Word: tonga
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...replica of the claw-hammered coat and gold-striped trousers worn by his father for the coronation of Edward VII, the chief made the first 300 miles of the trip to London by barge, the rest by Constellation. Also arriving: Queen Salote Tupou of the Pacific Island protectorate of Tonga, one of the three reigning queens in the world (the others: Britain's Elizabeth, the Netherlands' Juliana), and definitely the largest (6 ft. 3 in., 280 lbs.). Having left the heaviest crown in the world back home in Tonga, she was undecided what kind of hat to wear...
...people of the Achewa, Tonga and Angoni tribes of British-protected Nyasaland are poor fieldworkers with neither money nor power. Yet, mite by mite, they collected $5,000 to send five of their chiefs to London with a message for the "great white mother," Queen Elizabeth. The message was a protest against the British government's plan to federate Nyasaland with Northern and Southern Rhodesia into a Central African dominion (TIME, Feb. 9). "We are afraid Southern Rhodesia will swallow us down," said their spokesman, Chief Somba...
Wearing a trench coat and pin-striped suit instead of his customary woven mat skirt, portly (300 Ibs.) Crown Prince Tungi, 32, arrived in Washington for his first visit to the U.S., looking more like a Western businessman than the heir to the throne of Tonga-a 150-island kingdom of 47,000 Polynesian subjects in the Central Pacific. Talking over his trip with the press, His Highness also discussed his reading habits. "I am reading everything I receive," he said, "except the London Times. It is really too long, and would take a second lifetime. So I merely mark...
Debt & Taxes. Under Queen Salote's diligent administration, Tonga has built up sizable overseas investments. The islands, which became a British protectorate in 1900, have no income tax, no public debt and a remarkably low crime rate: one murder in 30 years. At the age of 16, every male Tongan gets eight acres of land, for which he pays an annual tax of about $7 U.S. to the Tongan government and a token rental to his chief. Tonga has its own passports, its own currency and its own postal system (including the station, famed among philatelists...
...last 50 years, Tonga has experienced only two real crises, one minor and one major. The minor crisis was World War II (Tonga formally declared war on Germany in September 1939, with a proclamation that began: "We, Salote . . ."). In the spring of 1942, U.S. troops went ashore on Tonga with orders to "take the island and destroy the enemy." The invaders were met by a group of friendly Tongans who explained that they had heard of Pearl Harbor long before, had promptly tossed all of the islands' 100-odd Japanese into jail in the capital city of Nukualofa. Later...