NATIONAL SPIRIT IN MELANESIA

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27277, 18 February 1954, Page 9

NATIONAL SPIRIT IN MELANESIA

SELFSUPPORT AIM OF ISLANDERS CONTACT WITH WESTERN CIVILISATION The strong spirit of nationalism now spreading through Asia was very evident in Melanesia, where the people were striving to get more schools and higher education to equip themselves to take a more active part in the administration of their own affairs, said the Rev. A. T. Hill, Bishop-elect of Melanesia, when he arrived in Christchurch yesterday. “During the war years, when hundreds of thousands of troops were stationed in the islands, the natives came to know Europeans and through this contact began to understand what Western civilisation meant,” Mr Hill said. With the tremendous desire for education and general advancement had come a gradual raising of all standards of life in Melanesia, he added. A new movement towards self-sup-port was the Church Association of Malaita, sponsored by one of the younger Melanesian priests. This association grew’ out of the native people’s realisation that the time had come for them to do more for their own church. “There at Malaita, the islanders are selling produce from their farms as a source of income for a fund which they hope will eventually build and staff schools and hospitals and help to pay the wages of clergy and teachers,” Mr Hill said. According to their ffieans they gave money or their services. “This niovement will no doubt spread throughout the whole British protectorate in time, but it will be very many years before New Zealand’s support of the Melanesian Mission can be done without,” he said. “The association requires careful direction, but we have hopes that it will be’ a great success.” Marching Rule, an organisation of passive resistance against the government, which sprang up at the end of the Second World War, had died out, Mr Hill said. Service to Education For the last 18 years Mr Hill has been principal of All Hallows’ School, Pawa, the senior boys’ school of the Melanesian Mission. For his outstanding services to education there Mr Hill was awarded the M.B.E. in 1951.

I Boys from this school have become doctors, wireless operators, clerks it. the Government meteorology stations and agricultural instructors, and man} have been trained for the ministry. * The school provides a general edti cation almost to matriculation standard Native arts and crafts are encouraged, and the school specialises in giving a sound agricultural training. Rotation of crops is studied and pew types of foods have been introduced. The school has its own farm with pedigree stock. To encourage better breeding, pigs and poultry from the school farm are sold to other islands at a nominal price. From this trade the school raised about £5OO, which went a long way towards building the new school chapel. After leaving Wolverhampton School, England, Mr Hill went to sea in the Merchant Navy for 13 years. He gained his master mariner’s certificate and was captain of the Balzac, which traded between New York and South America, when he resigned to become a lay missionary in the East End of London. n A fter his ordination he joined the Melanesian Mission and spent a year in the Solomon Islands before going to New Britain. A short time later he was recalled to the Solomons to take charge of All Hallows’ School. Mr Hill will be consecrated Bishop of Melanesia on May 30 at Honiara, the capital of the Solomons, by the Primate of New Zealand (the Most Rev. R. H. Owen). Other consecrating bishops will be the Bishop of Dunedin (the Rt. Rev. A. H. Johnston), the Bishop of New Guinea (the Rt. Rev. P. N. W. Strong), and the AssistantBisnop of New Guinea (the Rt. Rev. G. D. Hand).

Last evening Mr Hill addressed a large congregation at the Cathedral on the work that the Melanesians were doing towards self-support and education in the islands. The service was organised by the Melanesian Mission Committee and the Diocesan Missionary Council.