THE SIMPLE LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 74, 29 March 1933, Page 8

THE SIMPLE LIFE.

LONELY PITCAIRN.

A HAPPY COMMUNITY.

FOOD NOT A PROBLEM,

A man who was born on Pilcairn Island, and spent most of his life there, Mr. F. McCoy, to-day took exception to assertions' made recently by Captain E. H. Williams, of Wellington, who had made a visit to the island. Capl.ain Williams said that lack of contact with the outside world had caused ignorance, and that the jealousy almost amounted

to insanity. Mr. McCoy said that there was a great simplicity about the island life, but it was not ignorance, and the islanders were all one big family, and not by any means jealous o: one another. Only a qi.arter of the island was cultivated, because there was no need to futtivate more for the needs of the 200 people. Vegetables and fruit grew readily, and in the sea there was plenty of fish, which were caught from the rocks or from canoes, the latter fishing, for cod, being in very deep water. In addition, the islanders had goats and poultry, and in the bush there were pigeons and other birds. The food question was the one that troubled them the least. The black soil was extraordinarily fertile. There were several good springs of water, although there had been recent drought conditions. Mr. McCoy said that at Piteairn one week-day was very much like the one before it. The children went to school and were educated as far as the sixth standard, the men fished, gathered firewood or worked on the plantations,

j while the women had their house work. I Piteairn could be made much more ('productive, said Mr. McCoy, but there I was no outside trade, and therefore no I incentive to provide more than the j island requirements. They had all that I they needed for 1 a carefree; simple life, | and more than that they did not want!