REHABILITATING HAWAIIANS

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 226, 25 September 1935, Page 16

REHABILITATING HAWAIIANS

■QOES REHABILITATION of a backward race mean that it shall become proficient in the culture of a superior race or develop well its own culture?

Hawaii lias liad this question laid before it since the recent announcement that the latter kind of rehabilitation will be the subject of an experiment on the island of Molokai.

On that same island more than 100 Hawaiian families under Government supervision for 10 years have attempted jtg become highly efficient, self-support-ing agriculturists. For the central plateau of tho island is planted in pineapples and homesteaders have been able to contract well in advance for the sale pf their product.

Since most of them are in arrears on Jheir loans, some consider the experiment & failure. A few miles from this plateau lies Halawp.'Valley, once the home of hun--oreds of Hawaiians. Now only a few families live there.

Eecently Paul Irving Fagan, San [Francisco and Honolulu financier, bought thousands of acres of mountain and seashore land on Molokai to develop as a ranch and retreat for his vacations. Inspecting his holdings, he found the Hawaiian families living in Halawa Talley much as they had lived centuries before.

So he conceived the idea of rehabilitating tho Hawaiian race according to jfche culture of its ancestors, with limited application of civilisation as it is known to the outside world. Those who return to the valley will receive land at nominal rental, to remain as long as they live up to the rules laid down by the owner.

These rules will require them to adopt many of the ancient customs of

their people, where such customs are not incompatible with the laws and customs of modern Hawaii. Grass houses will be built as well as outrigger canoes. The people will be encouraged to live on the product of the soil and sea. Purchase of “store” clothes and canned foods will be discouraged. It is planned to make the valley community self-sup-porting with a minimum' of financial requirements.

Hemmed in by tho sea on one side and high mountains on the other, through which only a rough trail reaches developed portions of the island Halawa is ideal for experiment.

These people will from a marked contrast with their blood brothers on tbe plateau a few miles from tbem. There the land is cuj; into 40-acre plots planted to neat rows of pineapples. Each plot has its own house. In the centre stands the little village of Hoolehua, with its community hall, store, school and some small business enterprises. In tbe little homes are radios and behind each home is a garage with some sort of motor-car, usually purchased on deferred payments. Recently, an investigation showed that debts of these homesteaders, both to tho Government and to private firms, could not be paid off for years. Mortgages on crops sometimes ran years into the future. For that reason there has been much criticism that the Government has been too lenient, and some have urged the Hawaiian homesteaders be made wards of tbe Federal Government, as are Indians on reservations. So along with Hawaii’s other experiments will bo unfolded two kinds of rehabilitation. One allows the Hawaiian to attempt to absorb all of an unfamiliar culture. Tho other attempts to retain as much as possiblo of the ancient culture of his race.