THE SOLOMON ISLANDS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3296, 15 August 1911, Page 2

THE SOLOMON ISLANDS.

JAPS SPYING OUT THE COUNTRY.

PROFESSOR MACMILLAN BROWN INTERVIEWED.

The 1911 trip of Professor MacMillan Brown; of Christchurch (N.Z.), whose ethnological research, work has taken him pretty well all over the world, was to the Solomon Islands. On the purely» scientific side th© work he is doing will be of th© greatest utility as establishing the relationship of the 'islanders with, the people of Southern Asia, and proving, by the similarity of the fauna and flora of the countries, that away back in the past millions of years ago_, probably narrow straits were the division between lands now separated by hundreds of miles of ocean. Last year, the professor’s travels were through Bolivia, Peru and. Central Mexico, and in the course of a hard and trying trip ho acquired much information, as to the antecedents of the aboriginal inhabitants of the countries visited. The Solomon Islands‘are occupied by a fine race of people, with some of the features of the Australian, chiefly the deen cleft at t'he root of the nose, specially marked in the Australian.

“But,” said the professor to a Sydney reporter, “I did not pay much attention to the physique of the people. They are a superior race to the Australian aborignie, and may be made good use of in the cultivation of rubber, which will be the great industry of the islands. The soil is specially Suited to the production of rubber, and thousands of acres are held by companies, who this season have tapped some of the trees for good yields. 'Next year ot the year after most of the trees on existing plantations will be in full flow, and the industry will be a .great sourco of prefit to those engaged in it.” As it has been stated Japan has an eye on the rubber possibilities of the islands, and that within the last few months they have been visited by alleged castaways from the land of the Mikado, Professor Brown was asked whether he had seen or heard anything to justify the report. “I would not like to say for what purpose a recent Japanese visit to the islands was made,” he said. “But it appears to bo a fact that, within the last few months, at least one party of Japanese visited the islands, and I heard of the members of it at Narova, which is south of Shortlands, and also at Bougainville, and the same party was later on, seen at Malaita. “This party, of which I have no special knowledge, arrived in a smart cutter of about 20 tons, and it was noticed by Mr Green, Messrs Burns, Philp’s agent at the Solomons, that they were in’ danger or running their boat on to one of the numerous reefs at the entrance. He went off to warn them, and was informed the cutter had been blown out of her course, and the islands were made for Mr Green did not seem to ouite accept the story. He saw the cutter was comparatively new, and had been built in Brisbane.

“There may have been some truth in what the men. said as to liaving been blown out of their course, for it must be remembered that this happened to some of the ships of the Japanese fleet which visited Australia a few years ago. They, too, were blown out of •their course, and had to put into one of the harbors on the north-west coast of Western Australia, whereas their first scheduled port ot call was Freemantle, very far south. And if a fleet of war vessels cculd be blown So far off their proper course, anything might happen to a 20-ton cutter, and we may as well accept the statement, particularly as the party did not make any lengthened stay. “It is, however, hard to accept a story so very thin. I think they may have been looking for a site for a bcche-de-mer station. And there are others who think the rubber was the attraction. . ~ “All the islands will produce rubber of the best quality, the soil being volr*anic and rich \ the profits from the pursuit of the industry will be very great, and, perhaps, it I were a commercial man, or an Australian politician, I could employ myself- to advantage in thinking out-, a scheme under which the industry could be made the fullest use of by oXir own people.