Nauru, Modem Of Pacific

Wanganui Chronicle, 17 January 1948, Page 6

Nauru, Modem Of Pacific

PHOSPHATE PRODUCTION CRUELTY OF JAPANESE (0.C.) Wellington, Jan. 16 An unusual aspect about the United Nations General Asembly's recent approval of the Nauru trusteeship agreement submitted by Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, is that it more or less endorses a resolution passed by the chieftains who assembled on the island in 1926 and, describing Australian rule of their land as ‘a Godsend to Nauru,” petitioned the late King George V. that the island should remain forever under British administration! Nauru was formerly German territory and since 1920 has been under mmandate to the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand jointly, but by the consent of all parties the administration has been carried out by Australia. Nauru, also called "Pleasant Island,” lies 165 miles from the nearest land (Ocean Island), has an area of 84 square miles, a circumference of 12 miles, and is prettily fringed with coconut palms. Everything within the fringe is phosphate and while the valuable deposits have been depleted over the years, at a peak rate of about 1,000,000 tons annually, it is estimated there remains an adequate supply to meet the needs of Australia and New Zealand for another half-century. It will, however, take about three years before the installations, wrecked during the war, to serve the phosphate ships and the fields, will be producing at a capacity which will overtake demand. PROSPEROUS ISLANDERS For many years the Nauruans have lived an easy existence, shattered only by the impact of the war. Phosphate is the only thing that matters and most of the natives have become comparatively prosperous and do not trouble to pick their coconuts and make copra. The phosphate itself is mined or quarried in the interior of the island and then trucked by rail to the shoreline. From there e system of carrier belts, which travel across cantilever constructions, take it out over the water beyond the reef which Nature flung around the island to protect her treasure. The phosphate is then tipped in an endless flow directly into the holds of the ship waiting belcw. Loading operations are usually quick, because the weather and ocean sets are changeable and unpredictable, but m fine weather a 9000-ton ship can be loaded at the rate of 1000 tons hourly. A full year’s output of phosphate, more than a million tons, will fill 156 ships each of an average of 8000 or 9000 tons.

Although the British Phosphate Commission controls the real source of wealth of Nauru, the whole of the island, with meagre exceptions where administration and missionary buildings are established, is owned by native landowners. The island has 12 or 13 tribes, each with a chief. The tribal lands were, before the advent of the Japanese, boundary-marked by ancient stones. The Japanese removed them and one of the present matters under dispute between the clans is the original position of the markers!

A royalty of 94(1 a ton is paid by the commission for every ton of phosphate shipped. Fivepence of this is paid to the individual landowners and 24d to the Administrator, who devotes this amount exclusively to the welfare of the Nauruan people. Another 2d is also paid to the Administrator in trust and is invested for the benefit of the individual landowner or his assigns, to whom the interest will be paid after the principal has been invested for a period of 20 years. The Administration is also financed by phosphates, on which e royalty of 6d a ton is paid for this purpose. In 1940 the savings bank accounts of the 816 depositors totalled 117,096. So much for the most interesting of the island’s statistics. GROTESQUE GRAVEYARDS The most amazing features of Nauru are the worked out phosphate fields, spectacular and weird enough for any canvas. Row upon row of solid, dirty grey coral pinnacles up to 20ft. high stand bare after the phosphate which buried them has been removed. 'The pinnacles are jagged and irregular in shape, like a giant’s fangs, and in some lights and from certain angles they suggest grotesque graveyards with travesties of nature for tombstones.

The Nauruans have Polynesian characteristics, and with most of the Pacific races, the young women and girls are attractive and pretty, loving to display their flashing' white teeth. Down through the ages the custom has endured of giving the women entire ownership of the lagoons along the coconut fringe of the island. The women keep tne pools clean and utilise them as fish hatcheries. Ownership of these pools descends in the female line.

An old, old custom, the wearing of up to a score or more of live “toddy” moths in the hair was once distinctive of Nauru, but it is no longer practised by the modern generation of women.

At the outbreak of war, Nauru had a population of about 3400 and among philatelists enjoyed the reputation of being the smallest and the richest island of its size in the world to have its own postage stamps. War hit the island early in December, 1940. Despite the risk involved, and because of the importance of phosphate to Australia and New Zealand, shipments continued regularly, but in that month two German raiders sank five freighters off the island and wrecked much of the phosphate installations.

Recovery from the shock of attack was quick. There were no casualties. Within three months a small phosphate output was being shipped, but it was dangerous work. By the middle of 1941 the growing threat from Japan was evident and the officials on the island put into effect plans to immobilise the remainder of the phosphate plant, and to evacuate all but the Nauruans. Japanese air-raids on the island began concurrently with the attack on Pearl Harbour, and in a hazardous operation all but the Administrator (the late Lieut.-Colonel F. R. Chalmers) and four Australian officials, who remained behind to help the Nauruans and Chinese, and 187 Chinese were evacuated. The Japanese swarmed on to Nauru in August, 1942. At first they tried hard to cbtain phosphate, which they needed desperately, but after several months they gave up the attempt. Thev laboured greatly to fortify the island. Six-inch guns,