LIFE IN THE SOUTH SEAS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21990, 27 June 1933, Page 9

LIFE IN THE SOUTH SEAS

THE POLYNESIAN OUTLOOK DUBIOUS BENEFTXg OF CIVILISATION. (Special to Daily Times.) WELLINGTON, June 26. Nine months spent in the South Seas have convinced Mr G. Samson, an English novelist and scenario writer, that the Polynesian outlook on life brings true happiness in every sense of the word. Mr Samson arrived by the Maunganui to-day with the intention of spending several months in New Zealand completing a novel on Tahiti and other South Sea islands. In an interview, Mr Samson said that his novel was to be' published in New York early next year. It was his first work of the kind, but he had been writing scenarios in Hollywood for two and a-half years before he left for the South Seas. He had also written a stage play which was to be produced in London in the autumn of this year. OUTSIDE INFLUENCES. Mr Samson said that Papeete no more epitomised the South Seas than New York stood for the whole of the United States. It was merely the capital of French Oceania and a conglomeration of tin roofs and dilapidated Chinese stores. It was onfy in the inland districts tf hat one saw something of the real. island life. Even that, however, had been ruined by misguided missionaries in the past, and what the influence of the missionaries had failed to touch the tourist traffic had spoiled. AN UNSPOILED ISLAND. There was one island, however, where the true Polynesian life still existed and where the wholesome outlook of the natives with their hospitality and kindness of heart was to be seen at its best. That was the island of Maupiti, 200 miles from Tahiti, which was safeguarded to a large extent from the pernicious influence of civilisation by a coral reef which made access a difficult and dangerous matter. Once on the island the visitor was liable to have an enforced stay of uncertain duration, for the slightest wind from the south-east closed, the narrow passage to the small native schooners which alone could navigate it. THE SIMPLE LIFE. • Mr Samson said that the' hospitality of the natives was often most embarrassing. Everyone offered him house to sleep in, and in order not' to offend the simple people he had been obliged to sleep in two or three houses each night. The islanders lived to bring happiness into other people's lives. They had a simple code which was Socialism in its finest application and was a lesson to anyone taking the trouble to look into the Polynesian question. One could not leave the island without tears in one's eyes and a feeling of intense admiration for the people. • ' '