TONGAN NATIVES HAVE DEFENDER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19237, 26 November 1930, Page 9

TONGAN NATIVES HAVE DEFENDER.

STORY OF THEFTS FOR CHURCHES ARE DENIED. (Special to the “Star.”) WELLINGTON, November 26. A defence of the work of missionaric. in the Tongan Group was made to-day by Mr J. C. Rich in reply to Mr G. W. Allsop, a retired Auckland architect, who declared on his return from the islands that missionaries were living in luxury. Mr Rich said that it is a common practice to-day to malign missionaries and the interview given in the Press as reported in a message from Auckland is in accordance with practice. Mr Allsop’s remarks exaggerated the position and his knowledge seemed to have been gained in Nukualofa, where Mr Rich suspects that he listened to the cynical, embittered gentlemen who are familiar personalities on that beach and envious of the traders who competed with the missionaries for the natives’ dollars. Mr Rich described the life and conditions of the Tongans. In the country, the church was the natives’ cfiief social recreation and in upcountry villages, it substituted for the movie house, such as the more fortunate brethren in Nukualofa enjoy. “ A couple of wooden churches, the of a drawing room of a bungalow, a couple of native parsons, who live principally by working their small plantations. Such is the typical village parish in Malapo,” he said. “ For instance, there are two small churches on a rise almost touching each other. The village contains but a dozen families or so, perhaps fifty people, but the church is conducted by native parsons who are villagers, not white missionaries ‘ living in the lap of luxury.’ “ A visitor passing through the village is certainly surprised upon seeing two churches and but few houses, especially as some of the houses are hidden by vegetation, and it is one of the smallest villages,” added Mr Rich. “ In Mua, the largest village, containing a few thousand inhabitants, there is a large Roman Catholic church and ;t is an imposing structure. Perhaps the altar did cost £4OO, the price Mr Allsop quotes as the cost of some of the altars in Tongan churches, but there is another side of the story. A French Father spent the best of his lifetime building that church. He laboured for twenty-seven years, living alone in the village and working with a party of converts, cutting up coral blocks, then conveying them to the site of the church and gradually, with many difficulties, at last realised his ambition, a handsome Catholic church for all time.”