22. After lunch Len and I went over to B-P with our food and equipment lists and it seems that we can get practically everything we are in need of. Coupons will have to be turned in for those things that are rationed and Len got a letter from the Protector of Islanders authorizing the issue of rice for native helpers. It is not available to whites. The Cairns Naturalists' Club held a meeting in the evening at which Len was to speak on Nyasaland. He made a nice talk. Van and I were intro- duced to the members, about twenty of them, and many of them remembered a visit and talk in 1938 by Richard Archbold, while Cuba was at anchor here. About mid-afternoon a telegram came in from George saying he was due in the same plane that Van and I were on. It was a little more than an hour late, as was ours, and George was fit and in good shape on arrival. Now, at last, we four have met and the personnel anyway is complete. Friday, 27 February 1948. George and Van went out with a local crop in- spector, Gilbert Bates, to look around the country a bit, while Len and I went ahead with the work of straightening things out. Bates is just under fifty but has been living on the Cape for the last thirty years. During the last war he was instructing U. S. and American troops in bush travel and jungle fighting. He is a symphony in red, white and blue - his skin is burnt brick red, he has a clipped white mustache and his language is blue. Owing to the delay in arrival of our freight, it is necessary to get certain things in order to make local collecting trips and here the short- gages are beginning to show up. There is not a single shot-gun cartridge in Cairns; they have to send to Brisbane to get the .303 rifle I want for myself, there are only two gallons of formalin in the town, which we have reserved, such things as that. George brought several specimens in with him last night, which have to be laid out for drying, and when they came in this afternoon, he and Van had procured some insects for me. I have directed them to collect stuff for themselves as I have about three days work before I am ready to start that sort of thing. I believe we have been invited to attend the local Orchid Club this evening. People are so very hospitable that it is hard to get even a few minutes to oneself or to get work and letters done. During our wanderings around we have run into several far from com- plimentary criticisms of the Commonwealth Government and its protection of labor at anybody else's expense. There has really been a tremendous job done in the effort to establish minimum wages and scales, called the Award, Here's what happens to Jetty Joe, our cook. He is engaged at an Award wage of L 7-2-0; he must be given a tent 7 x 7 x 8, with a 12 foot fly above it; he is entitled to vacation with pay at the rate of two weeks per year; he works only a 40 hour week for his L 7-2-0, and if he works on Saturdays or Sundays he must receive time and a half. That's what he has coming to him, gross, but he doesn't get it. I start by deducting 7/6 weekly from his pay for income tax; I am allowed to deduct L 1 - 5 - 0 for his food and we can fire him on three days notice. Poor old Joe and poor old us, all of us victims of a machine which so complicates things that never again will either Joe or I know who owes who what. It would almost be better for us to try somehow to do our own cook- ing, except that unquestionably it would fall on me and even the most will- ing of camels sometimes gets its back broken by that last straw.