THE COLONIZATION OF THE PHOENIX ISLANDS
by Harry E. Maude
The following essay has been included as an example
of ‘participant history’: a record of an episode written not
by some historian long after it occurred, nor even by a passive spectator
at the time, but by someone who actually took a part in and helped
to determine the course of events.
As such the essay may be of value as showing both the
advantages and disadvantages of this type of historiography. If written
with integrity a record of contemporary happenings is probably more
accurate as to facts than the more normal historical study; preserving
details that might otherwise be lost beyond retrieval, and often possessing
a freshness and vivacity lacking in contemporary official reports
and histories written years later. Nevertheless, it must be treated
with caution since the facts themselves may be coloured, and any deductions,
inferences and conclusions made from them vitiated, by the emotional
involvement of the narrator in the events described, and this despite
his best efforts to achieve objectivity. Furthermore, the writer necessarily
lacks hindsight – the most valuable weapon in all the historian’s
armoury – thus leaving him defenceless in the face of historical
mutations unpredictable at the time.
In other words participant history should be considered
not as a definitive interpretation of what happened and why but, like
a diary, as part of the source material from which such an interpretation
can be attempted when the passage of time has muted the subjective overtones.
Imperfect, and even partial, though it may be, how often has one wished
for just such a narrative and commentary when searching the records
for light opt some long-forgotten episode.
‘The Colonization of the Phoenix Islands’ was written
to be delivered as an address, as long ago as 1945, and finally revised
in 1951. With the knowledge which I possess fifteen years later I
have had to restrain myself from rewriting the text in the light of
more recent events in the Phoenix islands, themselves due in the main
to changes in the political situation and in our attitudes towards
the welfare of dependent peoples. But to do so would alter the whole
character of the essay as a piece of participant history and thus
lose most of any value which it may possess. I have therefore confined
my tinkering to the footnotes, where references to such recent literature
as exists will enable the curious reader to bring himself up-to-date
with subsequent developments.
IN HIS REPORT ON research needs in Polynesia
and Micronesia, Keesing emphasizes the importance of recording details
of the various colonization experiments which have taken place in the
area, since the expertise gained is likely to prove of practical value
to other administrations faced with similar resettlement problems.1
Attention has also been drawn to the subject of population displacement
by Leonard Mason‘s article on the migrations of the Bikini Islanders,
and by the Society for Applied Anthropology, which held a special symposium
oil the subject at their spring meeting in 1950.2
Having pioneered more than one experiment in folk migration
in the Central Pacific region during the years 1935-45, I feel that
I should give some account of a page of Pacific history which has its
own intrinsic interest as well as showing how former traditions of race
migration, common to all peoples of Polynesia and Micronesia, can be
successfully revived, even at this late stage, leading to the redrawing
of racial maps.
During these ten years I visited most of the uninhabited
British islands in the Central and Eastern Pacific and was instrumental
in purchasing or otherwise acquiring no less than fourteen islands for
colonization purposes, thus commencing a revolutionary trend which I
believe will result, before the present decade is over, in virtually
all European-owned or leased land in the region reverting to native
ownership and user.
The present article tells the story of the first of our
colonization ventures – the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme – and
has been divided into three rather distinct parts:
(i) the inception of the colonization scheme;
(ii) a description of the Phoenix Islands and their history; and
(iii) a brief account of the actual colonization itself.
It is, I am afraid, inevitable that the account should
consist, to a large degree, of personal narrative: the transplantation
of a native community from its ancestral home to a new land cannot be
successfully accomplished by secretariat direction, but only by enthusiasm
and an absolute trust between the leaders and those who follow. In these
enlightened times we call such schemes by the term ‘community development’,
and special techniques have been developed for creating and maintaining
group enthusiasm. I have yet to learn, however, of a venture which did
not, in the long run, depend for its success on the twin factors of
leadership and affectionate trust. In the case of the Phoenix Islands
Settlement Scheme, that quality of leadership was provided, particularly
in the later stages, by G. B. Gallagher, a young cadet in the Colonial
Service, whose devotion to duty led to his death on the Islands to he
had brought his people.
THE INCEPTION OF THE SETTLEMENT SCHEME
Shortly after the main voyages of discovery in the Pacific
it became apparent that most, if not all, of the island peoples then
in contact with Europeans were in process of more or less rapid numerical
decline. In the years which followed, much thought was devoted by missionaries,
sociologists and governments to this problem of depopulation and a variety
of convincing reasons were advanced as to the cause underlying it: in
general the gradual disappearance of the Polynesian and Micronesian
peoples was considered to be as inevitable as it was regrettable and
the task of the missionary and administrator was essentially to smooth
the pillows of dying races.
In the year 1927, however, S. H. Roberts
showed that earlier predictions had been too pessimistic.3
The islanders had, for the most part, survived the dislocation caused
by their early contacts with European civilization and were now well
on the way to racial regeneration. Roberts pointed out in 1927 that
of the 315,105 natives in Polynesia and Micronesia, no less than 300,395
were living in island groups in which the population was increasing,
while groups containing stationary populations totalled 9,562 inhabitants,
those decreasing amounted to 3,398, and the cases regarded as hopeless
to 1,750. Since that time, moreover, the entire population has moved
into the category labelled ‘increasing’ and some, for example the Samoans,
should be in a special class marked ‘multiplying rapidly’: even the
two former hopeless cases, the Marquesans and Easter Islanders, are
showing unmistakable signs that they have passed their population nadir.4
This statistical vindication of the effectiveness of their
several policies was naturally one on which the various governments
of the Pacific could afford to congratulate themselves. Practically
every administration possessed a number of ‘high’ (or volcanic) islands;
and where there were ‘high’ islands there was reasonable room, in the
mountainous interiors, for future population expansion. What need had
Samoa to worry, for example, even if her population graphs did bear
an ominous resemblance to those of Java in the early days of European
administration, for surely her mountain valleys could take many times
her present numbers.
In one Pacific administration, however, this resurgence
of native life was a problem from the very start, whether it was recognized
at the time or not. The Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony comprised
Ocean Island (the administrative headquarters), the sixteen islands
of the Gilbert Group, nine in the Ellice, and Fanning, Washington and
Christmas in the Northern Line: of the twenty-nine, four were owned
or leased to European firms, leaving twenty-five inhabited by the indigenous
population. Here were no fertile volcanic islands, but low and flat
coral atolls; barren as sandbanks and minute in size. Ocean Island,
the one exception, certainly rose to the towering eminence of 300 feet
but compensated for it by being in many ways the most barren of the
lot. Virtually nothing edible grew from end to end of the Colony except
the coconut, the pandanus (or screw pine) and a coarse calladium termed
babai: this, with fish, constituting the native diet from infancy to
death. It required no gift of second sight to predict, then, that these
twenty-five islands had either been considerably under-peopled during
recent decades or else would exemplify, long before the rest of the
South Seas, the problem of over-population.
In the event we had not long to wait
for an answer. In 1931 I took the first detailed census of the Gilbert
and Ellice Groups, which showed, when compared with previous estimates
and counts, that the population of the seven Southern Gilbert Islands
(by far the most thickly-inhabited part of the Colony) had scarcely
altered throughout the present century, whereas the rest of the Colony
had witnessed increases, in some cases of a substantial nature.5
Subsequent investigations made among
the natives of these islands, where incidentally, my wife and I had
our permanent home, showed that they had always been unconscious exemplifiers
of Mendelian laws, in so much as the total numbers on each island bad
to be kept strictly within the fixed limit set by the local means of
subsistence. The optimum population density on each island had been
reached by the year 1840, if not long before, and since then the natives
had been relying on the population checks of infanticide, warfare, compulsory
emigration and abortion to prevent their natural prolificity out-running
their food resources.6
The position was, however, fast becoming serious: firstly, because the
government had successfully prohibited all the controls with the exception
of abortion, which it discouraged without being able to prevent, and
secondly, since the effects of the Medical Department in reducing the
infant mortality rate had resulted in a larger percentage of the population
than hitherto being young people who would later be marrying. Furthermore,
owing to a variety of fortunate circumstances, the shock of European
contact in the Gilberts had passed off with less effect than usual.
Investigations in the villages showed a hitherto unsuspected
degree of poverty among certain families, resulting in minute subdivisions
of inherited land and continual litigation on land matters. So great
was the land hunger that there was an estimated 76,000 pending land
cases among a population of under 27,000. Matters were not improved
by the fact that since the advent of the government and missions the
native could no longer consume the entire produce of his lands: he had
now to have a surplus to pay his government tax, for the various mission
subscriptions, for clothing himself and his family, as well as for the
numberless other necessities of modern life. With what might be described
as a rising standard of living, the islands could naturally support
an even smaller population than before.
Here, then, was a clear call for government action. We
ourselves had largely created the problem and the native, prevented
from solving it in his customary manner, looked to us for a solution.
Migration seemed the obvious answer, and from 1931 onwards we combed
the Central and Eastern Pacific for suitable uninhabited islands. High
islands there were a-plenty in Fiji, Tonga, and elsewhere – but the
Gilbertese are one of the most highly-specialized races on earth and,
even had any been available for colonization purposes, it seemed a pity
to settle them on fertile volcanic islands when they would far rather
live on the barren sandbank they were accustomed to.
Confining our quest to coral
islands, therefore, and to those Included in the British Empire – for
the Gilbertese strenuously declined to consider any migration project
which involved a change of allegiance – we found our choice limited
to a grand total of twenty-three. Apart from the eight Phoenix Islands
these included Howland and Baker, slightly to the north of them, Fanning,
Washington and Christmas in the Northern, Malden Starbuck and Jarvis
in the Central, and Flint, Caroline and Vostok in the Southern Line
Group; and Nassau, Suwarrow and the Herveys, (Manuae and Te Au o Tu)
in the Cook Group. We in any case were in no position to pick or choose,
as most of the islands were in the freehold or leasehold possession
of some European firm, while Howland Baker and Jarvis were claimed,
and later taken over, by the United States.7
From the very start the Phoenix Islands seemed the best group to commence
operations on, since they were the nearest and had a soil and climate
markedly similar to the Gilberts; and in the 1931 Census Report I wrote
that ‘these islands, with their comparatively fertile soil and abundant
supply of fish, may well become of great value in the non-distant future
as an outlet for the population of the Gilbert islands, which threatens
to increase rapidly beyond the slender means of subsistence afforded
by the inhospitable environment.’8
Convinced of the problem and its solution, my wife and
I embarked on a campaign to persuade the authorities that a migration
scheme was a practical proposition, and a succession of letters, interviews
and petitions (the island of Beru sent one signed by no less than 750
intending colonists) finally led to the local administration recommending
in 1936 that the possibility of colonizing the Phoenix Islands should
be officially investigated. We were working in Hawaii at the time but
unfortunately the news had hardly reached us when we also heard that
I was to be transferred to Africa, on health grounds: as no one else
at that time was sufficiently au fait with the project, its realization
thus seemed as far off as ever.
But to cut a long story
short my health had so far improved by 1937 that we were able to return
to the Gilbert Islands, and in the following September I was directed
by Sir Arthur Richards, then High Commissioner for the Western Pacific,
to lead a pioneering expedition to the Phoenix Group to report on the
suitability of the various islands for permanent colonization, the Colony
schooner Nimanoa9
being assigned to me for the projected work, together with E. R. Bevington,
a cadet newly arrived from England, who was to act as assistant.
On September 18 I said good-bye to my wife, who was off
for two months work collecting string figures on Nauru, and set sail
for the Southern Gilberts and Northern Ellice, where we spent some time
conducting a first-hand investigation into the extent of the over-population
problem and collecting delegates to accompany the expedition to the
Phoenix. At each island visited we called a meeting of the people at
which the aim of the expedition was explained and the island invited
to choose delegates to accompany it and assist in the work. In all sixteen
delegates were taken: five from Beru, two from Onotoa and three from
Arorae in the Gilberts; and two from Nanumca and four from Niutao in
the Ellice. Despite the intense excitement evinced at each of our meetings,
somewhat natural under the novel circumstances which occasioned them,
the island delegates were chosen from among the more cautious elements
in the population and at the outset none of them were particularly prepossessed
in favour of the scheme. We were pleasurably surprised by the businesslike
way in which they set about their work and by the concise and accurate
manner in which they summed up the merits and disadvantages of each
island. Good though the delegates were, however, the mainstay of the
expedition was undoubtedly my own personal staff, consisting of Tem
Mautake, the first Assistant to the Native Lands Commission and an acknowledged
expert on all aspects of native custom; Teng Koata, the Magistrate of
Onotoa whose exceptional qualities of loyalty and leadership had been
proved in the Onotoa religious troubles of 1931; and Tutu Tekenene,
the doyen of the Colony Assistant Medical Practitioner Service. It would
have been hard to find a finer trio in the Central Pacific.
Leaving Niutao on 9 October we set sail due east for McKean
and Canton and the following day crossed the International Date Line
which to the astonishment of the delegates, gave us a couple of Sundays.
And at this stage of the narrative it would seem desirable give an account
of what little was known at the time about the most remote of Pacific
groups and its history.
THE PHOENIX ISLANDS
The Phoenix Group is situated just south of the Equator
in the centre of a horse-shoe shaped ring of similar coral islands,
which together comprise the Central Equatorial Islands of the Pacific.
To the west lie the Gilberts and Ellice, to the south the Tokelaus and
Northern Cooks, and to the cast the Line Group, the north being open
sea. The islands are eight in number and fall into three clearly-defined
groups: the comparatively fertile islands of Sydney, Hull and Gardner
to the South, the three minute satellite islets of Phoenix, Birnie and
McKean, which match them in the centre, and the ‘dry’ islands of Canton
and Enderbury in the north. All being of coralline structure, their
most marked differences are as regards size and lagoon formation. Canton,
Hull and Gardner are typical lagoon islands; Sydney is an ‘Intermediate’
type island where the access between the lagoon and the sea has become
blocked up, though the channel is still discernible, leaving a large
and intensely salt lake in the centre; while the remainder have only
small depressions, usually filled with salt water to show where the
lagoons once lay. I would observe, in passing, that, although the geological
formation of all the fifty-eight Central Pacific Equatorial Islands
is similar, the question of what happens to a lagoon, once its access
to the sea has been cut off, appears to depend on the rainfall of the
area where the particular island lies. If it is a ‘wet’ island, like
Washington, the lagoon will become a fresh-water lake; if a ‘dry’ island,
like Jarvis or Enderbury, the lagoon will tend to disappear altogether,
leaving a deposit of salt and gypsum; and if an ‘intermediate’ island,
like Sydney, the lagoon will remain, though with diminished size and
increased salinity.
All the Phoenix Group are low and flat, nowhere more than
20 feet in height. Those with lagoons are of typical atoll formation;
ribbons of land, averaging about 300 yards in width, surrounding mere
ribbons a central lagoon, which in the case of Canton Island, the largest,
covers all area approximately 9 by 4 1/2 miles. Apart from rectangular
Enderbury, the others are saucer-shaped, the land rising abruptly from
the shore to. a beach crest (which is naturally highest on the weather
side) and then sinking gently to the central depression.
Being nowhere more than 5 degrees south of the Equator,
the climate of all the islands is warm, but tempered by the almost constant
trade winds which blow throughout the year. The general direction of
wind is cast, usually south-east, and occasionally west, which brings
rain and rough weather (the ‘Westerlies’ of the Gilberts). The temperature
averages about 82 degrees, with maxima and minima varying only a few
degrees above and below this figure, and a variation of less than 3
degrees between the monthly means.
The rainfall of each island varies roughly in proportion
to its distance from the Equator, and its fertility, where all have
a similar geological structure, is dependent almost entirely on its
rainfall. Gardner, the furthest south, has the greatest rainfall and
is by far the most fertile; after Gardner follows Hull and then Sydney;
next, the three central islets, Phoenix, Birnie and McKean; and, finally,
the dry and barren northern islands of Canton mid Enderbury. The rainfall
is, in any case, extremely variable as between one month and another
or one year and another, dependent on changes in the trade winds: at
a guess I would estimate that the northern islands average about 25
inches and Gardner up to 100 inches.
The soil throughout the
group – if you call it soil – is a light brown coral sand with a low
percentage of organic matter: on Gardner alone it has a darker and moister
appearance, at times resembling the peat bogs of Washington Island in
the northern wet belt. It supports a somewhat sparse flora consisting
of some twenty to thirty species of which the principal are the ren
(Messerchmidia argentea) and mao (Scaevola frutescens),
growing immediately behind the beach crest; followed by the non (Morinda
citrifolia), buka (Pisonia grandis) and kanawa (Cordia
subcordata). Underfoot, the main grass is the tufty Lepturus
repens, interspersed with thickets of tile kaura bush (Sida falax),
while the lagoon shores and salt flats are covered with the fleshy green
pigweed or boi (Portulaca lutea), which was found to be an invaluable
emergency food during the early days of settlement. This vegetation
is seen ideally only on Gardner, since Canton and Enderbury are too
rainless to support any buka, or indeed any trees at all except a few
stunted kanawa, ren or mao; the three central islets are too small to
support any but procumbent grasses and pigweed, with an occasional windswept
kaura plant; while on Hull and Sydney coconut plantations have largely
taken the place of the former buka forest.10
The fauna of the Group can be dismissed
briefly as consisting of sea-birds by the million, which breed there;
and in particular frigate birds, boobies or gannets, the red-tailed
tropic birds and the white and sooty terns, with lizards, rats and crabs.11
Phoenix Island has a large number of very poor-looking rabbits, released
many years ago by a visiting ship, of which more anon; and Gardner some
of the largest coconut, or robber, crabs in the Pacific.
To turn now to the history of the Phoenix
Islands; the archaeological evidence, as examined by the Bishop Museum
Templeton Crocker Expedition, indicates that Sydney Island at one time
supported a considerable population, while both Hull and Gardner were
occupied for at any rate a short period in their history. According
to Emory, most of the sites are Polynesian and closely related to marae
and house foundations on Necker, Nihoa, Maiden and some of the Tuamotuan
Islands; some, however, are Micronesian in type. Probably the islands
were never more than temporary resting-places for involuntary castaways,
and perhaps for occasional voyagers between the high and fertile islands,
as in the case of Fanning and Christmas; and were regarded as unsuitable
for permanent occupation, for when. first discovered they were in every
case uninhabited.12
The question of the actual discovery
of each island by Europeans is still unsettled and the subject of considerable
controversy. Let it suffice here that they were almost certainly all
discovered by British or American whaling skippers between 1820 and
1830.13 The seas round the Phoenix Group were
much frequented by whalers between 1820 and 1850, but the masters of whaling
vessels were not explorers and were anything but punctilious in reporting
their discoveries when they got home, especially as theirs was a secretive
trade and they were reluctant to disclose where they obtained their catches.
Furthermore they regarded the islands as little more than obstructions
to navigation and landings were seldom made except to collect seabirds’
eggs.
The islands first became known to the outside world through
the accidental discovery of their phosphate-guano deposits by the Master
of one of the later whaling ships, a Captain M. Baker, who in 1839 landed
on the island (later named after him) to bury a member of his crew.
Baker’s enterprise led to the formation of the American Guano company
in New York, to whom he sold his claim to the island. Samples of what
later came to be known as ‘American Guano’ were sent to the States in
1815 and the following year the American Guano Act passed by Congress,
by which islands containing phosphate deposits discovered by American
citizens might, if not within the jurisdiction of any other power, be
declared by the President to be ‘appertaining to the United States.’
The island could then be ‘bonded’ and exclusive extraction rights granted
to the discoverer of the deposits.
With the exception of Hull, all the
islands of the Phoenix Group were 'bonded' under the American Guano
Act, usually by persons representing the American Guano Company, or
its subsidiary, the Phoenix Guano Company. Only three islands, however,
were actually worked: McKean, from 1859 to 1870; Phoenix, from 1860
to 1871, and Enderbury, from 1862 to 1877. Supplies and workers were
taken to the islands about four times a year by schooner from Honolulu,
while a large number of vessels of various nationalities loaded the
phosphate-guano for American and foreign ports.14
From 1877 to 1881 the Group remained
uninhabited, and probably unvisited. In the latter year, however, John
T. Arundel, a British subject with large guano-mining and coconut-planting
interests, landed on Sydney, and the permanent exploitation of the islands
began. Arundel’s name is comparatively unknown to the general public
and yet he is undoubtedly one of the greatest who have influenced the
history of the Central Pacific: a true Empire-builder, his pioneering
work has never received proper recognition and a biography of him is
overdue.15
As far as the Phoenix were concerned,
Arundel soon obtained control of the whole Group, with the possible
exception of McKean, apparently acting either as an agent of the former
American companies, as on Canton and Enderbury, or as the direct transferee
of any shadowy interests they might still be considered to have, as
on Hull, Sydney, Gardner and Phoenix. During the course of the next
decade, Messrs. John T. Arundel and Company proceeded to work the phosphate-guano
deposits on Canton and Sydney; completed the working of those on
Enderbury;
and planted coconut trees on each of these islands, as well as on Hull,
Gardner and probably Phoenix. In each case, with the exception of Enderbury,
Arundel acted under guano and coconut planting licenses granted by the
British Government. I should add that the planting operations on Hull
were in charge of James Ellis, of Auckland, and his brother, the late
Sir Albert Ellis, who was also associated with the phosphate working
on Canton.16
Arundel’s activities were in marked contrast with those
of the Americans who had preceded him, since it was his fixed policy
to turn the islands into permanent assets by developing plantations
which would come into bearing as the guano deposits became exhausted.
However, on only two islands, Hull and Sydney, have the plantations
survived to the present day, the rest dying in the exceptionally severe
drought which affected the whole area from 1890 to 1894.
During the year 1889, Phoenix, Birnie, Sydney and Hull
were placed under British protection by Commander Oldham, of H.M.S.
Egeria, as it was thought at the time that one of them would
probably be required in connection with the then proposed trans-Pacific
cable. In 1892 Captain Gibson, of H.M.S. Curaçao, similarly
annexed Gardner presumably because Arundel had already commenced planting
there. In March 1937, or shortly before my first visit, the whole Group
was included, as a new District, within the boundaries of the Gilbert
and Ellice Islands Colony, by Order in Council.
No purpose would be served in detailing the transactions
by which the islands passed through the successive hands of John T.
Arundel and Co.; the Pacific Islands Co. Ltd; Lever’s Pacific Plantations
Ltd; and the Samoa Shipping and Trading Co. Ltd; to Messrs. Burns, Philp
(South Sea) Co. Ltd, who were the lessees from the British Government
at the time of my first visit. Suffice it to say that after 1893 the
only islands exploited in any way were Hull and Sydney. Although even
these plantations had been abandoned for some years, we found J. W.
Jones working them again in 1937 with a few labourers from the Tokelau
Islands.
THE PHOENIX ISLANDS SETTLEMENT SCHEME
After this digression, which I hope will have conveyed
an impression of the locale of the colonization experiment, we can now
resume the main thread of the narrative where we left off: making in
the Nimanoa for McKean and Canton. We did not reach either island,
however, for contrary winds forced our little under-powered schooner
to make across the wind to Gardner. We arrived at this island on 13
October and tied up to the wreck of the Norwich City, near the
main lagoon entrance. I remember stepping out of the canoe into the
shallow water at the edge of the reef with a feeling of pride at being
the first to land on this remote shore for many years: but this was
soon cured by a young lagoon shark, which knocked me over in its pursuit
of a school of fish. The lagoon and shore waters of Gardner teemed with
fish, like those of all uninhabited coral islands, and in the hold of
the Norwich City they were swimming around in thousands: the
officers of the Nimanoa used to shoot them by torchlight with
revolvers.
Once ashore, we proceeded on the work of the expedition:
the island was thoroughly explored from end to end; holes were dug and
the soil examined; wells were sunk and the water tasted; the flora,
fauna and fish were studied from the point of view of future settlers;
the lagoon was explored in the canoes which we had brought with us and
anchorages and landing facilities discussed and recorded. We soon found
that the Admiralty chart of the island was quit inaccurate, and those
of the delegates who had volunteered to walk round the lagoon on the
first day ashore, on the strength of it, had to be rescued by canoe
during the night.
I shall always remember that first night
in the Phoenix Islands. We lay in a circle under the shade of the giant
buka trees by the lagoon, ringed by fires as protection against the
giant robber crabs, who stalked about in the half-light or hung to the
branches staring balefully at us.17
Birds were everywhere and for the most part quite tame, and the noise
they made until well into the night was deafening. Unfortunately for
them, both the crabs and birds were very good eating and we gorged ourselves
on a diet of crabs, boobies and fish. Until I stopped them, the delegates
would walk up to the boobies, seize them by the neck and crack them
like a whip before roasting them on one of the fires. The fish were
so plentiful and unaccustomed to man that they were literally scooped
out of the water by hand.
We spent three days on Gardner and then proceeded on our
tour; visiting Canton, Enderbury, Phoenix, Birnie, Sydney, Hull and
McKean in turn and spending from one to three days on each island. There
is no necessity to give an account of our work island by island, as
it was essentially little different from that on Gardner. Thanks to
Captain M. L. Singleton, known throughout the islands as the ‘Admiral’,
who was a real master of the very specialized art of coral sea navigation,
we discovered an anchorage off each island, a feat of considerable importance
to any settlement project. On most islands the relics of the old phosphate-guano
days were very much in evidence, and disused tramways and ruined houses
kept one’s imagination busy trying to recapture bygone scenes.
The only human beings we found in the eight islands were
Messrs F. H. Rostier and G. V. Langdale, two European wireless operators
who, with their Fijian servant, had been placed on Canton a couple of
months previously by the British Government; and Mr. Jones, with his
thirty Tokelau labourers (including nine women) on Hull and eleven on
Sydney. The Group had therefore achieved the very respectable population
of forty-five, all of whom were, however, strictly temporary residents:
a year previously there had been none.
One of our most important duties was
that of christening the islands found suitable for colonization, since
obviously the European names would not do for what were to become purely
native islands: for one thing they could not even be pronounced by the
Gilbertese. Fortunately, the islands almost christened themselves: Hull
was called ‘Orona,’ the old Polynesian name by which it was
known to the nine Islanders who worked there for Arundel. Sydney was
called ‘Manra’,
the name of one of the Gilbertese ancestral homelands in Indonesia whence
they had migrated many generations previously – Manra known to have
possessed a lake similar to Sydney’s lagoon.18
Canton was called ‘Aba Riringa’, the land of sunshine, which all who
know the island will admit to being appropriate. Gardner was even more
inevitably called ‘Nikumaroro’, after the home island of a Gilbertese
ancestress Ne Manganibuka, who swam from her land i-an Tamoa
(under the lee of Samoa) to Nikunau in the Southern Gilberts, bearing
the branch of the first buka tree in her mouth. Nikumaroro was known
to have been covered with buka trees and the delegates were firmly of
the opinion that it was none other than Gardner, now rediscovered by
her descendants.
The names of Orona, Manra and Nikumaroro have stuck firmly
to the three islands with their settlement and indeed are now the only
names by which they are known outside a small circle of Europeans. If
today one posts a letter addressed to Manra, Phoenix Islands, it will
be delivered without question.
Before completing our work on each island we did not omit
the ceremony of hoisting the flag. A wooden flagstaff was erected, a
substantial cairn built round, and the Union Jack nailed to the top
with a notice board commemorating our visit.
On Phoenix we found the only rabbits I have ever met with
on any coral island. They appeared to be sharing their burrows with
the petrels and shearwaters and one had to step carefully to avoid crushing
rabbits and birds wherever one went. They were in very poor condition
and, although when chased they would be off like a rocket for a hundred
yards or so, they soon gave a despairing squeak and lay still with their
cars back, ready to be captured. The delegates, who had never, of course,
seen such animals, called them ‘pussies’ and refused to eat them. We
took twenty-five away with us with a view to breeding them in the Gilberts,
but were unsuccessful as they were killed by dogs before they had time
to establish themselves. I am told that rabbits never drink, certainly
those on Phoenix could not have, for, though we dug six wells down to
12 feet, we found nothing but salt water.
We should have liked to stay longer in the Phoenix Group,
but supplies and water were giving out, so we had perforce to leave
McKean on 26 October and make for my home island of Beru. As it was,
our diet for the last week consisted almost entirely of boiled rice
and tinned pigs’ trotters, of which the ‘Admiral’ appeared to have an
unlimited supply.
Our welcome from the people of Beru was enthusiastic and
the meetings never seemed to tire of hearing over and over again the
exploits of the expedition as given by the delegates, who were for the
most part enthusiastic boosters of the new land. Though they were told
that even if the Colonization scheme eventually approved, it would take
months before it could be carried into effect, not a few natives immediately
packed their boxes and wound up their affairs, lest they be found not
ready when the eagerly-awaited day arrived.
There followed two months on Ocean Island writing up the
results of the pioneering expedition and working out the blueprints
for the proposed migration. The romance of these little lone islands,
lying out under the equatorial sun far to the east, had quite taken
possession of me and I felt that I could not rest till I had seen them
the home of a contented and prosperous community. All day long I would
be busied with the multitudinous details of any colonization experiment:
problems connected with the selection of settlers, the basis of land
distribution, the social and political organization of the new colonies,
administrative control, stages of settlement, and estimates of the costs
and financial provision required; and at night I could still hear the
crash of the waves on Sydney’s reefs and the cries of the white terns
circling over the lagoon at Gardner.
Space does not permit even a brief summary
of my conclusions and recommendations, but those interested in the practical
side of group migration can read them in detail in my printed ‘Report
on the Colonization of the Phoenix Islands by the Population of the
Gilbert and Ellice Islands.’19
The early settlement of Hull and Sydney was recommended, together with
the experimental planting of Gardner and Canton with a view to future
colonization. It was estimated that Hull would take an immediate population
of 350 and Sydney 400, while ultimate maxima, when the islands had been
planted and become fully productive, would be Hull 1,100, Sydney 900,
Gardner 1,100 and Canton 1,200. The estimated cost of settlement and
planting was worked out at £5,660 and a grant requested for that
amount.
Having completed this work I once again said good-bye
to my long-suffering wife, who went down this time to Auckland, and
departed to live on the small island of Tamana, in the extreme Southern
Gilberts. One of the most isolated islands in the Pacific, no European
had lived there for decades, and the people certainly took me to their
hearts. We had plenty of work to do but made a point of completing it
by four o’clock, and after that there was ample time for whatever was
the programme for the day – games and contests of all kinds, community
singing, canoe racing, or wrestling on the beach in the moonlight. My
great achievement was teaching the islanders deck tennis: they simply
went mad on it, built six courts side by side, and every evening you
would find some 200 young men and girls playing for all they were worth.
I could never get them to lose gracefully, however, and one simply had
to get used to having the quoit hurled at one’s head by some infuriated
player or being chased the length of the marae by an excited girl waving
a palm frond.
As illustrating their different way of looking at things
I may mention that I could get very little fish to eat, although I paid
a good price for it. On alluding to my troubles in the council house
an old man got up and informed me with some heat that unless I gave
up my revolting habit of paying for things he supposed that I would
starve. I gave it up; and the fish never failed. But one should not
conclude from this that by adhering to their customs the European can
live like a king for nothing. I had to give a series of feasts to the
island which cost me double what I would have had to pay for my fish.
While my main task on Tamana was a land settlement of
the island, I took advantage of the opportunity to work out the details
of the proposed colonization scheme with the islanders and ensure that
it was correctly orientated with their own customs and traditions, regarding
migration. I asked them, for example, what was the first thing to be
done when making arrangements for colonizing an island. One would never
guess the answer; which was, reasonably enough, the composition of a
theme song. We set to work with a will and a few days had produced a
really stirring ‘Song of the Phoenix Island Settlers’', based on a Maori
tune called, I believe, ‘The Warriors' Departure’. This song is now
sung from end to end of the Central Pacific, a very free rendering of
its three verses and chorus being:
We are about to sail for Orona,
good-bye, O people of our homeland;
we have got our lands,
in the new Group of Islands.
We shall step ashore at Orona,
shall dig our wells;
We shall build our dwelling-houses,
so that we may live well.
For the third verse the girls come in with:
Stand up, O people of the Gilberts,
grasp your working tools;
and the young men answer:
We shall stand up and clear the undergrowth,
and plant coconut trees.
The chorus runs:
We are happy, for we shall now live.
Do not forget us, O people of our homeland.
It does not sound particularly inspiring, I imagine, when
translated; but sung in Gilbertese by 150 voices on the deck of the emigrant
ship it was really moving.
After three months on Tamana, during which I had become
quite unaccustomed to speaking or hearing the English language, for I
had no wireless set in those days, a warship suddenly appeared off the
island and fired three guns. The populace, with one accord, made for the
bush, thinking the Japanese were attacking their village. Though they
tried to drag me with them, I noted the White Ensign flying and succeeded
in reaching the ship, to be greeted by the captain with, ‘Congratulations,
Maude, your wife bore you a son in Auckland – two and a half months ago.’
He also explained that naval custom prescribed a three-gun salute for
a boy and two for a girl!
The warship stayed only half an hour but a week later a
schooner took me back to Ocean Island, where I learned that the Phoenix
Islands Settlement Scheme had been approved, the reversion of Burns, Philp
and Co.’s lease purchased from them, and the necessary funds for carrying
on the scheme provided by a free grant from the Colonial Development Fund.
Sir Arthur Richards had appointed me Officer in Charge of the Scheme,
with what he termed ‘carte blanche’ to settle all details as to how it
was to be carried out: as far as I remember, his main admonition was the
welcome one that there should be the minimum of red tape and paper work.
All was now bustle in preparation for the first expedition
of pioneers, who were to blaze the trail for the main parties of colonists;
and on 8 December 1938 we again set sail from Ocean island in the Nimanoa
with our decks cluttered up with materials for demarcating boundaries,
clothing, cooking utensils, fishing equipment, rations, surveying instruments,
tools and two locally-made condensing plants for use until we could find
drinkable well water. G.B. Gallagher, another young cadet from England
(or, rather, Ireland) was to be my assistant from now on, and proved to
be exactly the right man in the right place. His industry and enthusiasm
were phenomenal and infected everyone with whom he came into contact.
We were committed to be in the Phoenix by a certain date
and so had to make all haste. I shall never forget how we landed at our
first island, Nonouti, at dusk and immediately called a meeting in the
council house. About a thousand islanders must have listened while I stated
the reason for our visit and called for volunteers for the first expedition,
explaining that the islands were unknown and untested, that, though the
descendants of the settlers might possibly achieve prosperity, those that
came with us could only expect the toil and hardship of the pioneer. I
added that there could be no return and no revisiting of relatives or
friends but that the settlers would be treated by native custom as if
they had drifted out to sea in canoes and been lost, and their lands on
Nonouti would therefore be divided up amongst their next-of-kin. Although
no one on Nonouti had ever so much as seen the Phoenix Islands, some five
hundred stood up immediately. From these we selected two notoriously poor
families and told them to be ready at the boats, with all their goods
and chattels, within two hours. Before the appointed time they were all
ready and waiting, and out of the ten leaving, only one young woman showed
a tendency to tears. She was sternly rebuked by the Native Magistrate
of the island, who observed that ‘this is no time for weeping. This is
a time for brave thoughts and brave deeds.’ Yet one wonders how many Europeans,
leaving all that is near and dear forever – at two hours’ notice – would
have kept smiling faces?
From Nonouti, we sailed to Beru, Nikunau, Onotoa, Tamana
and Arorae, picking up in all sixty-one pioneer settlers for the three
islands – Hull, Sydney and Gardner: Canton was no longer available for
settlement. There were twenty-three men, thirteen woman, ten boys and
fifteen girls; and real pioneers they were too. There must have been close
on eighty persons on the little Nimanoa and scarcely room to move, let alone
to sleep. Some slept by night and some by day, yet we never heard a grumble
or complaint the whole voyage. In wet weather they came crowding into our
cabins and I remember Gallagher giving up his berth to an old woman and the
floor to two others with their children. The Magistrates for the new islands
were chosen with especial care: to Sydney and Gardner went our old and tried
friends, Tem Mautake and Teng Koata, and to Hull, Ten Eritai, the highly-respected
Magistrate of Beru.
After five days at sea we again reached Gardner, and slept
our first night under large tarpaulin, ringed by fires as before. Those
who slept at all, that is, for the majority were too excited by novel
sights and sounds, and spent the night feasting on the robber crabs and
boobies.
Leaving a working party of ten men on Gardner to commence
clearing and planting, we went on to Hull and Sydney. At Hull we left
four families, totalling ten persons; and at Sydney nine families, totalling
forty-one. At each island test lands were demarcated, to ensure that our
theoretical methods could be carried out in actual practice. A reserve
was marked out for the island government station, including sites for
the various government buildings, gaols and Administrative Officers’ transit
quarters; and further reserves for the hospital, council house, co-operative
society and recreation area. Land was allotted for a church, teacher's
house and school for each of the two religious denominations represented.
Two village sites were selected on Sydney, the names chosen by the colonists
being Mauta, after myself, and Ona, after my wife. I say chosen by the
people, for it was certainly through no act of mine that the churches
happened to be in Mauta and gaols in Ona. The village in Hull was called
Arariki, after our soil Alaric, and that on Gardner Karaka, after Gallagher.
I should explain here that the basis of land allocation
filially agreed upon was to give two pieces of land, each containing approximately
twenty-five bearing coconut trees, to every adult, whether male or female;
one piece of land to be near the government station and anchorage. To
each child were granted two pieces of unplanted bush land, 25 fathoms
square, on condition that the parents cleared and planted the lands within
five years of their taking possession. The colonists were also given similar
grants of unplanted land on behalf of friends and relations in the Gilberts
nominated by them, on the understanding that they guaranteed to support
these people until the lands came into bearing and the newcomers undertook
to renounce all their lands on their home islands in favour of their next-of-kin.
All grants were, of course, freehold.
We opened post offices on each island for the settlers’
letters. Unfortunately, however, the cancellation stamps did not arrive
in time, so for the first few months all letters were pen cancelled and
initialled either by myself or the Native Magistrates. I read a learned
article on these pen cancellations in an Australian philatelic journal
not long ago, illustrated with actual specimens which, I believe, are
now fetching quite a high price. So I can at any rate look forward to
a lucrative employment for my old age in pen cancelling Gilbertese stamps
for the philatelic market.
Leaving Gallagher to carry on with the land allotment and
other work on Sydney, we set sail once more for the Gilberts, calling
in at Gardner on our way. Here we found dire trouble among the ten men
left there: the well water was considered undrinkable, one condensing
plant had burnt out and they were afraid the other would go too. They
demanded to be taken home forthwith. Argument appeared useless and we
had a final and sad meeting prior to departure, in which I happened to
mention how sorry I was at the turn of events as I was returning to the
Gilberts to bring their wives back with me on the next ship. The effect
was instantaneous and ludicrous. ‘Wives, did you say?’ said their spokesman.
‘Why, the water here is not so bad, after all. We’re staying on.’ And
stay they did. Apparently, all that was wrong was that the men had got
so homesick for the company of their families that they could not bear
the thought of further indefinite separation.
On arrival at Tarawa on 21 January 1939 I was assigned to
accompany an exploratory expedition to Fanning, Washington, and Christmas,
in the Line Group, and it was not until March that I was able to continue
the work of selecting the main party of colonists, who were to leave by
a small chartered steamer, the M.V. Moamoa, at the end of the following
month. Leaving Ocean Island on the Nimanoa, this time with my wife
and infant son, we called at all the Southern Gilbert islands, taking
down the names of volunteer colonists and selecting those who were to
go, on a basis of relative poverty. The amount of sheer want this survey
disclosed was disconcerting: families of from seven to ten children had
a total apparent source of food supply consisting of less than twenty
coconut trees, supplemented by such fish as they could catch. On asking
how one Beru family with six children managed to live I was informed,
‘by begging in the day and thieving at night’. Altogether, 4,611 applications
to migrate were registered on the seven islands visited, making in estimated
total of not less than 6,500 for the whole of the Gilbert Group.
The selected settlers were all brought to Beru, where my
wife took charge at the receiving end. She had quite an assembly line
organized for the work and each child was paraded and given a good scrub
with soap and water, before being passed on for medical inspection and
finally presented with a feast of boiled rice. It was a joy to watch the
children getting steadily fatter and fitter as the days went by.
The Moamoa arrived on 22 April and by the following
day we had embarked the 195 new settlers, with all their personal effects,
canoes, etc. The voyage to the Phoenix passed off without incident, though
it was full of excitement for the colonists, who were all agog to see
their new homes. Stopping at each of the three islands in turn, we landed
twelve settlers at Gardner (the long-awaited wives and families of the
pioneer party), seventy-five at Hull, and 108 at Sydney. Everything appeared
to be progressing well and at the last island Gallagher was found busy
and happy, though he had evidently had a tough time by the standards of
civilization. His shoes, to give an example, had long succumbed to the
sharp coral rock and his feet were bound up in layers of rags. If I remember
rightly he wore size thirteens, so the provision of shoes for him was
a perpetual difficulty.
The main trouble of the Sydney settlers appeared to have
been fish-poisoning, and most of them had been down with it for varying
periods. On coral islands certain of the reef fish tend to be poisonous
for portions of the year, the types of fish and times during which they
are poisonous changing from island to island. In the Gilberts, of course,
these periods are well known to the local inhabitants, but when they reached
the Phoenix they had to learn afresh by bitter experience what fish could
be eaten and when.
I was very pleased indeed by the way in which the little
community on Sydney had developed, led by the enthusiasm of Gallagher.
During the three months that had elapsed since I left the whole face of
the island had changed. Where before we had to cut our way through thick
bush, two prosperous villages were now situated, with neat and attractive
homes fronting both sides of the broad road. To the south of the villages
had been built a large school, where the children received daily instruction
from a full-time master: to the north lay the island government station,
with its offices, storehouses, homes for the resident officials, and two
small gaols, which happily still remained untenanted. Close to the government
Station was the hospital with its resident Native Dresser, facing the
sea, and the new transit quarters for the visiting European officers.
In the centre was a large cistern, which provided water for the hospital
and an emergency supply for the whole Island in the unlikely event of
the well water supplies failing. All around were evidences of peaceful
progress, and the impression of general contented well-being was increased
by a walk through the bush lands along the 'Richards' Highway' (named
in honour of Sir Arthur Richards, the sponsor of the settlement scheme),
where through the day could be heard on all sides the ring of axes and
the cheerful chatter of families engaged in preparing their new lands
for planting.
I must confess that I had anticipated that once the novelty
of their new homes had worn off, many of the settlers would be seized
with a somewhat natural nostalgia for their ancestral lands and I was,
accordingly, prepared to face a number of requests for repatriation. That
these did not, in fact, eventuate is I think a vindication not only of
the natives’ claims to be over-crowded and poverty-stricken on their former
islands but also of the effectiveness of the settlement scheme in meeting
their needs. We were reluctantly compelled, at the request of the entire
island, to repatriate one settler with his family, as he had been guilty
of several crimes (including adultery, theft, and assault), and his strenuous
efforts to escape showed, better than words, how much he valued his new
life.
Gallagher characteristically gave all the credit for the
good work done to the natives themselves but it was easy to see his sympathetic
guidance underlying it all, ably seconded as he was by Tem Mautake. The
pioneers, certainly, were a fine body and I cannot do better than quote
this tribute to them from Gallagher’s report to me on my arrival:
The wonderful spirit of enthusiasm, gratitude and self-sacrifice
which has been apparent on Manra during the last few months has, indeed,
been a revelation. It is unhesitatingly stated that this alone has
made the whole settlement scheme worth while, without considering
any other advantages which have accrued therefrom. These settlers
indeed deserve the happiness and prosperity which is now within their
grasp, for their lot has been harder, far harder, than will be that
of any subsequent settlers who will, at least, land on the island
assured of a roof to shelter them and lands to provide for themselves
and their children. Although every man who comes to the island must
be prepared to face several years of unremitting hard work, it has
been the lot of the first settlers only to face the full terrors of
an unknown island and take the initial and often wearying and monotonous
steps required to pave the way for the establishment of a new home
for the Gilbertese race.
If Hull Island had not achieved the same progress as Sydney, it was only
to be expected in view of the smaller number of the pioneering party there
and the fact that neither Gallagher nor I had been able to give it the attention
it deserved. However, Jones, who was, as I have explained, already living
in the Phoenix Islands when I first visited the Group, had stayed on there
to superintend the settlement and had done all he could to promote the welfare
of his little community. Their troubles were fortunately soon ironed out
and Hull, with its greater fertility and teeming supply of fish in the lagoon,
is now the most prosperous of the three islands.
Steady progress had been made with the clearing and planting
of Gardner Island and a pretty little village had been built by the colonists
on the shores of the lagoon. Gardner will, of course, long remain a pioneer
settlement, as there were no coconut trees there to form the basis of
immediate colonization, whereas on Hull we had 15,000 in bearing and on
Sydney 7,000 to 8,000. The first lands to be planted are, however, already
coming into bearing and the island should now gradually become self-supporting.
I spent over a month in the Phoenix on this visit, much
of the time being occupied in organizing the co-operative societies, which
we established on each island. Owing to the distance of the Phoenix from
the main centres of commerce and the small amount of copra available for
trade, it was not possible to persuade any commercial firm to include
the islands within their sphere of trading activities. As a consequence,
we had to establish co-operative societies for the colonists, and stock
them with a full range of those articles, such as soap, kerosene, fish
hooks, tobacco, etc., for which they were dependent on the outside world.
These societies have up to the present been run as government undertakings;
but the profits made should soon extinguish the original loans for their
establishment when they will be handed over to the natives of each island
as debt-free, going concerns.
We were glad to see that the new settlers on the Moamoa
appeared more than satisfied with their new homes. I had intentionally
played down the islands when speaking about them in the Gilberts, for
it is far better to give a colonist more than you promise, rather than
less. I felt justified, therefore, when one of the leaders of the new
party accused me of being a ‘born liar’ in my descriptions of his future
home.
By a Proclamation dated 21 June 1938 the three small islets
of Phoenix, Birnie and McKean had been declared to be sanctuaries for
birds. It was realized however, that they possessed a definite value as
tributary islands of Sydney, Hull and Gardner respectively and they were,
accordingly, handed over to the colonists of these islands to be held
in common. Before leaving the Phoenix we planted 600 nuts on Birnie –
it is estimated that the island would support up to 3,500 coconut trees.
The younger men, led by the indefatigable Gallagher, actually did the
planting, as it was too rough to go ashore except by swimming through
a high surf, and I spent a pleasant day on board catching sharks by their
tails with a rope noose.
Gallagher returned with me to the Gilberts in the Nimanoa
and proceeded on to Fiji, as he had developed tropical ulcers on his legs
as a result of being tipped into the surf on several occasions when trying
to get ashore, while his constitution had been undermined by the hardships
he had been through. Landings at all the Phoenix Islands, with the exception
of Canton, are apt to be dangerous and we were swamped and had to swim
for it more than once. Our final call was at Gardner where the Nimanoa’s
engines stuck at dead centre while we were anchoring and we gradually
drifted on to the reef. We had all an exciting quarter of an hour endeavouring
to start the engine while the schooner gradually heeled over on her side
and the high surf started to break over her counter. However, all was
well in the end and we gradually eased off the reef into deep water.
Soon after returning to my home on Beru I also became ill
and was unable to return to the Phoenix. The work of managing the settlement
scheme passed into the capable hands of Gallagher, now recovered, and
despite temporary difficulties and setbacks too numerous to mention the
colonization programme proceeded surely and steadily. During 194o Gallagher
succeeded in again chartering the M.V. Moamoa, which took 276 settlers
to the islands and, in addition, made two journeys on another chartered
vessel, the M.V. John Bolton, taking a further 154. On 30 September
1940, when further settlement was finally suspended owing to the war,
a grand total of 729 colonists had been transported to the Phoenix, of
whom only seven had had to be returned. A census taken in the same month
showed a total of 727 residents, excluding temporary military and airport
personnel.
By the end of 1940 both Sydney and Hull Islands had become
normal self-contained island communities. The islands were administered
by their own native governments, a system to which the colonists were
accustomed in their former homes, supplemented by occasional routine visits
by the European Administrative Officer in charge of the District. On Sydney
Island the villages were completed, the church site prepared, and boat
sheds and a copra store erected. A women's Committee had succeeded in
reducing the infant mortality rate while the newly-formed Matangarengare
Welfare Club was proving a progressive influence in local affairs. Over
1,000 lands had been demarcated for division among the settlers. On Hull,
now a populous community, a new suburb of the main village had had to
be built and the colonists were reported to be a happy and industrious
community, busily engaged in house-building and planting.
Gardner had been chosen by Gallagher as the headquarters
of the new Phoenix Islands District and an excellent headquarters residence
had been built by him there from native materials. As a result of the
first year’s work on the island, some 8,000 trees were found to be in
healthy growth and in March 1941 work was commenced on the demarcation
and plotting of land holdings, about twenty lands being taken over by
labourers who had elected to remain as settlers.
Gallagher himself returned to the Phoenix
on several occasions, but the hardships he had been through proved too
much for his indomitable spirit and he finally succumbed and was buried
at Gardner on 27 September 1941, aged twenty-nine. Universally beloved
by the natives and characteristically cheerful to the last, it can be
truly said of him that he gave his life for his people and that in his
work and the manner of his death he upheld throughout the best traditions
of the British Colonial Service.20
I think it can be fairly claimed that the Phoenix Islands
Settlement Scheme has proved a success: the settlers themselves would
certainly say so. Under commercial exploitation this remote group of islands
provided, at best, a precarious livelihood for a single European and a
handful of native labourers; now we have a thousand peasant proprietors
leading happy and contented lives on their own lands, administered by
their own island governments, buying their wants and selling their produce
in their own co-operative societies. This is justification for our efforts
and for the money which the Imperial Government has provided to finance
the venture.
Whether settlement schemes can provide
a permanent solution to the Colony’s over-population problems is, of course,
another matter. In the period since immigration into the Phoenix Group
ceased the population has increased from 724 to over a thousand; that
of Hull alone from 394 to about 560. Colonization measures are, in fact,
palliatives only and for more permanent means of population control we
must look elsewhere.21
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