NEW HEBRIDES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 45, 21 January 1928, Page 9

NEW HEBRIDES.

FERTILE ISLANDS

COMBINED FORM OF GOVERNMENT.

At present visiting Palmerston Norm is one of the most energetic and tireless missionaries in the history of the Presbyterian Church, in the person or Mr J. M. Mansueld, the accredited representative of his church on the island of Ambrim, one of the New Hebrides group. Born in Dublin to years ago, jYIr Nlansfield. came to New Zealand as a lad and received liis education, and served his apprenticeship as an engineer in this country. He later carried on business as an engineer in Sydney till, in 1892, he lelt a call to go to the heathen and was later appointed to Ambrim. In conversation with .a “Standard reporter, Mr Mansfield related some interesting stories of liis life in the New Hebrides. “The people there were very savage and warlike when I first arived, but being unarmed and friendly I got on quite well with them, and by showing a bold front earned their respect. A great change, however, has taken place in the meantime and they are now a very peaceable race.” As an illustration of the fierce inter-tribal warfare which was once waged, Mr Mansfield stated that, on one island, there were no less than eight dialects, the various villages being too inimical to each other to mix and evolve a oommon tongue. The islands were very fertile, he continued, and copra, cotton, oocoa and coffee were exported in large quantities despite the difficulty of procuring suitable labour. “The French planters are importing Tonkinese and they are doing very well, but the British have not power to do the same. This makes things rather one-sided, but the British are hanging on.” On being asked whether the store of the French New Hebrides Company at Vila, which was destroyed by fire recently, was a large building, Mr Mansfield stated that it was a remarkably fine edifice and that the loss would be very nearly the amount cabled. Vila was a town of between 500 and 1,000 inhabitants, mostly French, and was the capital of the group. “I cannot understand,” he said, “how so many people were hurt in the conflagration, but apparently .all the dynamite ami other explosives were stored in the building.” The government, or Condominium of the group was a combined British and French one. The system had not worked too well in the past, he commented, but in view of the increasing friendliness of the two nations the' future was bright. He, personally, had always got on well with .the French.

Talking of past days, Mr Mansfield produced some photographs of the disaster of 1913, when the hospital at Ambrim was engulfed by a volcanic disturbance. He also had snaps ot the hospital taken before the eruption and of the lake which was now on its former site. Earthquakes, he remarked, were always very frequent. Mr Mansfield laughingly referred to the difficulty he had had in getting his re-appointment in 1921 on the score of old-age. “I kept at them,'’ he said, “and they had to give in. 1 wanted to go back to what I consider my duty.” When Mr M.ansfield returns to the New Hebrides there will go with him Mr R. Stringer, of Oamaru, whom he had met and interested in his labours at a Bible class conference at Timaru. Mr Stringer is .a qualified sclioo! teacher, said Mr Mansfield, .and would be able to do invaluable work teaching the children English, because it had been decided not to translate the Bible and other books. In fact this was impossible as the language of the natives was both idiomatic and elementary, involving the use of signs. Mr Mansfield would thus have more time to tour tho island for which he acted in the capacity of doctor as well as minister.

“I don’t know a great deal about medicine, but I use ‘horse-sense’ and castor oil and I get on pretty well,” he said. In conclusion, Mr Mansfield stated that this would probably be his last visit to New Zealand as he was determined to pass the remainder of his life in the islands.