A STRAIN-FREE TROPIC ISLE

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 130, 4 June 1938, Page 8

A STRAIN-FREE TROPIC ISLE

A Pacific island sanctuary, "open to all people tired of the strain of civilised life." To such a haven will sail a Tasmanian yacht, and with her the "first colonists," who, it is cabled, are being recruited in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and America. The island is said to be Nukuhiv?, one of the Marquesas Group, described as 14 miles long, mountainous, well watered, forested,\ fertile. From the description one can picture an island about double the capacity of Kapiti, in which "the strain of life" is believed to be avoidable, but in which, the cablegram adds, the settlers are not intended to "go native." An important omission from the cablegram is the lack of any information as to whether radio connection is to be maintained with the outside world. Before Marconi, a party in quest of complete detachment could easily have found it, but in the twentieth century even Antarctic explorers in the remote South are "on the air," speaking and hearing. Their lot is far removed from those who seek absolute solitude, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot." Can it be said that a colony that can speak to the outside world, or even hear from it, has broken with civilisation and has got rid of "the strain of life"? The subject is difficult to investigate in the absence of an approved list of permitted and prohibited strains. Listening-in is occasionally a strain, and taxpaying always is; but there is also a certain amount of strain in getting out of bed. What happy medium, between "the strain of life and "going native," have the sanctuary-seekers discovered? The principal architect of a man s condition is not his environment, but he himself.