THE TALKING MEN.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 71, 26 March 1910, Page 10

THE TALKING MEN.

WHAT SOUTH SBA ISLANDERS HAVE LOST AND GAINED. Some curious effects of civilisation are related in a Government report on -a visit to the scattered Gilbert Islands in the South Pacific, annexed by Great Britain in 1892 The results may bo bummansea as follows :—: — Advantages : Wars have ceased ; the islands are kept in perfect order ; extreme poverty is almost unknown ; every man is secure in the possession of his pieces of land , taxes are light and arouse no complaints; the native police are eH'cient and the native officials admirably honest ; the houses are good, the roads clean, and hospitals, have been established. Disadvantages : Life is extremely monotonous and circumscribed^ intercourse between the islands being forbidden ; the old Spaitan simplicity of living — chiefly on coconuts and fish — has vanished, and rice, meat, sugar, and biscuits are consumed; "clothes of shocking shape and atrocious colour have almost replaced the picturesque kilt of leaves" ; native arts and crait have rapidly declined ; decrease of population has set in, and the number of sterile marriages is growing quickly; new diseases have been imported, and there is an alarming increase of phthisis. The islands are of coral, and the highest land is not more thaii 20ft above high-water mark. The natives consume daily about seven coconuts per head. They have a. Parlrament of unpaid members known as kaubure or "talking mea," the Gilbert Islanders being, iv spit© of the scarcity of topics, "the most wonderful talkers in all the South Seas." "Thft eternal land problem" ie> the everfruitful theme of endless discussion.