SOLOMON ISLANDS

Evening Star, Issue 21080, 18 April 1932, Page 12

SOLOMON ISLANDS

WORK OF MISSIONARIES NATIVES LIVING PEACEFULLY Conditions in the Solomon Islands were described last week by the Rev. V. Binet and the Rev. A. H. Cropp, two Methodist missionaries who are visiting Auckland on furlough. Mr Binet has had fifteen years’ service on Choiseul Island, in the British Solomons, while Mr Cropp for ten years has served on the Island of Bougainville, in that part of the Solomon group which is Australian mandated territory. Both missionaries report steady progress toward peace in the islands (says the ‘Herald’). Massacres and tribal feuds, they say, are now few and far between; the adherents to Christianity are growing annually, and excellent work is being done in the mission schools. “ When I first arrived at Choiseul fifteen years ago,” Mr Binet said, “ the island, which has an area of about 3,000 square miles and a population of about 5,000 natives, was seething with tribal wars. Every native was armed in some fashion, and they all lived in barricaded villages in the hills. To-day a native is hardly ever seen carrying axe or spear for warlike purposes, and they live peacefully in villages along the coast. On many occasions when disputes have broken out, which, a few years ago, would have resulted in blodshed, I have been asked to negotiate between tribes and arrange settlements.”

There was a better class of European trader working in the islands to-day, Mr Binet continued, and the natives knew they were receiving fair treatment. This gave them an added respect for the white man and more faith and confidence in mission work. During his term at Choiseul the number of mission stations had grown from five to thirty-five. Native teachers, trained in mission schools, were doing excellent work. Roads and churches had been built on the island by native labour, all of it voluntary, and he was proud to have had completed recently the largest church in the islands, seating 1,0(10 people and known as “ the Cathedral.”

Mr Cropp works on a much larger island. Bougainville has a population of from 40,000 to 45,000 people, and, in addition, there are about 100 European residents. The island was excellently administrated under the New Guinea mandate, he said, and mission work was proceeding steadily. In the hills in the interior a certain amount of wild native life still existed, but it was gradually disappearing. Even natives who had adopted Christianity, Mr Cropp continued, were still prey to superstitions. On the island were two active volcanoes; one of them, only 4,000 ft high, had never been climbed owing to the fact that it was almost constantly in eruption. The natives believed that all sickness resulted from the eruptions of this volcano. The growth of mission work in the island was illustrated by the fact that in ten years the number of teachers on the island had grown from two to sixty-five, while the native adherents had increased from 200 to 4,000.

Both Mr Binct and Mr Cropp will tour the North Island giving addresses on missionary activities.