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New Zealand Mail, Issue 1626, 29 April 1903, Page 12

Writing from Auckland, . “Island Trader” says :--Sir Joseph Ward is reported as stating that he proposes to surmount the difficulty which has arisen in connection with the disposal of New Zealand lepers by placing them on Penryhyn Island, because there are some cases of this frightful malady already located there. Now, if such, is the fact, are not these poor natives sufficiently cursed and blighted already, without sending them, a further contingent of unfortunate sufferers from New Zealand? But, letting that pass a,nd looking at the matter solely from the lower and more selfish standpoint of our own safety, if these cases in Penrhyn Island really are cases of leprosy, is it hot a standing menace to the inhabitants of this colony in general and its newly-acquired island dependencies in particular ? seeing that in connection with the pearlshell industry at the island of Penrhyn there is all the while free and umestricted intercommunication with the other islands of our dependency (Cook Group, etc.) and so-with this colony. As a case in, point, the Government schooner Countess of Ranfurly, now in port, has been to Penrhyn quite recently. If I might he permitted to make a suggestion to Sir Joseph Ward . it is that some small isolated island (with a population which could readily he removed and suitably provided for elsewhere) be set apart entirely as a leper settlement—say on similar lines to that of Molokai, in the Sandwich Islands. Whilst writing this I have in my mind’s eye Palmerston Island, which, I venture to think, would answer the purpose very well. The passenger traffic between Auckland and Wellington is now assuming such dimensions that the president of tho Wellington Chamber of Commerce has been led to urge the necessity for some system of checking luggage between the two ports. It is intolerable, he says, that passengers should be compelled to give personal attendance to their luggage at points midway between the two ports when they have taken out through and it is obvious that -the railway and shipping ties coui& easiiy arrange a scheme which would 'mitigate -the present annoyance suffered by passengers.