicrafts.

The small boat fleet remains a primary mode of transpor tation in Tonga and its design apparently dates back to

European influence nearly a

century old. These locally con structed dories are ideally suited for their use. Propelled by oars or a small outboard motor they have become an

environmentally compatible

answer to transportation needs.

Each Saturday they respond

to the needs of market day.

Flocking about the small town wharf, dories deliver people and goods to the weekly event.

Livestock may arrive in one boat, bales of kava root in another, and the children of a nearby village in yet another.

Most significant, the dories

are built by Tongans utilising

native materials. The original plans and designer’s notes have been amended and passed on verbally from builder to builder. The result is a Western idea well adapted to its Polynesian environment. On Sunday most of the fleet rolls passively at anchor. Their crews are involved in a typical Tongan Sunday, a day com posed of church and rest.

Although this institution can easily be accredited to Western influence, it too has become

distinctly ‘Tonganised’.

If change follows the same paths in Tonga as in other areas it will be directly proportional to economic affluence. If and when the citizens of Vavau be come more involved as world material consumers, what will their purchases be?

Are the material wants and new lifestyles apparent in American Samoa today des tined to be repeated in Tonga?

These questions and an array of others deserve consider ation. How they are answered will help to decide the role Tonga is to play in a rapidly

changing Polynesia.

Swallows’ Cave, Vavau.

Pim Looks Back On 50 Years

And finds many Islands problems still with us

In this, our 50th anniversary year, PIM intends to review the half century of news highlights in its pages. Each month we’ll survey a four-year period under the highly-expert guidance of former PIM editor and publisher JUDY TUDOR, who has known the people who have made the news. She launches what promises to be a fascinating survey with a review of the years 1930-34.

Standing on the threshold of the 1980’s and looking back to the 16th of August 1930 when the publication made its debut, it seems that PlM’s Pacific then bore little resemblance to today’s version. But, like the poet said, the more we change, the more we remain the same, at least in some respects, and many of the Islands problems of 1930 are with us yet the price of copra, rubber or ba

nanas, political wrangles,

development and the need for investment.

At its birth PIM was of tab loid newspaper size and did not adopt its now familiar maga zine format for about 15 months. It carried a dateline August 16, September 20, etc for even longer than that, although we now wonder why, as distribution was all by sea mail and the most isolated sub scribers waited literally months for their copies. Except intern ally in New Guinea, air trans port was non-existent; Islands people were used to intervals of weeks or months between ships and were not noticeably less happy for it.

In spite of the fact that the

total European population of

the South Pacific Islands was considerably less than it is today, the inhabitants of PlM’s Pacific were indisputably white, or nearly so. Asians, called Asiatics and sometimes

coolies, were frequently “prob

lems that had to be solved’’.

Islanders were not problems, except the West Samoans who were generally ‘sullen’ or

‘unco-operative’ when they

were not being straight-out

bloody minded; and of course New Guinea kanakas, in uncontrolled areas, were oc casionally wild, fierce or war like, and during the four years under review managed to kill a number of Europeans.

In its first issue, PIM stated its aims as (1) providing world and other news that affected the Islands as a whole and (2) fostering Australian trade with them’

It proceeded to do both, in relation to (2) never letting up on the Commonwealth Government which it con sidered was doing less than it ought and making a pretty poor fist of what it did do; and in relation to (1) taking up causes with an enthusiasm that would make any editor blanch today. This made PIM enemies as well as friends, but right or wrong there was no fence sitting in PlM’s editorial pol

icy.

The infamous Wall Street collapse of October 29, 1929, which set off the Great De gression had occurred about: nine months before PlM’s first

issue. The magazine’s early

years therefore were coloured gloomily by the economic cir cumstances of the time.

But PIM, like all right minded organisations of the: time, expected its clientele to< shoulder the white man’s bur den uncomplainingly, to see; fair play and justice and set aj good example to local inhabi tants.

From its first issue, PIM la jmented the fact that there were 17 distinct administrations in

RIMS early issues in magazine format always carried this palm tree on the cover. It became the company’s

well-known logo.

the Pacific and urged an associ . ation or confederation which could discuss and deal with I problems common to all islands indigenous edu cation, health, future develop ment, quarantine laws, transport etc. It was a theme that was pushed periodically in PIM over the next 17 years, until, in fact, the South Pacific I Commission was set up after World War II as a consultative body. In the event the SPC turned out to be something of a disappointment, at least to PIM. but that was yet to come.

Other matters that took up a lot of space in PIM in its first four years included the follow

ing;

Copra: From the time in the 1860’s when the Hamburg firm of Jon Cesar Godeffroy und Sohn had pioneered the Islands copra industry from head quarters in Western Samoa, until the late 1920’5, all Islands economies floated along on this industry. Coconuts were ‘the consols of the East’ and planters believed the old saw that if you looked after them for the first seven years of their life they would keep you for the rest of yours. World War I

produced high copra prices

that boomed on into the 1920’5.

In 1926 copra brought a record £Stg29 per ton in London.

By the time PIM was born in 1930, the price had fallen to £ 14 in London and much less on an Islands beach, and planters

everywhere were showing the

first signs of panic. Amongst those most affected were the 182 returned servicemen who

had bought ex-German plan

tations in the Mandated Terri tory of New Guinea from the

Australian Expropriation

Board, the instrumentality set up to take over the German estates as part of war repar ations. Few of the Australians had paid cash, but the Expro Board made purchase reason ably easy with low interest and

long-term repayment of prin

cipal.

When copra prices nose dived in 1930, the Expro Board scrubbed interest for that year and deferred repayment of principal until June 1931, when the situation was to be re viewed. Copra prices con

tinued to sink and the moratorium was renewed year after year.

In early 1931. R. W. Robson, founder and editor of PIM, was in London and he made it his business to investigate the disastrous and to many, mys terious, falling copra market.

He attributed the slump to the general depression, to whale and other vegetable oils which when treated with new scien tific methods had become almost as suitable for mar garine as copra, but saved his biggest blast for the actions of the Unilever combine. This

had amalgamated powerful

European manufacturers of margarine with British soap makers, Lever Bros., in 1929 and as a result the combine controlled the Euro-British copra; oil seeds and whale oil markets. R. W. Robson’s stories won PIM many new readers.

Except for a brief period when Britain went off the gold standard in 1931, copra con tinued its- downward plunge, reaching £7.12.6 Stg c.i.f. Lon don in January 1934. With deductions for freight, hand

ling, shrinkage, insurance and

the rest, what the poor old

planter got ex-plantation was

below the cost of production, so news of the copra industry was always of interest to him.

Rubber which had brought 12/- a lb in 1911 was down to 3d a lb in 1930. Papua was the

biggest South Pacific producer

although Fiji and Western

Samoa has been minor ex porters. Papua’s annual 600 tons brought in .£200,000 in 1925; the same quantity in 1930-31 realised only £50,000.

The Papuan industry was saved from complete extinction by 4d a lb preference on the Aus tralian market.

The alternatives: As things went from bad to worse in established Islands industries, no issue of PIM was complete without some reference to alternative crops or new things to do with coconut oil (such as use in motor vehicles).

Castor oil seed was tried in Papua and three firms in Fiji

experimented with pineapple

growing and canning. Two

young men in the Mandated

Territory were distilling some

thing called massoi oil from trees found in the Finisterre Ranges - it was said to re semble cinnamon.

There was a plea for the resumption of Bird of Paradise shooting that had been banned in New Guinea, it being al leged that some German planters had financed their plantations on the sale of BOP skins to Europe. The ban stayed but planters were urged, 25 years before the idea did take off, to try coffee. A firm in Papua proposed to grow kapok on a large scale, others were trying sisal hemp and it was suggested that the Gulf district’s millions of nipa palms might produce power alcohol.

PIM urged everyone, every where, to try tung oil or pea nuts and Papua got a lot of publicity but no action from four groups trying to float sugar companies, leading PIM to comment sourly in an edi torial: .. so far as some of them are concerned the only kind of sugar they will ever produce is that which they will take out of the pockets of their deluded share and bond holders.”

Papua never did get a sugar industry but the fact that it was well established in Fiji allowed that colony to weather the worst of the depression in good shape due to some extent to the Ottawa Agreement that gave Fiji preference in UK and Canada. The same Ottawa Agreement gave Fiji entry to Australia for 40,000 centals of bananas per annum and de spite the screams of anguish from NSW and Queensland banana growers, shipments ac tually arrived in Sydney and Melbourne in early 1933.

Gold and air services. Gold was the great hope in the de

pressed 1930’s although when

PIM came into the picture only Papua and New Guinea had well established industries. In Papua, Misima Island was the biggest producer. In the Man dated Territory, the first phase of alluvial mining on Morobe field was over and a hiatus ensued until the viable big boys of the industry got going. At the end of 1930, 29 New Guinea

mining companies were listed

in Sydney, most of them never getting off the ground.

Those that did included Day Dawn, New Guinea Goldfields and, most impressive of all.

Placer Development/Bulolo

Gold Dredging, the last through the farsightedness of a former District Officer, C. J.

Levien, who had quit the NG service to become one of the pioneers of the Wau goldfield in the early 1920’5. Through his urging, Guinea Gold NL was formed in Adelaide in 1926 to work the Koranga leases and test 12 miles of the Bulolo River.

In 1928 Placer, a Vancouver company, took an option over Guinea Gold and proved a dredging area of 1100 acres.

Bulolo Gold Dredging was formed as a Placer subsidiary in 1930 to work the leases and by then Levien had persuaded his friends that air transport was the only way to solve the goldfields transport problem.

An old war-time DH37 plane pioneered the way and in 1927 Guinea Airways was bom, the following year purchasing two W 34 Junkers

planes, the only commercial

aircraft then capable of uplift ing the largest component of the dredges that were to be built on the Bulolo a three ton tumbler shaft. By the end of 1933, there were 26 airstrips in New Guinea and four in Papua, and New Guinea was leading the world in air trans port.

BCD’s first dredge went into operation in March 1932, No 2 in October 1932, No 3 in November 1933 and No 4 soon after. Levien never saw any of them in operation he died in Melbourne in January 1932.

In early 1932 an old prospec tor named Bill Borthwick,

grub-staked by Pat Costello,

well known resident of Fiji, discovered gold in the dry hills about seven miles inland from Tavua, in Fiji’s Viti Levu. A small paragraph appeared in PIM stating this bare fact, but from this discovery were to de velop the rich Loloma and Emperor Mines of Vatukoula,

Fiji.

The Mau. This Samoan or ganisation had its beginnings in the rivalry between the great powers for possession of Samoa at the end of last cen tury. Members, not unnatu

rally, believed in Samoa for the Samoans but when Germany succeeded in acquiring West ern Samoa, it was ruthless in

■ suppressing political agi-

F tation.

The Mau surfaced again I only after New Zealand was granted a C-Class Mandate i over Western Samoa after [World War I. Samoans were affronted at their new status, f didn’t like New Zealand or the f officials sent to administer them. New Zealand, for its f part, failed to understand Samoans, who had a long his

tory of political infighting long

before the advent of Europeans and were not called the Irish men of the Pacific for

nothing.

In their battle against New Zealand, the Samoans were aided by three local residents Mr O. F. Nelson, a merchant of part-Samoan ancestry, Mr A. G. Smyth, another

European merchant, and Judge

Gurr who had been bom in New Zealand, went to Samoa in the 1890 s and who had been appointed a Judge of the Su preme Court of American Samoa in the early years of this century. He retired to Western Samoa in 1924 and soon be came involved in Mau business.

For their efforts, Nelson,

Smyth and*Gurr were deported

to New Zealand in 1927 Smyth for two years and the others for five years. At the end of 1929 Smyth returned to Apia and the Mau turned out in force to welcome him. So did the police, riots developed and

11 Samoans, including High

Chief Tamasese and one policeman, were killed.

Relations between the Mau and New Zealand authority worsened, Nelson making or firing the broadsides from New Zealand. “Pig-Headed New Zealand, Stubborn Mau,” was one headline in PIM of October 1932.

Mr Nelson and Judge Gurr, their term of banishment com pleted, returned to Samoa in May 1933. Gurr, by then a sick man, died in Pago within weeks, but Nelson in Apia proceeded to carry on where he had left off five years before although the New Zealand ad ministration made it clear that

it would not accept his leader ship of the Mau. Conciliatory talks planned between the ad ministration and the Mau chiefs failed because of the impasse over Nelson and the situation continued to deterio rate.

In November 1933 police raided the Nelson home and Mau headquarters to collect documents relating to Mau activity, and as a result eight Samoan chiefs and Nelson were arrested and the Mau declared an illegal and se ditious organisation. Nelson was tried, found guilty and sen tenced to gaol for eight months and further banishment to New Zealand for 10 years. In New Zealand he successfully

appealed against the sentence

although the banishment stood. Mr Nelson should have been down but, as affairs turned out he was far from out, as we shall see in later reports of 50 years of PIM.

Oddments from here and there: • In 1930 Fijians still out numbered Indians in their own islands 92,190 Fijians as against 85,100 Indians.

The following year Suva was described as the “metropolis of the South Seas” a modern city of 15,000 that had “grown from nothing in 50 years.” • The population of French Polynesia in 1931 was 40,000. • In mid-1931 the Burns Philp Line introduced its new motor vessel Macdhui to the Australia-New Guinea service.

Said to be the “last word in comfort”, she carried 138 pass engers in two, three and four berth cabins. A slightly smaller version, MV Malaita, went onto the New Hebrides-

Solomons-Bougainville service

at the end of 1933. • In June 1931 news was received that well known prospector Helmuth Baum had been killed by Kukukukus on the upper Watut, New Guinea. • In the same month, Aus tralia’s annual grant to Papua was cut from £ 50,000 to £40,000. • On September 21, 1931 Bri tain announced that the Bank of England would no longer hand over one gold sovereign for a £ 1 note. In other words,

it went off the gold standard and this threw all world curren cies and commodity prices into confusion for many months. • Mail posted at Wau, New Guinea on March 22, 1932 was flown to Port Moresby to catch the Macdhui and arrived in Sydney on March 29. (Pity that the mails in 1980 aren’t so

spry.)

• In late 1932, Fiji got back from Britain the club that Cakobau had presented to Queen Victoria at the time of Cession. Suitably decorated with silver motifs, it became the mace of the Fiji Legislative Council. Apparently not impressed, the three Indian elected members of the Coun cil walked out as a protest over

“equal franchise” they

wanted a common roll, not a communal roll. • Arthur Grimble, a long time later the author of A Pattern of Islands, left the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony for good in September 1932.

• French Polynesia’s statistics for 1931 showed the interesting fact that seven million francs worth of liquor had been

transhipped at Papeete for

Mexico final destination being the bootleggers of the United States, then embarked on its experiment with prohib ition. • When the New Guinea ad ministration decided up the reserve at Edie Creek into nine mining claims, 1473 individuals applied for them. A ballot was held and Lot 1, called the “Jewel Box”, went to well-known NG recruiter and

explorer, W. A. MacGregor.

• As a result of the important Chinese firm of Kong Ah and Co going into liquidation in French Polynesia, the Banque Chin Foo, with which it was associated, ceased payments to depositors in March 1933.

Papeete commerce was in a flap as Kong Ah had handled most of the copra exported. • The first Fiji Airways went

PlM’s first front page. We were In newspaper format in 1930.

into service about March 1933 with two Moth planes equipped with floats. Services linked Suva, Lautoka, Levuka and Labasa. Government was subsidising the airline to the tune of £ 1500 per year for three years.

• In June 1933 all eyes were on London where an international conference was being held to try to sort out the world’s econ omic ills, including currency and exchange, trade, unem ployment and war debts. The German delegation walked out

to emphasise Germany’s de mand for the return of former colonies without which, according to Hitler who by then was in control, Germany could not survive. The con ference failed to solve any thing. Another cloud on the horizon, said PIM editorially, was Japan. ‘. . . It is inevitable that it will turn southwards.

The result is likely to be

tragedy.” PIM wasn’t always

right in its prognostications.

This time it was. • In mid-1933, a group of Papuans was sent to Sydney University for a six-month medical course, after which they would return to their vil lages as medical aides. PIM was in favour of the scheme but some Europeans in the Man

dated Territory wrathfully saw

it as another step towards mak ing the natives even more ‘big headed’ than they were. • About 500 Fiji-Indians, most of whom had gone to the col ony under the old indenture system, chose to be repatriated to India, leaving Suva on the

steamer Gabges in August

1933. • PIM editorialised in October 1933 that Britain’s efforts in the

New Hebrides were a scandal..

Although the French lookedl after their nationals, who num bered 1000, allowing them tot import labour from Indo- China and subsidising copra,.

Britain did nothing for its 200! nationals, PIM said it was not wonder that scores of British) had sold out to the French, or taken French nationality. • At the end of 1933 the firstl news of the existence of what are now the Highlands prov inces of New Guinea reached! the outside world. Explorations under Assistant District Officer J. L. Taylor and Mick andl Danny Leahy added to New Guinea an estimated 300,0001 new inhabitants and a vast pla teau and valley system of fer tile land between Bena Bena and Mt. Hagen a region pre

viously thought to be just a

continuation of uninhabited mountains.

Odd Advts Dept.

In 1931 if you were toothless in the wilds of the Islands there was no need to despair. A Syd ney dentist named Nolan undertook to send you false teeth by post first sending you a tin of wax with detailed instructions on how to take your own dental impressions.

An optician in the same city would, on demand, send an eye chart so other do-it-yourself experts could test themselves for spectacles. Someone named Wastall in Suva advertised that he would supply literature on whether or not aluminium) cookware was poisonous.

Books

Fellow scholars make a 'garland’ for Harry Maude

The Changing Pacific: Essays in Honour of H. E. Maude. Ed.

Kiel Gunson. Published by Oxford University Press. $25.

I first met Harry Maude when, as a cadet in the then (British) Colonial Service, I reached Fiji in January 1942. He had already served in the Gilberts, Pitcairn and Tonga, with an ir relevant interlude in Zanzibar, and had a vision, the equivalent of Gordon’s, of the wide reaches of the Western Pacific.

We continued together in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, now the independent states of Kiribati ( = Gilberts in the thirteen-letter alphabet bes

towed by Bingham) and

Tuvalu; we had sequential as sociations with the South Pa cific Commission and, finally, were both at the Australian National University and in Canberra. So for the best part of forty years we have been col leagues and friends our wives as well. The ‘garland of scholarly papers’ as the editor calls them is an appropriate tribute to Professor Maude and

Robert Langdon’s opening

essay ‘Shy Proconsul, Dedi cated Pacific Historian’ aptly portrays the double helix of an unusual career.

It is no easy thing to review a collection of specialist essays.

Professor Spate sets a perspec tive in describing ‘The Pacific’ as a European artefact and the peoples of the littoral and islands as the artificers. With a few exceptions, the essays are concerned with Micronesia

and Polynesia reflecting, in

that order, the principal interests of Professor Maude himself. They are individual

pieces, mainly of anthropology

and ethnology.

Do not expect to find an account of the contemporary

voyages to political indepen

dence but rather a miscellany of traditions, customs and their

survival, adaptation or decay

notes of the music of time

which, along with many others, are now recorded.

As Islanders establish their own scholarly credentials as historians they will accept some as the authentic stuff of

history and question others

always, one hopes, empirically

re-examining the facts, in terpretations and relevance.

Professor Spoehr illustrates part of the historiographical task ahead in an essay on Spain and the Marianas that local events must needs be inter

preted in comparison with

similar events elsewhere. The meaning of‘change’ in the title seems therefore not to be just a further unfolding of the ways and doings of island societies in the past but also preparation for the histories that will inform the present.

Let us now look at the parts of the collection. Dr David Lewis, in from the cold and in the Spoehr framework, con siders the debt of Polynesian and Micronesian seafarers to ancient Asian navigation. Pro fessor Daws tantalises in another dimension the de batable value of psychohistory

in biography, alone identifying

Pitcairn with the Pacific through the execrable Joshua Hill. Because some years of my life were spent in Kiribati, I read the three articles on the maneaba, kinship and the

northern kingdom with special

interest. All were and, even as

they change, will remain sig

nificant in politics, land tenure and administration. Essays on the inhabitants of Mapia, three small coral atolls lying north of Irian Jaya, and on beach combers of the Carolines, the probable homeland of the

Mapians, complete the

Micronesian component.

A case study of depopulation by disease on Aneityum in the New Hebrides last century is one of two contributions specific to Melanesia; and the ‘care, prayer and practice’ by early missionaries in Tonga is

adjudged ‘a draw’ no worse than indigenous medicine in Tongan eyes if it failed and better for the individual and the Christian faith if it suc ceeded. Curiously, the other Melanesian essay dealing with male prestige and the lavish celebration of birth in the off shore villages of Kove, New Britain also finds an antithesis in Tonga. Death and the ob servance of funeral rites, with the major ceremonies accom panying the funeral of Queen Salote at the centre, are used to illustrate aspects of the social structure, acculturation of the young and some weakening of tradition.

Three studies of eastern Polynesia reconstruct land related customs in 18th century Tahiti and record some

equivalents today; and de

scribe the communal ap portionment of food in the Tuamotus and the violence and vice which desolated

Marquesan societies. By con

trast, the transformation of regicide and the killing of social outcasts to propitiate the gods into a masque to mark farewells is described in an essay on Niue. The timeless patience of the Pacific Islanders, at least as much part

of them as quarrels and viol ence, is well accounted in the settlement of a village dispute in Samoa. I often experienced this patience in courts and councils in Kiribati; and there, and once again in Tanna in the New Hebrides, in the settle ment of civil disorders with ori gins in cargo cults.

Two essays have been re served for final comment. On the trail in the highlands ol New Guinea, Professor West considers a parallel from the New World an extension ol the Spoehr thesis. He sees the Australian frontier there as a contact of fits and starts not with settlement as the objective an impingement on a land into which law and order have

only recently and precariously

moved. From a century earlier a quartet of contributors re mind us that Hawaiians were then composing their own his tory and I am sure that Harry Maude and the writers rep resented in this book will wel come their successors -

warmly. Yes, The Changing

Pacific is a scholarly garland

easy enough to read and enjoy and capable of stirring even more curiosity about the artifi cers and the artefact. Reia Cowell

scan their nation’s history

To accompany the review of a book of essays in tribute to Professor Maude, it is PI M's great pleasure to present the professor himself in a reviewer's role. He writes about a new publication on a subject dear to his heart the history of Kiribati.

Kiribati - Aspects of History.

Published by the Institute of Pa cific Studies and Extension Ser vices, University of the South Pacific, and the Ministry of Education, Training and Cul ture, Republic of Kiribati. 1979.

SF4; paperback edition SF3. A separate edition in Gilbertese, Taraan Karakin Kiribati, is published at the same price.

The government of Kiribati is to be congratulated on its de cision to commemorate independence not with a statue

or a saline fountain to disfigure the Bairiki town plaza but by

producing and publishing s

history of the Gilbertese

people: a precedent which

some other nations might copy

with advantage.

The task was entrusted to 2f Gilbertese men and women j many of them teachers and university students, who were initiated into the mysteries ol historical research and writing by a team from the University of the South Pacific and a re gional specialist, Barrie Mac

donald of Massey University.

The result is an unqualified success, in which the authors, their mentors and the Kiribati Government alike can take a

justifiable pride. Whether by

accident or good fortune the Gilbertese writers have not produced yet another European-type history, labori

ously chronicling events culled

from contemporary documen tation, but rather the fascinating story of an island people from the time of te bomatemaki, when the earth and sky were

still sealed together, through

their early migrations and

settlement, European contact

and culture change, political

tutelage and development, to

the independent republic of

today.

Even viewed as a history it is refreshingly different, for the Gilbertese story is for the first time told to us as seen by Gil bertese eyes, relying heavily on this gifted people’s wealth of mythology, saga and oral tra dition; and it is written with a natural grace and vitality

which disarm literary criti cism. The chapter on creation the work of the gods, for

example, is pure lyric.

But it is far more than a his tory in that it has a conscious purpose, apparent in many of the chapters and inherent in the others; to expound to the young Gilbertese of today the distinctive content of their cul tural heritage, to stimulate them to take a justifiable pride in this heritage and in being Gilbertese, and to think and behave accordingly. It tells us what the islanders of old be lieved and how they felt and acted, illustrating with examples the forces of change, and finally detailing the cul

tural position reached today;

and this with the aim of producing a sense of Gilbertese identity at a time when, more than ever, they need to regain an understanding and pride in te katei ni Kiribati (the Gilber tese way of life).

While limitations of space have prevented any definitive treatment of the topics dealt

with in the 12 chapters, they

give an adequate enough

conspectus for the general reader. As is inevitable in sym posia there is some overlapping and repetition, though this may well assist one to grasp unfamiliar themes. At the risk of being invidious I felt that the chapter on early Gilbertese so ciety, in particular, was a first rate exposition, well constructed and written, while

Maunaa Itaia’s eloquent plea

in the final chapter for the development of a Gilbertese identity or ethos in the face of modern cultural pressures de fines in effect the purpose of the whole book. If his words are heeded this courteous and essentially democratic com munity need have few fears for its future as an independent nation.

Both in its English and Gil bertese editions the book in cludes a wealth of illustrations (some in colour), adequate maps and a selective bibli ography. At SF3 the paperback is a real bargain and a must for

everyone who wants to learn about the Pacific’s newes< country and its 57 000 peoph living in the true citadel-hean of the South Seas - an atoll paradise of 33 islands contain i ing 684 square kilometres oi

land (though allegedly doub<

ling its size at low tide) scat] tered over no less than five million square kilometres o< ocean.

Kiribati Aspects of Histor is indeed a worthy accession te the growing volume of creative works produced by island writers as part of the literar renaissance of the Central Pai cific: perhaps the region’s mos significant cultural phenomi enon during the 19705. I use th word renaissance deliberate! since over a century ag

Polynesia with its periphera

areas, including Fiji and th Gilberts, was the locale o: countless oral epics.

Few of these were writtei down, however, except mayb< by some folklorist, but the trai dition of creativity in won

form remained; to be fanned into vigorous life by the active encouragement of the Univer sity of the South Pacific, and in particular by two of its staff, Ron and Maijorie Crocombe; by the publication outlets pro vided by the South Pacific Cre ative Arts Society and literary periodicals such as Mana; and by the example of established writers such as Western Samoa’s Albert Wendt, with others like Subramani of Fiji who both write and teach the art.

The result has been a stream of short stories, poems, plays and a few books; and now we have the first locally-written history. Its immediate success has already made it the proto type of several more being

planned by other newly

emergent states, and these will

hopefully provide the material

for the ultimate regional his tory of, by and for the Pacific

peoples suggested by Niue’s

Premier Robert Rex at the re cent South Pacific Festival of Arts. H.E. Maude.

Times

Fiji’s Times: A History of Fiji, is a series of three booklets on Fiji. They’ve just been pub lished by the Fiji Times and Herald, Suva. The booklets comprise dozens of separate articles giving various aspects of Fiji’s history, reprinted from a weekly series in the Fiji Times. They are quite remark able value at only 5F1.50 each, as the series consists of auth entic, and colourful, accounts of Fiji life, from pre-European days to today. It’s Derrick in a handier, more readable form, and the booklets are priced to make them more attractive to schools. But the three titles, each of 84 pages, are invalu able to any collector, or for anyone interested in Pacific history. Collectors should get them while they are still avail able, because this is probably one of those unusual printings which disappears swiftly with out trace.

In the beginning there was Paradise. The world had never seen an in-flight magazine quite like it. When it first appeared in July 1976, seat pockets were empty after every flight of Air Niugini, and the airline could not meet the written requests for back copies from those who had seen or heard about it.

In 1978 the airline put together The Best of Paradise, a selection of the top stories from the first two years of Para dise magazine. It sold out almost immediately.

So now Air Niugini, in association with Pacific Publi cations, has produced Paradise Plus - bigger (144 pages, with 45 separate stories and photographic essays) and every page in full colour. It is a collection that, without doubt, will sell as quickly as the earlier one. The stories in Paradise Plus are all new, none having appeared in The Best Of Para dise.

They include reports on arts and crafts, culture, customs, canoe sailing, life on the Sepik, bird life, gold mining etc.

Many stories are about personalities, such as the one about Fred Hargesheimer, who founded the Airmen’s Memorial School in New Britain as a remarkable thank you gesture to the people who helped save his life after he was shot down during the war.

The book is available in Bookshops in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands, including Hawaii, or through PI Ms Mail Order Bookshop, Box 3408, GPO, at $A 12.00 or SUSI 4.00 posted.

Problems of feeding Paeifie townsfolk

The Adaption of Traditional Agriculture: Socio-economic Problems of Urbanisation. Ed. f E. K. Fisk. Published by A us f tralian National University Development Studies Centre. : $9. [ This book contains contri butions from a number of [ world authorities to a con ference held in Honiara in late 1977 on the adaption of tra ditional agricultural pro ■ duction to the needs of urban markets.

The subject is topical and 1 important. Most South Pacific countries import substantial quantities of food to feed their I urban populations and food amounts to 20-25% of their [ total imports. This is both annoying to governments try ing to promote self-reliance

and conserve foreign exchange

and. on face value, strange for

agriculturally-based countries

with relatively low population pressures. The reason is that the staple crops of the South Pacific are root crops, which are neither easily storeable nor transportable, and that they are

I almost invariably produced by

subsistence methods. Can sub sistence production of root crops be modified to provide a sufficient surplus to feed rap idly expanding urban popu lations, and if so how? [ Unfortunately, the papers do not really get to grips with these basic questions. This is not the fault of the editor and con ference organiser. In his introductory paper, which was sent to participants when they were invited to attend the con ference, he clearly poses these questions and lists the basic problems involved in the pro cess of adaption (pp 20-21).

The conference participants did not take due note of these questions and, in general, appear to have written on re lated themes of their own interest. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon at conferences of this type.

A notable exception is the contribution by Professor Bill Clarke of Monash University, and formerly of the University of Papua New Guinea. He examines the ‘environmentally sustainable modifications’ which might be made to tra ditional agricultural systems, having first made the point that, in terms of returns to inputs of energy, traditional agricultural systems are far more efficient than indus trialised agriculture. He con cludes that it would be absurd to try to ‘power our way out’ of

food shortages by adopting

high energy technology. He

suggests the development of communities where the distinc tion between rural and urban, and between consumer and producer, is broken down and where almost everyone devotes some time to food production.

Some food for thought for

urban planners!

PNG’s National Food Policy makes some sensible points with respect to securing urban food needs from subsistence agriculture. It sees distinct

disadvantages in villagers

engaging in production of sub sistence crops for sale. In par ticular, the land will be required to support many more people, and will deteriorate, and village nutrition levels may suffer. It therefore rec ommends the encouragement

of large-scale production of

traditional staples near urban areas, and if necessary, that foreigners be allowed to be come involved. This seems to me to be, along with large-scale production of rice, a possible alternative to reliance on imported rice but this is not to underestimate the transport, marketing, mechanical and or ganisational enormities in volved in producing and delivering such production to a large number of urban con sumers. Also, large-scale pro duction will itself be a heavy user of imports and existing

small-scale producers are likely

to suffer from the compe tition. ■/ Several contributors deal with urban food supplies in Africa and Central and South America where root crop staples do provide substantial proportions of the food re

quirements of some large urban centres. In Africa this derives from a yam trade of several centuries’ standing, and also processed cassava, and does involve modification of traditional agriculture. In Cen tral and South America, root crops for urban supplies are de rived from commercial farms, both large and small-scale.

Some of this experience will be relevant to the South Pacific, but terrain and climate of the region often make rapid trans port difficult.

Despite the failure of the conference papers to tackle the major questions, the conclud

ing chapter notes a general

agreement among the par

ticipants ‘that tropical root

crops and indigenous systems of cultivation and production had a high, and in some areas

neglected, potential for raising

food production in many areas of the humid tropics, par ticularly in the Pacific region’.

The book is an impressive collection of papers on the supply of urban food needs from the production of root crop staples. It deserves to be

read widely by planners and

students of the area and its for mat and the level at which it is pitched lends itself to these audiences. Geoffrey Harris

From the

Press

Editorial by Ed Howard, Norfolk Island Assembly member, in his Norfolk Island News Australia’s role in the new government has been praiseworthy.

The Council had been concerned that Australia was retaining too many powers and would have no hesitation in using them. That worry may have been unnecessary. The position taken by the new Administrator and his Official Secretary can only be described as faultless. It actually appears, so far, that Australia wants Norfolk to govern itself and wants to assist where it can. The I Assembly’s powers under the new act appear to be substantial.

In the past it could take a year or longer to get a simple law ■passed through Canberra. Now it can be done in a couple of months. That is much better government. There is a clear, welcome message in those developments: if Norfolk is able, Australia seems willing.

The Fiji Times, Suva A banana-skin fall which caused a market vendor to lose his six dozen eggs and suffer injuries to his knee, hip and buttocks has : led to a $ 150 claim against Lautoka City Council. The incident occurred at Lautoka Market about 4 pm on October 5. Mr Rati Ram was carrying the eggs in cartons, balanced on each hand, down to his stall. Unable to see immediately in front of him because of his load, he unsuspectingly stepped on a loose banana skin thrown by somebody and came crashing down. Now an angry Mr Ram has gone charging for the council, which runs and maintains the market, claiming compensation from it for loss, pain, suffering and humiliation he suffered when he fell in full view of the people in the market . . .

An editorial in the Samoa Times 1... Why must we always regard New Zealand as our El Dorado? i What about us? Aren’t we the most beautiful people in the world, - the most beautiful country anywhere? Why don’t we make our [own El Dorado? Why don’t we develop ourselves? Why don’t we create enough employment, why don’t we give everybody the vote, why don’t we give everybody the chance in life so that they don’t have to immigrate to another country?

Our News published by the Papua New Guinea Office of Information [• • • Fort y P er cent of everything we do in this country is paid for by Australia. This should be recognised and appreciated because it receives very little publicity. We should all wear signs on our backs saying I am paid for by Australia’ Comment from Mr Noel Levi. Member of Parliament for New Ireland.

Tohi Tala Niue, Alofi, Niue Island Probably because the wet season is upon us, more people have been observed driving motorcycles and scooters while a passenger holds an umbrella over the driver. While appreciating that it is difficult to see in the rain without a windshield, goggles or visor, there are occasions when the umbrella prevents the person in front from seeing more than a few metres ahead. This is potentially dangerous but not as irresponsible as steering a motorbike with one s feet as has been seen on the odd occasion!

From Oliana’s ‘Tune In’ in the Observer, Apia The United States seem ready to take the world to the brink of war rather than extradite the exiled Shah of Iran. Had the Shah been a small time crook who had got away with only a few

Pacific Islands Monthly - January, 1980

thousand dollars and perhaps murdered a couple of people he would have been extradited without any trouble and, in fact, wouldn’t have got into the States in the first place. However,since he got away with two hundred million (some estimates place his take as high as six hundred million); was responsible for the torture and death of dozens if not hundreds of his political opponents and was for a long time one of America’s best customers for arms, the Shah is treated with all diplomatic niceties and obviously regarded with the highest respect by the American government. Which all goes to show that if you are going to be a crook it pays to do so on a grand scale.

The News Drum, Honiara The secretary of Ngarinasuru Cultural Centre in east Kwaio, Malaita, has complained to the Solomon Islands Tourist Authority following a visit to the centre by some tourists two weeks ago. Mr Lee Silamo said the Tourist Authority should inform the centre of proposed visits of tourists. Mr Silamo said the visitors entered the area without permission, tried to force villagers to perform custom dances (which they refused) and posted guards around houses with toy guns at night. This frightened the villagers, especially the children and the elders, he said.

From an editorial in The Fiji Times, Suva, on complaints of juveniles drinking liquor in nightclubs . . . They don’t serve drink illegally willingly because they don’t have to; they have plenty enough legitimate glasses to fill. For all the bombast the nightclubs are bombarded with, the fact is that they have an important function, and it is wrong to label them as mere sin pits. For thousands of young and not-so-young people they are a needed escape from very real city life pressures.

From a letter by Frank Taylor of Nukualofa in the Tonga Chronicle complaining of the sale in local stores of mass-produced artefacts from overseas purporting to

be Tongan

... I made a few inquiries and was told the whole thing is mass produced in Taiwan. Maybe the bamboo is Tongan. In the same store there are so many other articles that carry the little gold sticker that reads ‘Ofa Atu from Tonga’, and the only thing Tongan about them is the dust that covers them. The most disturbing thing that arises from all this is how much of this cheap junk is being mass produced as ‘authentic’ Tongan handicrafts?

The Papua New Guinea Post-Courier The Government will introduce legislation to stop the exploitation of nationals in commercialising their bodies and arts, Parliament was told yesterday. The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Mr Olewale said this when replying to Mr Sam Tulo (North Bougainville) during question time. MrTulo asked whether the Minister would take the necessary steps to stop the publication of nude pictures ... Mr Olewale, however, asked what right parliamentarians and others had to question the individual rights of Miss Tukana (appearing in the nude in an advertisement) which were guaranteed under the Constitution. ‘We are wearing clothes which have been introduced into our society. We go back to our villages and see our own people but we do not regard them as being nude.’

From a report in the Observer, Apia, of a professional

wrestling display

. . . But the night did not go without incident. A young boy was taken to hospital with severe head injuries, and several others received minor injuries after spectators started throwing chairs at each other. . . The highlight of the night for the local wrestling fanatics was when local hero Fanene Pita Maivia put King Ripper Collins to sleep. Collins had put another local hero Siva Afi in hospital a few weeks back in Hawaii and Fanene had come out to avenge his mate in front of his home crowd a sure way of attracting a crowd. Collins was put to sleep after Fanene had applied the head butt which opened Collins’ head, allowing it to bleed profusely for a few seconds.

Tradewinds

Asian Development Bank’s $l50 million for Islands

As we enter the new decade of the 80s, PIM presents a review of the work in the South Pacific in the 70s decade of the Asian Development Bank which is playing an important part in the development of the Third World in Asia and the Pacific. With Head quarters in the Philippines' capital of Manila, the ADB provides a welcome source of finance for development projects in the South Pacific Islands, some of which also benefit from aid given by the World Bank. Like the World Bank, the ADB gives loans at very low interest rates to developing member countries, the 34 loans listed below being in some cases on terms it would be impossible to obtain elsewhere. Seven of the South Pacific Island countries are develop ing member countries of the ADB.

Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New

the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Western Samoa have, between them, been

granted loans totalling

U 55150.2 million by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to finance development projects.

There are 34 loans, of which

amounting to

(U 5596.34 million are on very favourable terms a 40-year repayment period including a 10-year grace period and a ser vice charge of only 1% a year. ■ All these countries, plus the Cook Islands, are termed Developing Member Coun tries. The Cooks also receives taid valued at US$9l 000 but (this is in technical assistance

only.

I Ten of the loans are for pub lic utilities (41.2%), nine for transport and communications

eight for industry

Including development banks 8(15.6%) and seven for agricul ture and agronomy (15%). In addition, the ADB has also ap proved the spending of US$5 329 000 for technical as sistance for 44 projects in the six countries, plus the US$9O 000 for the Cook Islands’ National Develop

ment Corporation.

Another grant of US$535 900, bringing the grand total of loans and grants to US$5 420.3 million, has been approved for technical as sistance for regional projects including training programmes on development banking and industrial and agricultural sur veys. Approval dates for all the amounts are from 1969 to 1979.

Ten of the 34 loans, totalling US$3O.5 million were made between 1969 and 1974, and the rest, 24 worth U 55119.7 million, since January, 1975, so that the ADB’s lending to the South Pacific countries has quadrupled in less than five years. Of the 44 grants for tech nical assistance, 30 (U 553.92 million) were provided since January, 1975, and 14 (US$l.5 million) in the previous six years.

The loans for 1979 up to Sep tember were, US$2 million to the Solomon Islands Develop ment Bank, U 553.45 million to Western Samoa for the second power project, US$7 million to Fiji for the Suva Port exten sions and U 5512.25 million to Papua New Guinea for the

Upper Warangoi hydropower

project. The Bank was hoping to approve another loan in 1979 worth US$l.l million to

Tonga to finance several pro

jects.

Technical assistance in 1979 consists of US 150 000 to Papua New Guinea for the Lae port development, US$7O 000 for a PNG electricity tariff review, US$99 000 to Fiji for forestry development, US$l3O 000 for the Solomon Islands Develop ment Bank and US$59 000 to Western Samoa for a forest utilisation and replanting pro ject plus US$7O 000 for tariff study and revaluation of assets.

The agricultural survey for the region, which was com pleted last July, was the first of its kind in the South Pacific and will be followed by a simi lar study for the industrial sec tor.

Six of the loans were for development banks, underlin ing the ADB’s aim to help local financial institutions to aid small private businesses and enterprises. The grants for technical assistance for development banks totalled 13 valued at US$l.4 million and related to the Cook Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomons, Tonga and Western Samoa. As a result of ADB as sistance, three new develop ment banks, in Western Samoa, Tonga and the Solo mons have been established.

Through its loans to development banks, the ADB indirectly assists small

development projects through

the sub-loans, the average size of which is US$9lOO with a re cord low sub-loan of US$lB.

(Over)

ADB loans help hydro schemes like this one in PNG.

The ADB carried out in 1978 a review of methods of aiding the smallest institutions in the South Pacific Islands, probably in response to a request from the South Pacific Commission which, a few years ago, was asked by the SP Conference to

explore the possibilities of

obtaining very small loans for small countries. The SPC drew a blank until the ADB, after the 1978 review, decided on a new kind of loan, a multi-project loan to a South Pacific member country which could then finance over a period several

small public sector projects.

The first such loan is expected to be for Tonga for US$l 100 000.

The loan approvals to the six countries are: „...

Fiji, power expansion, including the Monasavu hydro-e ectric project on V.t, Levu US$2O.9 mil ton, Fiji Development Bank US$2 mi ion; Suva Port US$7 ml l0n ; Kiribati, new causeway US$l.75 million.

Papua New Guinea,

Development Bank (two loans) US$ll.5 million; roads US$9.B million; water supply (two loans) US$lB.9 million; East Sepik rural development U 557.74 million; provincial mini-hydropower US$2.7 million; Highlands road im provement US$l5 million; Upper Warangoi hydropower (two loans) U 5512.25 million, Solomon Islands, beef cattle development U 553.57 million; fisheries US$3.6 million; Honiara Port US$2.O3 million; Development Bank US$2 million, Tonga, telecommunications US$l.3 million; small indus tries centre US$37O 000; Development Bank US$l.5 million.

Western Samoa, Faleolo Airport and road (two loans) us £ 296 million; beef cattle ilo( farm us s33o 000; tele £ommunications US $2.6 miuion; power (three loans) uss7 15 m ini on; Develop ment Bank ((hree loans) ussB million; coconut oil mill U 552.25 million; WSTEC agricultural development US$3 million.

Islands want a ‘better deal’

South Pacific Forum countries united in a call for a better economic deal when their rep resentatives addressed the 1979 annual joint meeting of the In ternational Monetary Fund and the World Bank in

Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

The speakers, including

those from Fiji, Western Samoa and Papua New Guinea, adopted similar and familiar themes.

Western Samoa’s Minister of Finance, Vaovasamanaia (Reg) Phillips, said the end of the 1970 s was being reached on a discouraging note and that in some vital areas, small states

were losing ground.

‘What is so difficult for Third World countries to under stand,’ he said, ‘is why, when it

is really only political will that

is needed on behalf of the de veloped countries in order to make considerable progress towards a more equitable inter

national economic order, that will should be so fleeting.’ ‘lt is frustrating to hear industrialised countries pay lip service to trade liberalisation at the same time as they increase protectionism,’ he said.

Papua New Guinea’s Finance Minister, Barry

Holloway, said his country’s

economy had progressed dur ing the past year ‘but this sense of satisfaction is substantially clouded by the knowledge that . . . Papua New Guinea is sus ceptible to external shocks which are almost entirely be yond its control. ‘There is little small coun tries can do to anticipate the arrival of new economic crises. ‘Smaller states have a greater interest in a stable world econ omy than big countries because of their limited ability to insulate themselves, against

instability and uncertainty,’ he

said.

Cheaper

Scheme

South Pacific Forum nations can look forward to an era of

cheaper drugs and medical

supplies. A World Health Organisation South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co operation meeting in Manila in mid-November called for the establishment of a South Pa cific Pharmaceutical Service

(Spps).

The idea was first raised at the South Pacific Forum which gave SPEC a mandate to inves

tigate ‘regional import require

ments to enable the bulk

purchasing of essential imports

by official agencies’. SPEC

finally recommended pharma

ceuticals as the most likely to offer maximum regional ben efit for bulk purchasing follow ing several studies.

The Manila meeting was attended by seven health ministers and 38 senior officials from 23 countries.

WHO invited non-Forui countries so they could 1 informed about this effort o technical co-operation amoi

developing countries.

SPEC director MaH Tupounuia says SPPS will K an international agency withi

joint purchasing service aim©

at obtaining drugs and othi medical supplies on the be commercial terms and with dii tribution through a centn warehouse and two suli regional warehouses. SPPS w' enable quality assurance an information on drug utilisatio

and drug toxicity.

The Asian Developmet Bank and UNDP have inch cated financial assistance be participating countries w\ bear the bulk of the start-u costs.

The New Hebrides, Tonp and Western Samoa hai offered to be centres for wan houses. The Manila meetim did not resolve this issue whid is likely to go to the Forum fi a final decision. Jamv

Tully.

Norfolk Island and Tuvalu are looking forward to strengthening their links with the outside world. Norfolk Islanders are to enter the jet age and Tuvalu will have an ‘ airline ’ of its own.

Norfolk Island’s airstrip is to be upgraded to take medium-size pure jets, according to a November announcement by the Australian Government.

The operation will cost between $2 and $4 million.

In anticipation of this development, East-West Airlines, which operates the Australia-Norfolk service, had held talks with visiting representauves of British

Aerospace about delivery dates

or t e new BA 146 70passenger medium jet which is due for production in 1981. It also had discussions with the Dutch Fokker company about its F2B pure jet. i East-West, meanwhile, faced a challenge to its right to operated the service from Airlines of NSW, a subsidiary of the Ansett company. Airlines of NSW applied to the Australian

Government’s Department of Transport to take over the Nor folk Island service from East- West. Airline industry observers expected Airlines of NSW to persist with its appli cation and if necessary to buy medium-sized jets for the ser

v^ce -

Tuvalu Government has been negotiating for four years to establish a seaplane service throughout the group of nine islands , Thi finally started moving with the signing of an agree ment with the Auckland firm Sea Bee Air ud ear , jer t hi s y ear Houses for air operations are completed on Funafuti where hangar and maintenance facili ties are also under construc tion. The New Zealand Government has approved $55 000 for the provision of

air/ground communications

equipment and radio beacons necessary for the navigation of the aircraft within Tuvalu.

New Zealand is expected to begin shipping out the radio

equipment soon.

In the outer islands some lagoon clearance work has been undertaken to provide landing areas, and sites for the three new radio beacons have been surveyed. Two Tuvaluans are undergoing training in New Zealand in connection with maintenance of the seaplane, a Grumman Goose, and another is training in order to take charge of the air bookings op eration.

It is expected that the service will start operations in mid-1980 and that weekly flights will be made to each of the five atolls which have lagoons. The three islands of Tuvalu which are raised coral islands without lagoons, Nanumanga, Niutao and Niulakita will not be served by the seaplane. Peter McQuar rie.

In Squid Bid

The Prime Minister of Western Samoa, Tupuola Efi, has re vealed that Western Samoa is

seeking squid fishing rights in

New Zealand’s 200-mile exclu sive economic zone.

During a visit to New Zea land Tupuola asked for a take of 14 000 tonnes of squid a year, to be processed at the multi-million dollar fisheries complex built in the centre of

Apia by the Japanese Govern

ment.

A joint venture has been pro posed in which Western Samoa will own 70% of the shares, Japan 20% and New Zealand 10%. Japan has indicated to Western Samoa that squid from the New Zealand zone is needed for the project to be vi able.

Tupola said he had made the proposals to Mr Muldoon and the New Zealand Govern ment’s decision would deter mine whether the project

would proceed.

Cooks for commerce

Tradewinds

Private enterprise in the Cook Islands is taking over commercial activities which were the province of government before the fall of the Henry regime.

The changes, which were foreshadowed in the Speech from the Throne by the Chief Justice, Sir Gaven Donne, as Queen’s Representative at the opening of the 24th session of

the Legislative Assembly, give

the commercial sector control of the Cooks’ import and export trade.

Sir Gaven said his government’s main role in trade was to achieve agreements and understandings with other nations at the political level as well as to set quality stanar^s - ‘Beyond this,’ he said, ‘it has little or no rightful role in the commercial movement or sale of our goods, any more than it has a role in the importation of goods which is currently almost entirely in the hands of the private entrepreneurial sector of our country.

The previous administrat ion took upon itself the role of exporting and marketing of our produce. Honourable mem bers will know the pitiful re suits of such a policy. The government wishes to make it clear that this failure was simply due to the fact that governments are not equipped and can never, without great cost and effort, be equipped to perform commercial oper ations efficiently or effec

lively.’

After saying that the Henry government confined the pri vate sector by ‘restrictive and ill-advised legislation as well as

unrealistic policies’ to import

trading only, the Queen’s Rep

resentative promised that ‘my government will continue with vigour to implement its policies of strong entrepreneurial activity in the export of our goods. The economic welfare of each citizen of our nation and the very economic future 0 f our nation depends upon it > r

Sir Gaven revealed that the country’s economy, which had declined over the past eight years, was showing a strong upward trend through the com bined efforts of all sectors of the community and their co operation with the govern

ment’s policies.

Agricultural production

showed an increase for the first quarter of 1979 compared with the corresponding period in 1978, copra being produced in the first quarter of 1979 at a rate equal to the total amount of copra production in 1978.

He also reported that banana production in the same period was almost six times greater than in the first quarter of 1978 and there were also marked in

creases in pineapple planting

and production on Mangaia

and Atiu, in market produce on Rarotonga and increased areas of planting, with greater care given, in the citrus orchards.

Mitiaro, on its own initiative, had planned its future around copra and had produced more copra so far in 1979 than it had ever produced in recent years.

Tourism was also growing, with the Cook Islanders them selves establishing a strong par ticipating role in the industry, and the government would continue to promote the islanders in that role.

So far as the country’s 200-mile economic zone was concerned. Sir Gaven said con tact had been established with

fishing nations and companies.

The negotiations had been ap proached with caution and care and the services of a specially constituted team had been obtained to ensure the best

possible advantage was made

of the zone.

Other moves by the govern ment in the last 12 months, Sir Gaven reported, included the reduction by 10% of public ser vice personnel by ‘natural

wastage’ and not by sackings,

the introduction of new accounting methods to control government spending, a Hous

ing Corporation to advance

loans for house-buyers and not to carry out trading and build ing activities as had been the case under the previous government.

Ships

Shipping lines form South Pacific ‘co-operative’

Ten shipping lines serving the Pacific Islands from Australia and New Zealand have formed the South Pacific Shipowners’

Association. The decision to form the association was taken at a meeting in Sydney late in November. Shipowners had felt for some time that common carriers of sea freight in the South Pacific area should im prove their co-operation through an association.

The association says the ben efits will include: • The possibility of achiev ing rationalisation of their many routes to eliminate, as much as possible, various over and under-tonnaged berth pos itions; • More regular service frequencies for the benefit of

shippers, importers and ship

operators alike; • Assisting where possible, the operations of the recently established Pacific Forum Line; • Seek improvements in port facilities, cargo handling and

operational productivity;

• Co-ordinate the efforts of members to improve the ser vice network in the region.

Association membership at the outset controls the oper ations of 26 ships with a total 325 500 dwt. If three other of the companies, not inaugural members, join the association, the number of ships will rise to 30 and the dwt to 341 000.

An association spokesman said that in no way should the organisation be considered a quasi-conference in the generally-accepted sense of the word, which meant there would be no change in the

existing healthy competition

between members in the re gion. Freight rates and con ditions remained (where

applicable) subject to nego

tiations with the Australian Shippers’ Council and similar bodies overseas.

The foundation members

are: Compagnie des Chargeurs

Caledoniens, Compagnie

Generale Maritime, CTM Tahiti Line, Daiwa Navigation, Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, Pa cific Line Ltd, Pacific Australia Direct Line, Pacific Forum Line, Sofrana-Unilines and Warner Pacific Line.

Prospective members are the NZ Shipping Corporation,

PNG Shipping Corporation

and Union Steam Ship Co. The last-named two had observers at the inaugural meeting.

The first chairman, who will serve initially for 12 months, is Mr G. Ravel, of Sofrana- Unilines. The temporary ad dress of the association is c/o PO Box RlO3, Royal

Exchange, Sydney, 2000.

The operational regions of members are:

From Australia Fiji, Western Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, Kirabati, Tuvalu, Guam, Saipan, Marshall Islands, Caroline Islands, Northern Mananas, Nauru, Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island and the Cook Islands.

From New Zealand - The om J\en Zealand Ihe above groups, except Kirabati and the Cook Islands, but indude the Solomons and Papua New Guinea

Taken at the inaugural meet ing of the South Pacific Ship owners’ Association (from left) Standing: Captain P. King, PNG Shipping Corporation (ob server), N. de Bok, Daiwa Navi gation, E. Braun-Ortega, CTM Tahiti Line, H. Kiss, Pacific Line Ltd, M. G. T. Hicks, Sofrana- Unilines (Aust) Pty Ltd, J.

Breckleman, Cie des Chargeurs Caledoniens, P. Warner, Warner Pacific Line. Seated: Captain T.

Vangsnes, Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, G. Ravel, Sofrana-Unilines SA, C. Fenouil, Compagnie Generate Maritime, R. M. Boyle, Trans-Australia Shipping/PAD Line.

The Forum

Line’Sin

managing agent in New Zealand and will be respon sible for co-ordinating all PFL requirements and operations out of New Zealand. The cor poration is represented in Auckland, Tauranga, Napier,

Wellington, Lyttelton and

Dunedin and Union Steam Ship Company is also agent for PFL services from Auckland to Fiji, the Samoas and Tonga.

Following discussions with the Forum Line with the object

of avoiding ‘over-tonnaging’,

the Union Steam Ship Company has withdrawn its roll-on, roll-off ship Marama

The Pacific Forum Line, the South Pacific Islands’ own shipping line, is in business following a meeting late in October at Apia of the direc tors and the Regional Shipping Council, when arrangements were made for establishing re gional offices and for co operating with the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand and the Shipping Cor

poration of New Zealand.

WaS ec^ec * at Apia meeting to maintain the head office at Apia but open a Wellington (NZ) office under Mr Colin Small, the finance manager, to handle freight and accounts. A regional office will be opened in Sydney early in 1980. A Fiji office is already operating under Mr Ormond Eyre. Head office at Apia will contain the management, commercial and operational

departments.

The Shipping Corporation of NZ is the Forum Line’s

Forum Samoa sets sail on her delivery voyage to the Islands.

from the Islands’ routes to make way for the Forum Line’s new roll-on, roll-off container ship Forum Samoa, the very latest in container ships which has been built in Hamburg, West Germany, for the West ern Samoa Government under West Germany’s economic co operation programme.

Samoan Shipping Services Ltd has chartered the Forum Samoa to the PFL. The ship, of 6000-tonne dwt, left Europe early in November with a full load of cargo for Pacific Island ports. She will off-load soyabean oil in Fiji, pipes for the Western Samoa hydro electric scheme and general cargo for Papeete and Noumea. Celebrations had been arranged to welcome Forum Samoa at various ports.

She was expected to begin her first South Pacific trading voy age on December 13.

Officers and a crew from

West Germany have sailed

Forum Samoa from West Ger many and it is expected that they will remain with her until i Samoan crew has been trained.

West Germany has also pro dded for Tonga under similar

arrangements, another ship,

Fuya Kavenga, sister ship to

Forum Samoa. The Fuya Kavenga, was scheduled to sail Tom Europe on December 5,

and she is expected to bring a full cargo to the Islands. She will then operate on Forum Line routes. • The Forum Line has stres sed that it will honour all exist ing freight contracts with the Union Steam Ship Company.

Vikings head

into Pacific

Royal Viking Line vessels will make three holiday cruises covering a number of South Pacific ports in 1980 and early 1981. The Royal Viking Star leaves Los Angeles on January 7 for San Francisco, Papeete, Moorea, Nukualofa, Auckland, Hobart, Sydney, Suva, Apia and Honolulu, returning to Los Angeles on February 22. The same vessel will sail from San Francisco on December 13 for Los Angeles, Honolulu, Bora Bora, Moorea, Papeete, Nuku hiva and San Francisco, return ing to Los Angeles on January 8, 1981.

The Royal Viking Sky, on a Pacific circle cruise leaving Los Angeles on February 12, 1980, will call at San Francisco, Papeete, Moorea, Rarotonga, Auckland, Wellington, Picton (NZ), Sydney, Cairns, several Southeast-Asian ports, Hono lulu, Lahaina (Hawaii) and San Francisco.

Mr Brian S. Cole, general manager of the Union Steam Ship Company since January, 1972, will retire next April after almost 44 years with the company, and, In the interim, will be executive director. Deputy general manager Mr David C. Jury (left) becomes chief general man ager and Mr David A. Graham, manager, branches, (right) will be general manager, stevedoring and agency division. Mr Jury joined the company in New Plymouth in 1942 and has held successive man agement posts at head office in recent years. Mr Graham has held senior management positions at Wellington and in the Islands.

• DAUNTLESS: 15 m Stuart design sloop with owner skipper Frank Innes-Jones (Remuera, NZ), his wife Shirley, daughter Rosemary and son Rex on board, foun dered 167 km east of Norfolk Island on November 11 in a million-to-one mishap, a fight with a sperm whale, which rammed the yacht. The Innes- Jones family managed to launch their two life-rafts be fore Dauntless sank, and they drifted for about 20 hours until their Mayday call brought the Dutch freighter Nedlloyd Free town to their rescue. They were landed at Norfolk Island and later flew to Auckland.

Frank told the Norfolk Islander that the three whales, male, fe male and calf, were sighted at a safe distance but the calf made for the yacht for a closer look. The mother whale, prob ably sensing danger to the calf, rammed the yacht. Water poured in through a large hole, and blood spouted from the whale which, Frank believed, was mortally wounded. The bull whale joined in the attack.

Daughter Rosemary, who said the whale 'was coming at us like a train’, had a mirror in her hand. Despairingly, she threw it at the bull whale and was dumfounded to see the whale checked in his tracks. His tail went up as if to act as a brake.

He slowed down but the im petus was sufficient, when he touched the Dauntless, to lift the yacht nearly 2 m out of the water. They floated free of the whale but Dauntless was set tling in the water. The liferafts were launched but before they could be inflated, the bellows fell into the sea and began to float away. The blood from the wounded whale could have attracted sharks but son Rex, aged 24, dived in and retrieved the bellows. The Dauntless sank in 11 minutes.

As they drifted through the afternoon and all night Frank repeatedly sent out a Mayday

call on a ‘ham’ radio he had snatched up when they aban doned the yacht. The radio telephone had broken down. A ham operator in Dunedin (NZ) picked up the weak signal and the RNZAF began a search with an Orion which sighted the drifting rafts and directed the freighter to the spot. It was the family’s second ship wreck. Thirty years ago, Frank and Shirley, who was pregnant at the time, were returning to New Zealand in the coastal trader the Awahou from Suva where Frank had bought a large number of 44-gal oil drums. The Awahou hit a reef five days out of Suva but the drums kept her afloat until a United States cruiser arrived and rescued them.

Dauntless called at Fiji, New Caledonia and the New Flebrides during the cruise which began out of Auckland last May.

Below is more yachting news from Jimmy Cornell who has left Fiji and, early in December, was at Floniara. • WANDERER IV: Celebrities of the cruising world, Susan and Eric Hiscock, passed through Suva recently at the end of their latest Pacific cruise. Although originally from England, the Hiscocks are now based in New Zealand, from where they set off in 1978 for the Pacific coast of Canada, via Tahiti and Hawaii. After wintering in Bri tish Columbia, they sailed to California, Tahiti, Tonga and Fiji.

Well known to sailing people throughout the world as the author of several books and many articles, Eric Hiscock’s Cruising Under Sail and Voyaging Under Sail are classic works found aboard most yachts. Eric and Susan had been sailors in their youth before they married during World War 11. They started long-distance voyaging in 1950 on board WANDERER 111. In 1953 they arrived in the Pacific for the first time, meet ing no yachts at all in the Marquesas and only two in Papeete. On their return to the Pacific in 1960 the situation

wasn’t much changed and the Hiscocks look back with nos talgia at the wonderful attitude of the Islanders they met then.

On their many Pacific cruises over the years, the Hiscocks remarked both a change in the number and type of yachts, and also in the attitude of the Islanders towards them.

After completing two cir cumnavigations and 111 000 miles in Wanderer 111 they found a more comfortable home on Wanderer IV, a Van de Meer designed 16.50 m steel ketch built in Holland.

Wanderer IV has taken them a further 70 000 miles and on another circumnavigation.

With three Cape Horn pass ages to their credit and four Panama Canal transits, they still regard the Panama transit as the most hazardous part of their voyaging as the boat is not under their own control. ■l’m always glad to get back into the good old Pacific’, says Eric. Now approaching their seventies, the Hiscocks do not foresee any more long pass ages, but intend to carry on cruising near New Zealand.

• Chidiock Tichborne:

This is a 5 m long Drascombe lugger in which the American Chiles Webb is planning to make a trip around the world in the smallest boat ever. The two-masted boat, named after a little known Elizabethan poet, is completely open, very much like the ship’s boat in which Captain Bligh made his epic voyage from Tonga to Timor after the Mutiny on the Bounty. Another of Chiles Webb’s intentions is to follow the route taken by Captain Bligh and his men after having

been cast off by the mutineers.

Chiles Webb left San Diego in November, 1978 making the 3000-mile passage to the Marquesas in only 34 days, a good time even for larger boats. After cruising in French Polynesia he sailed in 16 days from Bora Bora to Pago Pago and then on to Vava’u and Fiji where he plans to spend the cyclone season. From Timor he plans to sail to India and up the Ganges to Benares, then via the Red Sea to the Mediter ranean and back to the USA,

some five years after his departure. Chiles Webb already has a solo circum navigation to his credit, achieved in 232 days, making it the fastest spin around the world for a singlehander in a monohull. If Chiles doesn’t have enough on his plate already, he is also talking about rounding Cape Horn in an open boat, similar to Chidiock Tichborne.

• Sundowner: New Zea

lander Peter McNeilly bought this 23 m steel ketch in Indonesia, where he worked for five years in Jakarta as a civil engineer. At the end of his contract in 1979, he set off for home with Peter Wilson, John Maindonald and Jo Johnson as crew, sailing via the Indonesian archipelago to Irian Jaya and the north coast of PNG, Sundowner made a longer stopover in Rabaul. The Solomons and New Hebrides were visited en route to New Zealand. A return to the tropics is planned for Sun downer after a cruise around South Island.

Chiles Webb and his Chidiock Tichborne. Photo Jimmy Cornell.

Shipping

■ These listings do not necessarily ■ cover all services to Island ports. ■ Should any shipping company wish I to have its services cargo and ■ passenger included in these list ■ ings they should contact PIM.

Australia - Fiji

■ Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd operates monthly cargo services from Sydney to Suva and Lautoka. ■ Details from Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd. ■9-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301), Oalgety Shipping, 461 Bourke Street, Melbourne (60-0731), Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd, Suva and Lautoka. ■ Sofrana-Unilines (Fiji Express Line) operates to Suva and Lautoka every three weeks from the main ports on the east coast of Australia and monthly to lautoka from Melbourne and Sydney. ■ Details from Sofrana-Unilines, 37 Pitt Street, Sydney, (27-2031), Trans- Austral Shipping Pty Ltd, 570 Bourke Street, Melbourne (67-9162), ACTA Pty Ltd, Brisbane (221-3116), Elder-ANL Pty Ltd, Port Adelaide (47-5688), ANL, Newcastle (049-24364), Clements & Marshall, Burnie, Tasmania (31-1833).

Australia - Fiji - Samoas -

New Hebrides - Tonga -

Norfolk Island

I Pacific Navigation of Tonga operates a five-weekly refrigerated general car go container service from Sydney and Brisbane to Vila, Santo, Suva, Lautoka, Apia, Pago Pago, Nuku’alofa and Nor folk Island. ■ Details from Beaufort Shipping Igency Co, 2 Castlereagh Street, Syd ney (239-1022).

Australia - Fiji - Tuvalu

-Samoas - Tonga

■ Pacific Forum Line operates a con tainer, unitised/palletised and reefer cargo service from Melbourne and Syd ney to Lautoka, Suva, Funafuti, Pago Pago, Apia and Nuku’alofa. Other ports ■e included on inducement. ■Details from ANL Melbourne and Brisbane, Union Bulkships, Sydney, Hobart, Port Adelaide and Fremantle, Burns Philp (SS) Company Ltd, GPO Box 355, Suva, Fiji (311-777); Polynesia Shipping Services, Pago Pago; Union Steam Ship Co of NZ Ltd, Nuku’alofa; PWD, Funafuti; or Pacific Forum Line, PO Box 655, Apia. W.

Steimoa.

Australia - Lord Howe Is -

Norolk Is

[Compagnie des Chargeurs

operates four-weekly argo service Sydney - Lord Howe Bland and Norfolk Island, f Details Hetherington Kingsbury Pty Jd, 37-49 Pitt Street, Sydney 27-1671).

Australia - Nauru -

Kiribati

[Nauru Pacific Line operates regular largo/passenger service from Mel purne to Nauru and Tarawa. [Details: Nauru Pacific Line, Nauru jouse, 80 Collins Street, Melbourne 653-5709), Nedlloyd Swire, 8 Spring

«reet, Sydney (2-0522).

Australia - New Caledonia

(And/Or) New Hebrides

Karlander operates a monthly service om Sydney to Noumea.

Details: Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, 9-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301).

Sofrana-Unilines ships serve Noumea every three weeks from the main ports along the east Australian Details from Sofrana-Unilines, 19 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-2031), Trans- Austral Shipping Pty Ltd. 570 Bourke Street, Melbourne (67-9162), ACTA Pty Ltd, Brisbane (221-3116), Elders-ANL Pty Ltd, Port Adelaide (47-5688), ANL, Newcastle (049-24364). Clements &

(T,833) Burnie - Tasmania

Compagnie des Chargeurs Cale doniens operates a three-weekly con tainerised cargo service from Sydney to Noumea.

Details Hetherington Kingsbury Pty Ltd, 37-49 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-1671).

Compagnie Generate Maritime oper ates a monthly service from Sydney to Noumea, Port Vila and Santo, using a self-sustained fully containerised vessel.

Details Compagnie Generate Mari time, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (231-3700) amctdai i* kit cm

Aust ' N F,' Fiji ’

. Hawam -Us

F 9 liners call at Auckland, Suva, Honolulu and Vancouver on eastbound and we stbound voyages between Syd neX and , 8 „ . , j a l! s f rom P& O Booking Centre, World Travel Headquarters Pty Ltd, 33 Bligh Street, Sydney (231-6655), AUSTRALIA - NZ - FIJI - TONGA - N. HEBRIDES - NOUMEA - PNG -

Solomons - Samoas

Sitmar Cruises operates a year-round cruise programme to include most of the above countries.

Details from Sitmar Cruises, 47 Elizabeth Street, Sydney (232-7511).

P & O liners call at Auckland, Bay of Islands, Honiara, Lautoka, Noumea, Nukualofa, Pago Pago, Papeete, Port Moresby, Santo, Savusavu, Suva, Vavau and Vila on cruises from Aus

trarl‘a

Details from P & O Booking Centre, World Travel Headquarters Pty Ltd, 33 Bligh Street, Sydney (231-6655).

Australia - Micronesia

Nauru Pacific Line operates a regular container service from Melbourne to Majuro, Kosrae, Ponape, Truk, Guam and Saipan.

Details Nauru Pacific Line, Nauru House, 80 Collins Street, Melbourne, (653-5709), Nedlloyd Swire, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (2-0522).

Australia - Png

New Guinea Express Lines operates three-weekly conventional and con tainer services Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Port Moresby, Lae, Rabaul, Alotau.

Details from New Guinea Express Lines, PO Box R 73, Royal Exchange PO, Sydney (241-3991) MacArthur Shipping Agency Co, 82-92 Eagle Street, Brisbane (229-3777), New Guinea Express Lines, 327 Collins Street, Melbourne (61-3053), Niugini Lines in Port Moresby Rabtrad N'ug |n| Pty Ltd, Rabaul (92-2911), Q , stevedonn 9 & T’sport ® M n , Karlander New Guinea Line s cargo vessels call at Melbourne, Sydney, Port Moresby, Lae, Madang, Wewak, Manus, Kimbe, Rabaul, Popondetta.

Details from Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, 19-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301).

Dalgety Shipping, 461 Bourke Street Melbourne (60-0731).

Australia-Png-Solomons

A consortium of Conpac, NGAL/PNGL have three container vessels operating on a 28 day turn around from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane t 0 Port Moresby, Lae. Rabaul, vessels, Pacific Princess and Fiji Maru sar sydney ,o Lae ° n a

Details from Burns, Philp & Co. Ltd. 51 Pitt Street, Sydney (2-0547) and Interocean Swire, 8 Spring Street, Syd ney. (2-0522),

Australia - Solomons -

Kiribati - Micronesia

Daiwa Line operates a container ser vice every 30 days from Sydney to Honiara, Kieta, Tarawa and Guam. Gizo cargoes transhipped at Honiara, Saipan, cargoes transhipped at Guam.

Details Meridian Shipping & Trans port Agencies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO Sydney 2001 (29-4987), Tlx.

AA25970.

Australia - Solomons -

Northern Marianas-Taiwan

Japan

Daiwa Line offers a four-weekly ser vice Sydney-Honiara-Guam-Taiwan- Japan with transhipment at Guam for Saipan.

Details Meridian Shipping & Trans port Agencies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO, Sydney 2001 (29-4987). Tlx.

AA25970.

Australia - Tahiti

Daiwa Line offers a four-weekly ser vice from Australia to Papeete.

Details: Meridian Shipping & Trans port Agencies Pty Ltd. Box 3410 GPO, Sydney 2001 (29-4987), Tlx: AA25970.

Compagnie Generale Maritime oper ates a monthly service from Sydney to Papeete using a self-sustained fully containerised vessel.

Details Compagnie Generale Mari time, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (231-3700).

Australia - Tonga -

Samoas - Tahiti

Karlander operates a monthly cargo service from Melbourne and Sydney to Nuku'alofa, Apia, Pago Pago, Papeete, US west coast.

Details: Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, 19-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301).

Australia - W. Samoa

Compagnie Generale Maritime oper ates a monthly service from Sydney to Apia, using a self-sustained fully con tainerised vessel.

Details Compagnie Generale Mari time, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (231-3700).

Far East - Fiji - New

Zealand

New Zealand Unit Express (NZUE) operates a fortnightly palletised cargo service from Manila, Keelung, Kaoshiung and Hong Kong to Lautoka, Suva and thence to NZ.

Details from Carpenters Shipping, Suva (312-244), Burns Philp, Suva (311-777), P & O S.N. Co, Wellington (736-477) or Nedlloyd Swire Pty Ltd,

Sydney (20-522).

Nedlloyd operates bi-weekly cargo service with four ships from Sourabaya, Jakarta, Bangkok, Port Kelang and Singapore to Suva and NZ ports.

Details from Nedlloyd (Aust) Pty Ltd, 8 Spring St, Sydney (27 3801), Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd, Suva and Lautoka.

Far East - Mid-S. Pacific

China Navigation’s New Guinea Pa cific Line (NGPL) operates a regular cargo service from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Manila, Port Kelang and Singapore to Wewak, Madang, Kimbe, Rabaul, Kieta, Lae, Port Moresby, Honiara, Santo, Vila, Noumea, Papeete, Pago Pago, Apia, Tarawa and Nauru Details from Steamships Trading Co., Port Moresby (21-2000).

Kyowa Shipping Ltd, operates monthly services from Hong Kong, Taiwan, S. Korea and Japan, to Guam, Saipan, Solomons, New Caledonia, Fiji, Western and American Samoa, Tahiti, Cook Is., Tonga and New Hebrides.

Details: Hetherington Kingsbury Pty Ltd, 37-49 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-1671).

Daiwa Line operates 30-day service from Moji, Kobe, Nagoya and

Yokohama to Papeete, Pago Pago, Apia, Suva, Lautoka, Noumea, Sydney!

Honiara, Kieta, Tarawa, Guam and Taiwan.

Details: Meridian Shipping & Trans port Agencies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO Sydney 2001 (29-4987) Tlx; AA25970.

Japan - Fiji - New Zealand

China Navigation, operates a monthly service from main ports Japan to Suva and Lautoka and thence Noumea and NZ.

Details from Carpenters Shipping Suva (312-244).

Japan - Png

Mitsui O.S.K Lines operates a monthly service from main ports Japan and Port Moresby, Rabaul, Lae, Madang, Kieta and Kimbe.

Details from J. C. Waller, Port Moresby (21-1755).

JAPAN - GUAM - FIJI - TAHITI -

Samoa - N. Caledonia -

Solomons - Kiribati

Daiwa Lines runs a monthly cargo service from Japan via Guam to Lau toka. Suva, Papeete, Pago Pago, Apia, Sydney, Noumea, Honiara, Tarawa, Guam.

Details from Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd.

Suva.

Hawaii - Samoas - Tonga

Warner Pacific Line operates uni tized/palletized and reefer cargo ser vice every 30 days Honolulu/Pago Pago-Apia-Nuku’alofa. Line Islands and Suva by inducement.

Details from Hawaii-Pacific Maritime Inc., Honolulu, Hi 96801. Tel. (808) 521-9806 Freight Dept, Tlx (RCA); 723-8330 ITT 743-0040 Cables ‘Oral!.

New Caledonia - Fiji - West

Coast North America

PAD Line operates an approx. 3weekly ro-ro service from Noumea and Suva to Honolulu and West Coast USA and Canadian ports.

Details from Sofrana-Unilines SA, BP 1602, Noumea (27-51 -91), Tlx NMO4B; W. R. Carpenter, 100 Thomson St., Suva (31-11-22), Tlx FJ2199; Trans- Austral Shipping, Box R 232 PO, Royal Exchange, NSW (27-2441), Tlx AA21204,

Png - Uk/Continent

Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Kieta, Rabaul, Kimbe, Madang and Lae to Cardiff, Hamburg, Rotterdam and Antwerp.

Details from Bank Line (A'asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (PNG) Ltd, ports.

Png - Us

Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Kieta, Rabaul, Kimbe, Madang and Lae direct to New Orleans; calls at other US and Gulf and East Coast ports on inducement.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd. 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (PNG) Ltd, PNG ports.

Solomons - Usa -

Uk/Continent

Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Honiara to New Orleans, Cardiff, Hamburg, Rotterdam and Ant werp.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Trading Co, Honiara (389).

NZ - COOK IS - NIUE -

Tahiti

Shipping Corporation of NZ Ltd oper ates cargo services based on pallets and similar units from Auckland to Niue, Cook Islands and Tahiti.

Details from the Shipping Corp of NZ Ltd, PO Box 3420, Auckland (797-210), Waterfront Commission, PO Box 61, Rarotonga; Lighterage and Stevedoring Co, Aitutaki; Niue Govt Offices, Niue Island Compagnie Mari time Polynesienne, B'P’ 368, Papeete, Tahiti.

Nz - Fiji

Reef operates a regular 18-day ser vice from Auckland to Suva and Lau toka.

Details from Reef Shipping Agencies, PO Box 3382, Auckland, NZ (77-1221-3).

Pacific Line with one ship operates fortnightly roro cargo service New Zealand, Lautoka, Suva.

Details: Sofrana Unilines, 18 Cus toms Street, Auckland (773-279) PO Box 3614, Telex: NZ2313.

Nz - Fiji - Kiribati -

Solomons - Png

Pacific Forum Line operates a con tainer, unitised/palletised and reefer cargo service from Lyttelton and Auckland to Suva, Port Moresby, Lae Honiara, Tarawa, Madang, Lae and Port Moresby. Other ports are included on inducement.

Details from Shipping Corporation of NZ Ltd, Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington. Burns Philp (SS) Company Ltd, GPO Box 355, Suva, Fiji (31 1 -777) Sullivans, Honiara; Kiribati Shipping Corporation, Tarawa; Steamships Trading in Port Moresby, Lae and Madang or Pacific Forum Line, PO Box 655, Apia, W. Samoa.

NZ - FIJI - NORTH AMERICA (WC) Blue Star Line Ltd Pacific Coast con tainer services. Only direct service to and from New Zealand. Blue Star vessels call at Suva and Honolulu on Coast voyages.

Details from Blueport ACT (NZ) Ltd, PO Box 192, Wellington (739-029) , Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd, GPO Box 355, Suva, Fiji (311-777).

Nz - New Caledonia - Fiji

Pacific Forum Line operates a uni tized/palletized and reefer cargo ser vice from Lyttelton and Auckland to Napier, Noumea, Lautoka and Suva.

Other ports are included on inducement.

Details from Shipping Corporation of NZ Ltd, Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington, Burns Philp (SS) Company LtC), GPO Box 355, Suva, Fiji (311 -777);

Polynesia Shipping Services, Pago Pago; Union Steam Ship Co of NZ Ltd, Nuku’alofa or Pacific Forum Line, PO Box 655, Apia, W. Samoa.

Nz-N. Caledonia-N. Hebrides

Png-Solomons

Sofrana Unilines with three ships op erates to Vila and Santo, to Honiara and Papua New Guinea and to Norfolk Island and Noumea.

Details from Sofrana Unilines, 18 Customs Street, Auckland (773-279), PO Box 3614, Telex NZ2313.

Nz - Tahiti

Compagnie Tahitienne Maritime SA with one ship operates monthly service New Zealand - Papeete.

Details from Sofrana Unilines, PO Box 3614, 18 Customs St, Auckland (773-279), Tlx NZ2313.

Nz- Tonga - Samoa

Pacific Navigation of Tonga operates a four-weekly cargo service, Auckland - Nuku'alofa - Pago Pago - Apia - Auckland.

Details from McKay Shipping Ltd, Downtown House, Queen Street, Auckland (30-229).

Warner Pacific Line services Auckland - Nuku’alofa/Vavau/ Apia fortnightly carrying general and freezer cargoes. Also Timaru - Nuku’alofa/Vavau/Apia every 21 days carrying freezer cargo.

Details from Air Marine Services (NZ) Ltd, PO Box 2505, Auckland (796-841), Telex NZ21555.

Europe - Tahiti -

New Caledonia

Compagnie Generate Maritime oper ates services from Europe and Mediter ranean ports to Papeete and Noumea using three Ro-Ro and two multi purpose vessels thus ensuring a bi monthly sailing to and from.

Details Compagnie Generate Mari time, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (231-3700).

Hamburg-Sued operates monthly cargo services from Hamburg, Dunkirk and Le Havre to Papeete, Noumea, via Panama.

Details from Columbus Overseas Services Pty Ltd, 333 George Street, Sydney (290-2966), Columbus Mari time Services, 17 Albert Street, Auckland (77-3460).

EUROPE - TAHITI - W. SAMOA -

Fiji - N. Caledonia

Nedlloyd offers regular cargo ser vices from Northern Europe and UK to Papeete, Apia, Fiji and New Caledonia.

Details Nedlloyd (Aust) Pty Ltd, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (27-3801).

Uk - N Continent - Fiji

The Bank Line operates a direct, fast monthly service from Hull, Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp and Rotterdam to Suva and Lautoka.

Details from the Bank Line (Aus tralasia) Pty Ltd, 1 York St, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (South Sea) Co Ltd, Suva and Lautoka.

Uk/N. Continent - Png -

Solomons

Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Hull, Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp and Rotterdam to Port Moresby, Lae, Madang, Kimbe, Rabaul, Kieta and Honiara and on inducement to Yandina.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd. 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (PNG) Ltd, PNG ports; Trading Co Honiara.

Uk/N. Continent - Tahiti -

N. Caledonia - N. Hebrides

Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Hull, Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp and Rotterdam to Papeete and Noumea, Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Ets A M Fare UTE, Papeete; Ets Ballande, Noumea,

US - FIJI - TAHITI - NZ -

Australia

Bank and Savill Line Ltd, operatd regular cargo services from US Gi ports to Australia and NZ. Calls at Suw Lautoka and Papeete on demand.

Details from Bank Line (A'asia) F Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041) Howard Smith Industries Pty Ltd, 1 Yo Street, Sydney (27-5611).

Us - Hawaii - Micronesia

Philippines, Micronesia & One- Navigation Co (PM&O Lines) operate regular container service on se sustained ship with ro-ro capability from Oakland, Portland and Honolulu Majuro, Kosrae, Ponape, Truk, Saipat Yap and Koror.

Details for Micronesia can I obtained from Larry Guerrero, PM& Owners Rep, PO Box 803, Saipan, I

96950, Cable Commontime; Pm&

Lines, 181 Fremont St, San Francisc: California 94105, Cable PMONAV.

Us - Hawaii - Nauru -

Micronesia

Nauru Pacific Line operates regul conventional/container and passeng: service from San Francisco at Honolulu to Majuro, Ponape, Truk at Saipan. Cargo is accepted for Nau, and Kosrai with transhipment at Maju. and Ponape.

Details from Nauru Pacific Lin Nauru House, 80 Collins Street, Mi bourne (653-5709); North Americ.

Maritime Agencies, 100 Califorr Street, San Francisco, California 94 (981 -0343).

Us • Noumea - Fiji

PAD Line operates an appn 3-weekly ro-ro service from West Cos USA and Canada to Noumea ai Suva.

Details from Sofrana-Unilines SA, B 1602, Noumea (27-51 -91). Tlx NMO4 W. R. Carpenter, 100 Thomson St, Sui (31-11-22), Tlx FJ2199; Trans-Austc Shipping, Box R 232 PO, Roy

Exchange, NSW (27-2441), Tlx AA21204.

Us - Tahiti - Samoa

Pacific Islands Transport operates a five weekly cargo service from North America west coast ports to Papeete, Pago Pago, Apia.

Details from Polynesia Shipping Ser vices Inc, PO Box 1478 Pago Pago (9-6799).

Polynesia Line operates container and general cargo service from US west coast ports to Paoeete and Pago Pago.

Details from Polynesia Shipping Ser vices Inc., PO Box 1478, Pago Pago (9-6799).

US - TAHITI - SAMOA - NZ - AUST Farrell Lines Inc, operate a fast reg ular lash/container cargo service from west coast ports Canada/USA to Papeete and Pago Pago thence to NZ and Australia.

Details Wilh Wilhelmson Agency, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, Tlx AA20136, Cable FARSHIPS Sydney; Dalgety (NZ) Ltd, Auckland and Wellington, Tlx NZ2445, Cable DALSHIP Auckland; Compagnie Mari time Polynesienne, Immeuble Franco Oceanienne, PO Box 368, Papeete, Tahiti, Tel 26393, Tlx 258. FP ANSB Taporo, Cable OCEAN Papeete; Kneubuhl Maritime Service, PO Box 39, Pago Pago, Telephone 633-5121; Tlx 782505.

I Agricultural machinery manu

facturers Hastings Deering

have announced the appoint ment of H. Beresford Clifford Love of Port Moresby and George H. Herriott of Sydney to the board of directors of

Hastings Deering (Pacific)

Ltd.

of Islands People

Ratu Luke

Vuidreketi

Editor of the Fijian language newspaper Nai Lalakai from its foundation by the Fiji Times & Herald Ltd in 1962, at Suva after a long illness, aged 63. He was in the Fiji public service for about 20 years in various

capacities, fought with the Fiji

Infantry Regiment in the

Solomons campaign, and in 1959 became editor of the

Fijian language newspaper

Volagauna. He joined the CSR Company in 1960 and then Nai Lalakai. Acknowledged as an expert in the Fijian language, Ratu Luke served for five years on the Fijian Language Exam inations Board and translated a number of well-known books into Fijian. He had served on the Rewa Provincial Council

and the Fiji Council of Chiefs.

He leaves a widow, two sons and two daughters.

Reginald!.

Patterson

Oldest ex-student of Levuka Public School, in Levuka on November 28 aged 85. He and his brother installed the first

public electricity supply on

Ovalau Island. It was taken

over by the Fiji Electricity

Authority a few years ago. The two brothers also began the ferry service between Levuka and Natovi on the Viti Levu coast, a service which is now

operated by Reginald’s

nephews, Harry and Robert

Patterson. Mr Patterson’s father, Thomas, who had a smithy at Levuka, arrived there

from Newcastle-on-Tyne,

England, just after Cession in 1874. Mr Patterson, who mar ried a former student at Levuka Public School, Dora Chapman, of Savusavu, leaves four sons.

Thomas Richard

Smith

For five years Secretary- General of the South Pacific

Commission, in Wellington, NZ, on November 17 at the age of 75 years.

A Lancashire man, born in Blackburn, Mr Smith migrated to New Zealand with his parents when a child and was educated at Canterbury College and Victoria Univer sity in Wellington. He was in the public service for 22 years and later served as secretary of the Internal Marketing Depart ment and inspector for the Public Service Commission be fore becoming senior lecturer

at Victoria University College.

Then followed a year in Indonesia as a member of the Indonesian International Plan ning Bureau and guest pro fessor in public administration at the University of Indonesia, before he went for three years to Western Samoa as govern ment secretary. He was Secretary-General of the South Pacific Commission from 1958 to 1963 and later wrote a book on the commission’s first 25 years operations. He returned to New Zealand in 1963 and from then until his retirement was a lecturer at Victoria

University.

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