FORMOSA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 213, 9 September 1933, Page 7 (Supplement)

FORMOSA.

THE BEAUTIFUL ISLAND.

WHAT JAPAN HAS DONE.

NO MORE HEAD-HUNTIXG.

Formosa, or the Beautiful Island, wae tho subject of a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society this year by the Rev. W. 11. Murray Walton, and his extremely interesting lecture has been printed in the Journal of the Society.

Formosa belongs to Japan, tnough it is 500 miles away to the south-west anil only 100 miles from tho Chinese coast. It was ceded by China to Japan in 18(K>, and since then Japan has given much thought to development and colonisation. Mr. Murray Walton speaks in the highest terms of Japan's achievements. Not so very long ago the mountainous parts of Formosa were inhabited by headhunters. Head hunting was the normal eport of these people. It was not considered murder.

On the contrary (says Mr. Walton), so far from being immoral, it was deemed worthy of the highest praise, as by it the young brave was ablo to give proof of his manhood. Mon were not allowed to take tho heads of members of their own tribe, but apart from this there were no game laws, no close ecason. Chinese heads were considered a special trophy. Two suitors for the hand of one girl would settle the matter by seeing who could get a head first. A big collection was almost certain to secure the owner a high place in the ranks of the tribe.

Introduction to Agriculture. Here was a problem which must have offered severe temptations to ruthlessness/ But the Japanese showed their genius for forbearance in their colonising methods. Mr. Murray Walton says:— "Orio thing which impressed tis was the admirable way the authorities, through the special police, fulfilled their trust. . . The police are endeavouring to got the savages to give up their scattered and nomadic existence, settle down in villages, and take tip agriculture. . . At one police post we found a cabbage show in full swing with practically every house entered. Many of tho larger centres have "education places," and in some of them are dispensaries and resident doctors. Hunting, however, is still tho most popular occupation, and while guns must be borrowed from the police, bows and arrows and epears are common. The police posts are scattered all over the savage area, and are linked up by paths and telephones. All the higher officers arc Japanese, but both Formosans and savages hold junior posts. Head-hunting has virtually ceased." ■■ Besides this civilising colonisation, Japan has done a great deal to open up the island for trade and travel. Some idea of the engineering feats accomplished in road-building may be gathered from the story of the conquest of the East Coast Cliffs. For about thirty-five miles the mountains riee straight out of tho sea. In

places the- lower slopes are qiuto slioer for tho first 500 or 000 feet, after which they gradually recede until at the highest point (8000 feet) the gradient is only one in two. Even this is awc-in-spifing enough, cepecially where here and there grim precipices force their waythrough the dense vegetation. _ These cliffs at the cost of fifty-cignt lives and half a million pounds, have now been girdled by an eighteenfoot roadway, cut like a shelf on the cliff-side, and carried over the rivergorges by suspension bridges, some ol great length.