NAPOLEON'S ROCKY HOME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19061, 4 July 1925, Page 2 (Supplement)

NAPOLEON'S ROCKY HOME.

ISLAND OF ST. HELENA. A DWINDLING POPULATION. One rarely hears nowadays of St. Helena, the little island that buret into fame just over one hundred years ago for six short years as the scene of tho exile and death of Napoleon. It has just been appearing in the papers, however, in connection with the arrival of its new Governor, Mr. C. H. Harper. Colonel Peel, Mr. Harper's predecessor, died without completing his six years of office. Mr. Harper has had 23 years' service on tho Gold Coast, so that ho is accustomed to living in out-of-the-way places. But St.. Helena is 1200 miles from the nearest mainland, and 800 miles from its still smaller dependant, Ascension Island. It contains only 47 square miles and hardly 4000 inhabitants. . But as those 4000 consist of Europeans of various countries, with Indians and Africans and all degrees of colour between, they are not an easy people to govern. Just, now thero is a constitutional agitation for tho introduction of the representative system in the form of an elected Advisory Council. At'present the Governor has a Council of three of his own nomination) whose advice, if it is ever, given, ho is at liberty to ig-

nore. , Since steamers took tho place of Bailing ships, especially since tho opening of tho Suez Canal, St. Helena's use as a revictualling and refitting station on tho road to India and the Far East has disappeared, and the population has dwindled and is still dwindling. Its principal in-du-try now is the giowing and spinninT of flax. Wages are two .shillings a day. °