PACIFIC LIFELINE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4560, 15 April 1942, Page 7

PACIFIC LIFELINE

THE STRATEGIC GILBERTS

PHOSPHATE RESOURCES

(By

W.L.)

To Australians the mid-Pacific is for the nonce more or less a closed book. Lying in the heart of the ocean’s vastness, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands have been prominent in the Pacific cavalcade during the last year or two, firstly as a landmark on the Pan-American clipper service to New Zealand and southern waters, and more recently as the scene of sporadic, but effective action by the U.S. fleet. Administered by the British Colonial Office through the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific at Suva, this archipelago, or, to be more accurate, group of archipelagoes, is one of the few Crown colonies left to Great Britain in the regrouping of administrative units in the Pacific. Though given the name Gilbert and Ellice, the colony actually contains the Phoenix Group, Ocean Island, Christmas Island and Fanning Island, the total area of the colony comprising 196 square miles. Before the Japanese onslaught the head quarters for administration of the colony were at Ocean Island, final decisions being referred to the High Commissioner, resident in the Fiji Islands. BYGONE BARBARISM The Gilberts proper comprise sixteen islands, and the Ellice chain nine. The dual unit is one of the most remarkable of all the Pacific archipelagoes. The islands are small, and the coral rock is covered with only about 8 feet of hard sand and a scanty supply of soil, so that little can be grown except taro. The uncultivated cocoanut and the pandanus palm grow prolifically, however. Some of the seemingly inhospitable atolls are more densely populated than many of the most fertile islands. The natives—who now number about 34,000 —were notorious for their warlike spirit until the middle of the last century. Since then they have come gradually under the influence of the various missionary organisations, and signs of heathenism and barbarism have practically disappeared. In nearly every village now there is a native pastor, a church and a school, and a large proportion of the people can read and write. Most prominent perhaps of the group, because of its economic value, Ocean Island was an earlier field of the phosphate industry than its more famous partner Nauru. A British company operating on nearby Ocean Island, in the Gilberts, secured the right to exploit Nauru by admitting German interests on to its staff. Operations started in 1906, and in the immediate pre-war years the annual output averaged about 126,000 tons. In 1912, a sample year, Australia and New Zealand took more than 38 per cent of this, Germany 31 per cent., and Japan somewhat under 31 per cent. As with Samoa, the British Dominions supplied more than half the imports, though some of these propably originated in Germany; about 23 per cent came direct from Germany. When the previous war broke out the British staff members- submitted to being deported to Ocean Island, But the arrival of H.M.A.S. Melbourne on September 9, 1914, reversed the position; the British returned, and the German staff were removed to Australia for internment. Once the joint mandate was established, Britain, Australia and New Zealand took steps to acquire rights over the phosphate on both Nauru and Ocean islands by buying out the private interests for £3,500,000. A “British Phosphate Commission was formed to carry on operations, and it was agreed that the three governments should have prior rights over the product in proportion to what they contributed towards this sum, namely, Great Britain 42 per cent, Australia 42 per cent, and New Zealand 16 per cent. In actual practice Australia has been taking nearly three-quarters of the output, and New Zealand nearly a quarter, while minor quantities have gone to England and Japan. The London Missionary Society and the Catholic Sacred Heart Mission are the two religious bodies operating in the colony, the head quarters of the L.M.S. being at Beru, and that of the Sacred Heart at Tarawa, which is a circlet of islands on a reef 22 miles in length, dotted with small villages. It is also the head quarters for the colony of Messrs, Burns, Philip and Co., who built a wireless station on the island. Both missions have stations on almost every island of the Gilberts; the Ellice Island coming under the control of the Samoan branch of the L.M.S. THE PORTUGUESE PATRIARCH The Spanish explorer Mendana is supposed to have sighted the Gilberts in 1567, and strong native tradition records that about this time a man with a white skin, red hair and red beard landed at the island of Beru in a box-like boat, in a famished condition. He recovered, took as wives the eight sisters of a local chief, and had 22 children, whose descendants are now scattered throughout the archipelago. Historians are disposed to

credit the story, and believe this patriarch to have been a Portuguese from one of Mendana’s ships. Certain it is that, in Tarawa particularly, the mixed Melanesian and Polynesian strain shows marked signs of white infusion. Ethnologists have given a most interesting theory of how the Group received its population. From time immemorial, they agree, race migrations between the South seas and Asia passed up and down the 4000-mile chain of islands, of which the Gilbert and Ellice atolls form an integral link. In the first 300 years of the Christian era a swarm of big cop-per-skinned men from the East Indies, mostly from Celebes and Ceram, penetrated the Gilberts, where a Melanesian unit was already established as the aboriginal stock.

Some of the tawny men remained and, fusing with the Melanesians, produced a hybrid type. Others penetrated south to Samoa, but after a long struggle they were thrown back to the Gilbert and Ellice region, where they fought for new homes with the descendants of their own race. The saddle-brown Gilbertese of to-day are therefore the descendants of a black and a tawny race, which fused about 1500 years ago, and reinfused later. Curiously enough the Ellice islanders are much lighter skinned than the Gilbertese, who are smaller and duskier, the former being closer to the Samoan type.

The eight islands comprising the Phoenix Group were discovered by the United States explorjng expedition under Charles Wilkes, who made the first survey of the islands of the Central Pacific. This was early in 1840, but no great value was attached to them, and it was left to the British to proclaim sovereignty over them 50 years later. Albert E. Ellis, author of “Ocean Island and Nauru,” claims that the group was added to the British Empire on the urgent representations of Messrs John T. Arundel and Company, who were carrying on extensive operations in phosphate guano from 1883 to 1890. ONE TREE ISLAND Canton, or Mary Island, the largest of the eight, has several unique features, and may well become of special importance on the Pacific defence route. It is an atoll, nearly nine miles in length and three miles and a half wide, the narrow stretch of land encircling a large lagoon with deep water, though here and there the usual patches of reef are to be seen. In this lagoon the flying boats could alight in any weather, and it is the first island with sheltered waters to be met on the route after leaving Honolulu, about 1660 miles distant. The land is only about 15 to 20 feet above high-water mark, and with the exception of a single fair-sized cocoanut palm at the eastern end there we no trees on it. Controlled by the British Government through the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific at Suva, the executive is in the hands of a local resident' commissioner at Ocean Island. Aircraft coming from Honolulu pass first over Baker and Howland- islands, a few moles north of the equator, and then sight Canton Island almost on the line. The island possesses special features which make it valuable for a mid-Pacific airport. It is suitable for both flying boats and aeroplanes, although the uneven sandy surface

would require preparation before it could be used as a landing ground. In 1937 British war ships visited every one of the Phoenix Islands, did everything needed to confirm Britain’s title, and placed a British official party on Canton Island. In 1938 American officials were placed on Canton and Enderbury islands, evidently to sustain America’s claim that she had as much right there as the British. Since the end of 1938 British and Americans have been dwelling amicably together on Canton Island.

Describing the pioneering of the Phoenix Group, Mr Ellis writes:— “About the middle of 1887 my eldest brother and I were taken to Hull Island, in the Phoenix Group, in the smart Auckland steamer Olive, owned and sailed by Captain William Ross. The captain landed at the island about 20,000 cocoanuts, which we were to plant for copra making in the years to come. We were then the sole inhabitants not only of Hull Island, but of the whole of Phoenix Group. Seve-

ral weeks before we had left Auckland, our home .own, for Baker Island, north of the Phoenix Group and afew miles across the Equator. ‘Baker’s’ was the scene of operations being carried on by an enterprising London firm, Messrs John T. Arundel and Company, who were collecting and shipping phosphate guano. The first night ashore we camped under some sheets of galvanised iron set up at a slant to shelter us from the rain. All the hermit crabs in the vicinity seemed to be attracted by this new development on their hitherto uninhabited island.”

Now, just over 50 years after this modest occupation, the Phoenix Group has become a key station in the Pacific, and a strategic point in the long chain of naval and air communication between the shores of Australia and the United States.