Tonga’S Economic Condition

Nukualofa Resident Insists that Affairs in Little Kingdom are Not as stated.

To the Editor.

Sir, —To quote as extensively as I would like from your correspondent’s pointless and futile article in your current issue (October 23) would make this “doleful effusion” of undue length. I propose, therefore, to deal specifically with but two paragraphs therein, Nos. 4 and 5, and follow with a brief review of the whole article.

I meet the fourth paragraph with a direct challenge to your correspondent, to test the opinion there expressed in the only way likely to prove convincing, by addressing a questionnaire to all business people in Tonga, asking if they do “concur in the belief that Tonga is a prosperous little place to be in just now?” If you elicit even one reply in the affirmative, from a bona fide business man I will donate the sum of £5 toward providing singlets for those poor Tongans whose dire poverty has driven them to ask that they may appear in public clothed a la Gandhi.

Paragraph 5: I have never made any such “demand” whatever that that word may denote as used in the context! I am as ignorant of the identity of “Veracity” and “Ikaikaka” as of your correspondent. But, for the second time in this controversy, I emphatically deny that any Tongan gets the benefits enmerated for “£2 per annum in taxation,” and when I am driven to reiter ating such falsities I will withdraw.

The published impressions of Mr. Green convey no surprise to the trading community.

Your readers have a sample of the fairy stories with which Mr. Green was regaled during his lengthy stay of a dog-watch in Tonga, in the very paragraph here refuted.

The readers of the P.I.M. also, but for the challenging criticism, would be equally misled.

But, pray, Mr. Correspondent, don’t carry this dis-robing process to extremes will you?

The High Commissioner might blow in, and if he expressed favourable sentiments you might, to signify your appreciation, discard so much of your wardrobe as to prove very embarrassing to His Excellency.

I am not a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and have none of that cock-sure ness of your correspondent as to what that body “appreciates.” The Chamber, asking for economy in public expenditure is—right or wrong—in very good company. The col umns of your admirable paper are full of such requests. To take only one—Tulagi, September 14: “We are months, if not years, behind the rest of the world in applying the axe to our over-manned and over-paid Ad ministration; meantime Mr. Planter takes yet another hitch in his lava-lava; he has long since relinquished his shirt and trousers to the tax-gatherer.”

Your correspondent’s contention that re quests like this, if acted upon, would result in further impoverishment of either natives or traders is too absurd for serious comment, unless, as I strongly suspect, it is a veiled (official) intimation that if economies were instituted, the Tongan (who, instead of being on the “box-seat,” is saddled and bridled, and, since the war, has been ridden to exhaustion by a booted and spurred bureau cracy) would be afforded no relief.

You will welcome constructive criticism.

Well, here is a great chunk of it, as briefly and tersely as it can be expressed. Get off his back. Mr. Cor.! Get off his back. No true sportsman objects to fair handicapping, but under this welterweight of £49,000 he cannot stay the distance. Get off his back and give him a square deal.

But why this sudden interest in the wel fare of the trading community? Isn’t Tonga a prosperous place? Haven’t we the most stable government in the world, a replete treasury, etc., etc., ad lib? Really. Cor., if you are not careful, you will discredit your own fairy stories anent Tonga’s prosperity and the unique position of having no unem ployed.

An this word, “unemployed,” brings us to a very important point. You affected an air

of virtuous indignation at a statement (by Ikaikaka) that there were a large number who were landless out of the 6,000 taxpayers, and stigmatised the statement as a reflection upon your bona fides, and appealed to taxi drivers and the man-in-the-street to witness that the statement was untrue. Well, since your virtuous outburst, the Queen of Tonga has publicly stated that there are 1,200 tax payers without a bit of land on which to bestow their labour. I submit that Her Majesty is a better authority on this mat ter than either yourself, the taxi-driver, or the man-in-the-street.

Now, where is your Tonga without any unemployed? Here are 1,200 of them—rather a big percentage of 6,000 isn’t it? The Ton gan has no other means of employing him self but by the application of his labour — the active factor —to the land —the passive factor —in production. If those 1,200 potential workers were placed in a position to become actual wealth producers, it would surely be better for all classes —if betterment is pos sible where everybody is happy and pros perous—or would be if it were not for three pessimistic critics. You want constructive criticism. Do you recognise it now it is before you?

“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, “Where wealth accumulates and men decay.”

I quite agree that there are too many stores and, further, that many of them are the exotic growth of the immediate post-war scatter-cash period, when Tonga in common with the rest of the world lost its head. But alreody drastic readjustment is in progress.

Stations are being closed, salaries reduced and, in some cases, staff also. All the cur tailment necessary for a return to saner business will, slowly, perhaps, but most surely be accomplished, by the free play of economic law. Many of these stations are a liability, not an asset, to the trading firms, and no cultivation possible to Tonga—inaugurated at this stage—can save them from the fate which many of them richly deserve.

Among so much which is utterly unten able, it affords relief to find even one point of agreement. But let me draw attention to the close analogy—up to a certain point— between the over-staff administrative force and the surplus stations. It also is largely an unhealthy growth, grafted on the little country during the same period when lucative posts were lavishly bestowed to many whose chief occupation consists in extending the hand for a monthly pay-voucher. It was a way of distributing consular largesse, at Tonga’s expense. The little country has paid dearly to rid itself of one of these place-men so appointed, and there is still room for further reductions.

Unfortunately, bureaucracy is not subject to the adjusting operation of economic law, but that is no reason why the whole burden of adjustment to changed conditions should fall upon the trader alone. The British Consul even, has been subject to a cut in salary and an increase in income tax. Why should the Administration here, with its good qualities too numerous for recapitulation, be deemed sacrosanct? The trader is adjusting his overhead to meet changed conditions. The 1,200 unemployed would doubtless produce sufficient to maintain themselves if pro vided with land and given a little assistance at the start. Some stalwart young fellows are peddling vegetables.

A large number of the able-bodied youth of the country are in the various colleges, qualifying for—what? I enclose a copy of the curriculum now in use, from which you can see how admirably they are prepared for a future which consists of growing coconuts on a 12-acre patch of ground if they are fortunate enough to secure it.

Amid these numerous activities, actual and potential, resulting in either weal or woe to the little country, what is this wonderful Government doing for its betterment? And would it be an impertinence to extend the inquiry to your own good self, Mr. Cor.?

Had the Diehards —in June last —surrendered salaries, it might have been credited to them as a virtue. Methinks that by June, 1932,

even the war bonus from their easily-acquired virtue will be non est —’twill be a damned necessity.

Let trade and commerce with the people die, But spare, oh spare, our dear Bureaucracy!

Tonga’s future prosperity, as in the past, depends upon the coconut. This may be supplemented by bananas, if the industry can be resuscitated and a market secured. It was of great value to Tonga 30 and more years ago.

Any hopes based on the expectation of successfully emporting temperate climate veg etables will not materialise. Three small shipments of Kumeras, and N.Z. is glutted.

Shippers’ experience over the last lot, and a few potatoes, will doubtless serve for a long time.

There is an improvement in copra. But we haven’t any, and the outlook for the ap proaching first shipment of bananas is not at all rosy. It has been a bad year for tropical products. On the other hand, we have cabbages, peas, beans, tomatoes and the whole gamut of temperate climate veget ables in profusion; and a whole army of itinerant vendors, some of whom produce certificates of proficiency as vegetable grow ers, are keenly competing, till there is a chronic over-supply. These deluded caterers for the white man’s table had far better been taught to wash and iron, or cook a dinner decently. Vegetable growing might afford a living for one gardener; but to the many now competing it is as profitable as though each took in the other’s washing.

As a means of adding to the prosperity of the country, it is as effective as trying to lift oneself by tugging at one’s own boot straps.

The larger economic outlook is this: Twenty years ago it was impossible to grow veget ables, and their growth to-day is due to the fact that for the past 20 years the duration of cold has annually increased, until to-day we have three months’ winter, followed by six months’ cold weather. It is a phenomena which is deserving of serious investigation, because, pari passu, coconuts and real trop ical products have declined.

Now, please let me define for your Cor., “constructive criticism.” In criticism, con structiveness naturally results as a corollary or inference from the systematic exposure of the evils and injustice of the system which the criticism condemns.

In conclusion, Mr. Cor., in what does your own constructive policy consist? How much cultivation, intensive or extensive, are you guilty of? In all you have written has there been one sane suggestion which, if carried into effect, would benefit the country? Your polemic has, from its very inception, been written with a prior purpose of inducing the belief that there is no need in Tonga for government economy. In short, you have tried to make the worse appear the better side. You ask for a better scheme than cul tivation. Here it is, short and terse: Get a Government position!

May I, Mr. Editor, ask your readers’ atten tion to the vital discrimination made in the historic pronouncement concerning Charles II and James II of England? It was that Charles could see things if he would; and James would see things if he could. Your readers can determine for themselves into which category your Tongan correspondent falls.

I discard my nom de guerre and subscribe myself, Yours sincerely (pessimistically if you like), but most decidedly truthfully,

A. Cowley.

Nukualofa, November 23, 1931.

The number of vessels, which arrived from overseas at Apia, Western Samoa, for the year ended March 31, 1931, was 118, with a registered tonnage of 122,104 as compared with 84 vessels, registered tonnage 102,147, for the previous 12 months.