NEW CALEDONIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1927, Page 21

NEW CALEDONIA.

RICH, BUT UNDEVELOPED. UHKEMPT CAPITAL 1 ' A TRAVELLER'S NOTES. (By JEAN SCHOEN.) "Ah, Madame, it is indeed a pity," complained the warden at lie Nou, all that is left of France's huge penal settlement in New Caledonia. "It is over two years since they borrowed our guillotine, and they have completely forgotten to return it; But," he added, a note of resignation creeping into his voice, "that, Madame, is Noumea." The principal port of France's largest Pacific colony, you see, even in its immediate environs, enjoys an unenviable reputation. Here it w-as that the old barque had dropped anchor after her farewell voyage of sixty-tw - o days —New Caledonia at last, a far-off land that apprehensive friends in the States had peopled with cannibals and catastjophe, and from which I am sure they oever expected the "lady midshipmen"' of the Bougainville to return intact. Consequently, we were not quite prepared for the prosaic atmosphere of the place when we stepped ashore.

Like most French colonial towns, Noumea has an unwashed, unkempt appearance: a criss-cross of glaring streets under the hot sun, a fewstraggly trees, here a colourful splash of flamboyants, double rows of low, iron-roofed houses, loitering natives, the shrill, tinny blare of French automobile horns. And all along the streets, through the shop doors, in the house windows, the curious, staring, unfriendly iaces. Over the town, too, hovers an indefinable air of dejection, as if, as one writer has expressed it, the steady daily cursing of ten thousand men had cast a blight upon the place —a blight that will not be lifted until the last of the tattered figures on the benches of the "Place" have faded into the past. Grim reminders of a penal system which paralleled in its brutality the convict settlements at Norfolk and Port Arthur, these old "Liberes"' sit with folded hands and hopeless eyes looking into a future that ca;i offer no greater mercy than death. With the abolishment of the convict transportation, the supply of .free food and clothing was cut off and the unfortunate exconvict. usually old and often sick, was thrown upon his own resources in a country which has consistently offered him little help to gain a livelihood or his self-respect.

Shabby and Squalid. It is a pity that the traveller must approach this really lovely land through the shabby and squalid depression of Xoumea. Still, it has its lighter side. It is typical of the enterprise of the City Fathers that they put in a water | system of condemned pipes because they could be purchased cheap. It is also typical, now that the mains break about once a fortnight and the sewage seeps in to contaminate an otherwise pure supply of water, that nothing has been done about it except to devise a signal code whereby the town may be warned from the weather semaphore when a fresh break has occurred and the water will be turned off until

repairs are effected—sometimes a matter of several days. It is also typical of the city'* administration that all kanakas must be within doors after eight at night to insure the physical welfare of white inhabitants, but the insanitary practice of diluting milk and delivering it in empty unsterilised wine bottles is looked upon in the light of a necessary evil. Nor is the business world immune. Imagine the consternation when a Government employee rushed in to the representative of a British firm with a mesage supposed to have been dispatched 48 hours before. sayinjj indignantly, after two days' stead v research: "Monsieur, you will have to pay double for this cable. You have devised a secret code!" Let me add.

however, that it is not often you can steal a march on the unofficial information bureau at the Posts and Telegraph. Harbour to Hold a Wavy. But for all the red tape and petty graft, Noumea is a busy commercial centre of 10,000 population. With a deep harbour big enough to shelter a .whole navy, it is the natural outlet of the immense resources of "Caledonie." Owing to the present status of French finances, however, neither the moneyed interests in New Caledonia nor the debtridden Government has been able to do much in the way of harbour improvements. There is no dry-dock; ships must go to Sydney to be overhauled. There is but one real wharf; along it, ships often lie two deep, and then perhaps for two or three weeks it will remain practically deserted.

The whole town, yellow, brown and. white, turns out in its best togs for the arrival and departure of mail boats-woolly-headed kanakas in ringlets of gorgeous hue, their faces smeared with eaudy daubs of paint; petite Javanese in picturesque sarongs; the usual excited tre sticulation of French conversation; bicycles, baby-carriages and what not; «warms of dogs petting under everyone's feet: and unheeded among the callous, lnuehing crowd, the bent figures of old "Liberes™ threading their way alons the wharf to pick up stray bits of coal that have been dropped in bunkering the ship. About the most genial people in Noumea are the police. They never seem to worry much how thing? are goinc. and if they do, they're *0 T»olite about it that one doesn't mind poire to jraoL A = for traffic cops, they simply don't pxi=t. Although the street? are full of vehicles

of all kind?—autos. cart l . the fiork of bicvcles that sweeps everything betore it ns the commuters ?o home down the one thoroughfare. and 'ho old fish lady whc drives a C'at —t her*" seems to he nothing in the way of traffic reflations. o\oer.t for a general impression thnt to ro to the right Bnt everv automobile in - carries its nl.one of Saint (Wop* a?ain.;t accidents.