WORK OF NEW ZEALAND IN PACIFIC

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22566, 9 May 1935, Page 2

WORK OF NEW ZEALAND IN PACIFIC

A LITTLE EVIDENCE LACK OF INTEREST A PROBLEM (From a Special Correspondent.) XXV. To attempt to judge the value of New Zealand's work in the Cook Islands is the hardest task that can be given a visitor. No' two of the people who live in the islands agree on every point; many of them disagree violently on nearly everything. All of them, on readInK this, would say, " Here's another smart Alec who has been here for five minutes and thinks he knows all about the group." There would be some truth in such an accusation against anyone who passed a verdict even after months in the islands—more in my case, for I was only three weeks in the whole group. But for the five weeks that I was on the Matai or some of the islands the problems of the group, in one aspect or another, were all that I heard or read of; and at the risk of being accused of foolish temerity I will present some evidence as I saw it. In the first place, there is the healtrt of the natives, their chance to live. Towards the end of the last century several observers thought that the Cook Islanders were a dying race. The incidence of tropical disease t seemed to' have increased, possibly because the resistance of the natives had been lowered by the alterations in their way of living which contact with civilisation had brought about, while new diseases that had been introduced had a more serious effect on them than on Europeans. No prophecy about the date at which they would become extinct was too doleful for some visitors. Since the annexation this tendency has been reversed. In I£o6 the population was 8394. By 1911 it had grown a little to 8626. Since then it has steadily increased, till now it is more than 11,000. This is surely a most important justification for the New Zealand Administration, proof that its first task, to preserve the Maori race, has been well done. . PUBLIC HEALTH Attention to public health must have been the main factor in bringing this improvement about, and here the Administration is lucky, for the natives are of a high type, able to realise what measures are for their own good, and to cooperate in them. * The present medical retention seems Scarcely adequate. Dr Ellison has not only to be responsible for the health of the whole group, but for all medical work on Rarotonga, the main island. There are two European nurses on other islands, and two native medical practitioners, graduates of the medical school in Fiji. The number of native practitioners is being increased as suitable boys are found and as funds allow them to be sent to Suva for their training, and perhaps when seven or eight more of them are at work in the group New Zealand will be albe to feel satisfied with what it is doing for the health of the people. , The training of native practitioners opens up another of New Zealand's work—finding means of taking the more intelligent Natives to a fairly high level of education and giving them responsibility. This is done to a certain extent—more than by many Administrations. Whether it is done to a large enough extent is not a question on which any mere visitor to the Islands can pass judgment. It is a generally accepted rule of native government that the people must be given responsibility as soon and as much as possible. All that a visitor to the Cooks can say is that the Natives are given some training and responsibility, that there are, of course, failures, but that, on the whole, the system by which boys are chosen for higher education and are then given opportunities to use it seems to work very well. IMPROVED LAWS There was little opportunity for us to study tlr laws of the Islands, but we found no grievance against the police, and were told of no resentment against any law. Very definitely the present laws are a thousand times better than those laid down by the missionaries before the annexation. The police now seem to be a fine force, and there is no possibility of the corruption that existed in the administration of the mis-sionary-made laws. v Nor did we hear a complaint against the administration of justice, though, unless the Cook Islanders are very different from any other people in the world, there must be such complaints from most of those on whom the hand of justice falls. We were told, however, that a Native on trial is .too apt to neglect to say what he can for himself, and that Judge Ayson, when he is on the bench, often has to be counsel for the defence as well as judge, in order to give the defendant the chances to which he is entitled! INDIVIDUALISATION OF LAND The individualisation of land apparently had to come, and in seeing that it was done in accordance with tradition and right, so that there would be no grievance, Judge Ayson has done very fine work, for.which his experience as a Native Land Court Judge in New Zealand had equipped him well. OF NATIVES Perhaps the best evidence in favour of New Zealand is the way the natives have developed. Experts on the subject say that they have adjusted themcelves to the changes civilisation has brought better than any other Pacific race. They cculd hardly have done that if there had been any repression or any major injustices in this Dominion's handling of them. Nor, one would imagine, would they have given those on the Matai such enthusiastic welcomes as they did if they had had any feeling that New Zealand wa>? treating them badly. The taihoa policy was explained by Sir Apirana Ngata to mean: That every element in immigrant culture which, by its rabstitution for the pre-existing usage, fitted the Cook Islander better to live in a world where modern science has brought him into touch with other races and with other ideas, was introduced in ordered sequence to the extent that the Cook Islander was ready to receive and benefit by it. A steady pressure is being applied in ajl directions whereunder each succeeding generation may be influenced to advance gradually from one culture to another, or, as is most likely, to a blending of elements of old with the new.

A reasonable attempt to put that policy into force seems to have been made, but more is wanted. Economies have been made that should not have been made, and more have been suggsted by men who ought to know better, but, like the rest of New Zealand, do not-

Ignorance of the Islands ift New Zealand is, indeed, the root of any trouble! there is or may he. Probably 50 per cent, of the people of this country do , r.ot know where the Cook Islands are, | and neither they nor most of those who , do know care. Tt is doubtful if one person in 100 realises the obligations. that New Zealand undertook —that it

forced on itself, indeed—when it annexed tho group. Certainly those who talk of making the Islands self-supporting do not; that is in present circumstances quite impossible. New Zealand may not like paying out several thousand pounds a year for the educational and medical services in the Islands, but that is a charge it volunteered to meet, and one that It must go on meeting. An outgoing )»ay not look pretty on a balance sKcet, but there is more to this than figures. To attempt to save money on its tiny dependency would invite other people to look at the shame of a country which could not keep a promise to a helpless native race. New Zealand is there and has to stay there; and she must put tho interests of tho islanders before her own. It is unfortunately true that (he generat ignorance of the Islands is as common in high places as in low. TTow many Ministers of the Crown have spent a week in Itarotonga, let: alone visited the whole group? The Tiare Taporo and the Tngua are not besieged by applications for passages from members of Parliament, anxious to see if New Zealand is doing its job in the tropics.

Nor is there any attempt made to train New Zealanders for the administrative work that is to be done in the Cooks and in Samoa. When the Dominion is well represented there it is by good luck, not by any sort of management at all. The establishment of a school of Pacific studies at Canterbury College, if Professor Macmillan Brown's dream comes true, may remedy that, but tho Government will have to take an interest in it.

Ivan Kenneth M'Gregor gave evidence that as he was cycling along David street on the afternoon of the accident he was passed by the defendant's truck, which was travelling at about 15 miles an hour and close to the left-hand side of the road. Witness was riding behind the lorry after it passed him, and when it reached Marion street he saw a motor car, approaching the intersection. The lorry swerved over to the left in an effort to avoid a collision, but it met the car head on and seemed to be pushed over on to the footpath. The car, as it came out of Marion street, seemed to pause and then to accelerate as if the driver were trying to get across. Witness heard no warning sounded by either driver. Robert M'Gregor stated that ho heard tL; crash of the collision, and, on looking round, noticed a motor lorry on the footpath and a motor car in front of it, facing Fprbury Corner. He saw a boy underneath the lorry and assisted to remove him. In witness's opinion, the comer was a dangerous cue. Thomas Charles Morris said that shortly before the collision took place he was driving his car down Marion street towards David street. On Hearing the intersection, he changed into second gear and sounded his horn, and, seeing that the road 'was clear, he commenced to drive across. When he was just about in line with the second tramline, he saw a motor lorry almost on him, and, seeing that a collision was inevitable, he immediately swung to the right down David street. The lorry struck his car and carried it about,-a length and a-half, damaging the. door and the mudguard. He immediately al-ghted, and heard the driver of the truck asking where the little boy was, whereupon he went round to the rear of the truck and found the boy pinned under the rear left wheel. After colliding with • witness's car, thO ( lorry mounted the footpath on witness's lefthand side. He could not estimate the lorry's speed. He had a very poor view of the intersection as ho was coming down Marion street, as a two-storeyed brick building on the corner obscured visibility. To Mr Sinclair: „His speed, as he approached the intersection, would be about six miles an hour, but he increased this slightly as he swung to the right into David street. He did not apply h'.-; brakes as he did this.

James Ronald Cameron, a traffic inspector in the employ of the City Corporation, said that, on examining the defendant's truck and the car, he had found the brakes of both vehicles to be in good order. John Charles Cough, who was a passenger in the car driven by the witness Morris, corroborated the latters evidence.

To Mr Sinclair: His son, who was in the back seat of the car with him, calted, "Look Out! " and this drew his attention to the lorry. John Charles Gough, a son of the previous witness, gave evidence in support of that tendered by his father. The accused pleaded not guilty, reserved his defence, and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial, bail being allowed in his own recognisance of

£IOO and one surety of a like amount, or two of £SO. A further charge of failing to give way at a street intersection to traffic approaching from his right was also preferred against the accused, and was adjourned until after the Supreme Court proceedings. ~ CORONER'S INQUEST CONCLUDED. Mr Bartholomew returned a verdict that death was due to shock and injuries caused by the deceased's being knocked down in David street on April 20 by a motor truck driven by, James Sylvester Henderson, adding that, as the matter would be dealt with in a higher court, it would be improper for him to make any comment at that stage.