Drought Affects Haapai

Crops Tongan Government Votes £1,000 For Relief

From Our Own Correspondent

Nukualofa, June 1.

THE drought that assailed our Islands at the beginning of the year has had repercussions in our middle group.

Haapai is made up of a number of low-lying atolls, ever exposed to the fury of wind and spray. The heavy “blow,” coincident with the dry spell in January, has evidently set back the yam crops to an amazing extent. A further handicap, in the Haapai group, is the congestion of people. Their tax

allotments are, generally speaking, small compared with those of their luckier brethren in the other islands of the Kingdom.

The Government has, for many years, held out inducements to the inhabitants of the middle islands to form colonies in either Tongatabu or Vavau, where vacant land is plentiful, but the Tongan clans are not easily broken and there has been no general response. The bitter rivalry and the internicine strife of a century ago is not forgotten. The people of Haapai —the stormy petrels of the Tongan archipeligo—stand aloof, and view with suspicion any honest endeavour by the Government to plant them amongst their one-time bitterest clan-enemies.

In view of the state of their crops, the Executive Council, we learn, has voted £1,000 for the purchase of flour for the people of Haapai during their temporary time of stress.