TRANSFER OF TONGANS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25389, 12 January 1948, Page 8

TRANSFER OF TONGANS

SETTLEMENT ON FERTILE ISLAND

HOMES LOST IN ERUPTION OF VOLCANO

(p.a.) Auckland. January 11. Queen Salote of Tonga, who has been in Auckland since December 3, will visit Wellington next month. Her .visit to New Zealand is private and unofficial and she has been spending her time at a private residence in Auckland.

The Governor of the Tongan island of Vavau (Mr Ulukalala), who accompanied Queen Salote to New Zealand, will return by the Matua. which is expected to leave Auckland on Thursday.

The transfer of 1100 persons who w’ere driven from their homes on the famous tin can island of Niuafo© by the eruption of a volcano in 1946, from their temporary settlement on Queen Salote’s estate near Nukualofa to their new home on the fertile Eua Island should be completed by now,, said Mr Ulukalala. Eua Island is a comparatively short distance from the Tongan group, and the people have travelled on the small Tongan Government inter-island ship Hipofua. Stock has also been transported. Eua was populated only by a handful of Tongans. It is the most fertile island in the group, and sweet corn can spring from seed to ripeness there in six weeks. It has enough rich land to provide a full share of individual holdings for many generations of immigrants. The fertility of the island would enable the immigrants to be self supporting within six months, but it will be six or seven years before the newly planted coconut palms can bear a copra crop. In the meantime, the settlers will be exempted from the Tongan tax of 32s a year. Advance parties cleared the land and prepared for the arrival of the community. Not all the Niuafoo people were enthusiastic about their proposed home, however. They petitioned the Tongan Government to allow them to return to their half desolated home, but the authorities adhered to their policy. •