ISLAND COLONIES

Evening Star, Issue 20314, 24 October 1929, Page 10

ISLAND COLONIES

GILBERT AND ELLSGE GROUPS ADDRESS TO ROTARY CLUB At the Rotary Club luncheon to-day an interesting address on comparatively little-known island groups of the i'aciiic was given by iMr if. G. Kennedy. For the past ten years Mr Kennedy has been an officer in the British Cdlonial teervicc, and ho has been stationed in various places throughout the islands of the Pacific which are controlled directly oy Great Britain. For the past six years of this time he. has resided on Va.tupu, a small island in the Ellice Group, and on the expiry of his present terra of furlough lie expects to return there. Tho speaker said that in the Central and Western Pacific there were several important groups of islands which were governed directly by the Secretary of State for the Colonies through the usual channels of tho British Colonial Service. These were the colony of r iji, the British Solomon islands Protectorate, the New Hebrides —at least, the British share of tho New Hebrides, tor this group came under the dual control of both Britain and France —and last, and perhaps least also in point of view ot area, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony. The last three colonies mentioned were classed together under what was known as the High Commission for tho Western Pacific. Fiji, on the other hand, was a Crown Colony, in the usual meaning of that terra. The Gilbert and Ellice islands colony comprised some twenty-eight islands scattered over a vast expanse of ocean. They Jay in a, chain right across tho Equator, and might be said to resemble a frontier or a chain of outposts. At any rate, they constituted a northern boundary to the sphere of British influence m tho Central Pacific. The Gilbert and Ellice islands colony comprised Ocean Island, which was the headquarters of tho Administration, the islands of the Gilbert or lungsmill Group, and tho islands of tho Ellice Group, together with Fanning, Washington, and Christmas islands. These groups, which were formed into a British protectorate in 1893, were incorporated into the Empire and became a colony by His Majesty’s Orders in Council of 1915-16. Tho colony was at present administered by a resident commissioner, who was responsible to the High Commissioner for tho Western Pacific. Tho Gilbert Group embraced sixteen islands, together with a number of small islets depending on them. The group was one of the most remarkable of all Pacific archipelagoes. The islands were small—-their total area being not more than 170 square miles—and the hard coral rock was covered with about Bft of hard sand and a scant supply of soil, so that scarcely anything could bo grown but a coarse taro. The cocoanut and pandauus wore almost the only spontaneous products, and yet some of those barren atolls were more densely populated than tho most fertile islands in all Oceania. The natives, who numbered 30,000, were. less than fifty years ago, notorious for their War-like spirit. To-day the race was nominally Christian, and on most of tho islands all signs of heathenism had been abolished. In nearly every village there was a church and a day school, a native pastor’s house, and regular religious and educational work was carried on. The Ellice Islands, like those of the Gilbert Group, were purely coralline, and of only a few feet elevation. The population of this group was only a little over 4,000. The people were of a peaceful nature, and were Christianised, mainly through the work of London missionaries. They had adapted themselves to British rule with exceptional facility. No Western intoxicant < now reached the natives, and marriage was well safeguarded. The colony had over 200 miles of good roads, and in the villages the natives were responsible for the cleanliness of their own road frontages. The speaker dealt in absorbing fashion with native life and customs, and also referred in further detail to the geographical formation of the 'islands. He then went on to refer to the different characteristic traits existing in those belonging to the inhabitants of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, and stated that the Polynesian tongue of the Ellice Islands differed greatly from that of the New Zealand Maoris. Fishing on these islands was a much-loved sport, the search for the castop oil fish being carried out on moonlight nights in water which was sometimes 250 -fathoms deep. About a quarter of the natives’ working time was taken up in the copra industry, and at intervals the copra was collected by a trading schooner. Much amusement was caused by Mr Kennedy’s description of social life in these islands, and by means of a map and some photographs, which were distributed, the audience was able to gain a clearer mental vision of the places being dealt with. A hearty _ vote of thanks was accorded Mr Kennedy for his address*