LONELY LIVES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 135, 10 June 1938, Page 8

LONELY LIVES.

PACIFIC ISLANDS.

! ADMINISTRATIVE WORK. l ! OFFICIALS OST FURLOUGH. Xot many people can claim to be monarchs of all they survey, but that distinction seems to belong to Mr. B. D. Kennedy, who ha* been administrator of the Ellice Islands, in the Pacific, for the past fifteen years. He is the sole white man there, but has a native population of 4500 to look after. Mr. Kennedy was a passenger by the Mariposa, which reached Auckland today. Also on board was Mr. J. C. Barley, resident commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony, whose headquarters are at Ocean Island.Mr. Barley has a large number of Islands in the Central Pacific Ocean to

Mr. J. C. Barley. administer on behalf of the jColonial Office, and in addition to the Ellice a-nd Gilbert groups, his authority extends as far afield as Fanning Island, Washington Island and Christmas Island. Communication is kept by a hunched and fifty-ton auxiliary motor yacht named the Ximanoa, a mythical goddess of navigation. Mr. Barley explained that the general work was to look after the welfare 1 of a nfttive population of about 33/(00. i and to maintain law and order and I social services. They had a medical staff of three whole-time and two parttime European officers, with, in addition, a number of native doctors. In the Gilbert Islands the medical headquarters were at Tarawa Island. Outside their headquarters they hid five administrative stations, and connection was kept with radio. Generally the health of the natives was good, but the incidence of T.B. was fairly hiuli. The islands were outside the malarial zone. At Ocean Island there was a white population of about 130, about a hun;lred being represented by employees of the British Phosphate Commission and their families. Mr. Kennedy said that his headquarters were on an island called Fnnafuti. fhere was a mail service about five times a year and occasionally steamers ?allcd to pick up copra. Shark-fishing ivas about the only sport, but work took ip most of his time, and as a hobby he lad taken up the study of anthropology. Mr. Barley and Mr. Kennedy are both >n furlough and intend to go to England.