Tropicalities

THE League of Nations has asked the Commonwealth Government if it has any evidence to show that radio, talkies and phonographs have had “a dangerous criminal influence on the na tives of New Guinea”; and the N.G. ad ministration, presumably, is now mak ing the usual painstaking enquiry and preparing its usual conscientious re port. The League of Nations need not distress itself, so far as New Guinea is concerned. The Administration officials there always have been careful to cen sor the cinema programmes designed for native entertainment. The natives are not permitted to see the pro grammes intended for Europeans; but in Rabaul a programme compiled speci ally for “coons” is put on every Thurs day night. This writer, sitting among a congregation of excited kanakas, wit nessed one. It consisted of a film show ing a sports gathering in the Scottish Highlands: another, illustrating the manufacture of traction engines; and two long films —one at the beginning and one at the end of the programme— describing trout fishing in New Zealand, obviously supplied by the New Zealand Tourist Department. There was not a kiss in the whole programme and, ex cept for some Scottish step dancing las sies with short kilts and bony knees, there was not even a glimpse of a “white fella Mary,” likely to give the kanakas a wrong impression. It was the most fiercely censored programme this writer has ever seen. But the “coons” had no complaints—they chewed betel-nut without cessation, and cheered lustily whenever a trout was caught. * * * ONE day recently the Solomon Islands steamer landed on the wharf at Makambo a partly encased oil engine, addressed to Mr. Tommy Elk ington. It was intended for driving a launch and, in its bright paint and glit tering brass, it was an impressive ob ject. The popular Tommy, attended by two or three friends and a few natives, gloated over it. Then they pulled the packing off it and, just to see every thing was there, they spun the fly wheel. Instantly, with a clatter and a roar, the engine came to life and func tioned furiously. The natives, with howls of terror, fled along the wharf and loudly declared that their master had taken delivery of a case full of devils. The agitated white men ran around the bellowing engine and wrung their hands. They certainly had started the thing—but they had not the fog giest notion of how to stop it. However, the problem was solved by the engine stopping itself. It afterwards appeared that the engine had been tested, thoroughly and conscientiously, just be fore being shipped, and a small amount of petrol had remained in the tank. The engine stopped as soon as the petrol was exhausted. Mr. Elkington’s friends insisted that their nerves had had a very severe shock, and they each had to be bribed into silence with four long, cool drinks. * * * THE problem of securing transport in Tonga, since the shrinkage in pro duction caused the cancellation of the regular steamer services, becomes ever more acute. We have just learned that Dr. Courtney, lately District Medical Officer at Haapai, who has been

appointed to a similar position in Nauru, has had to arrange transport for himself, his wife and their three children, from Haapai to Suva, in a native cutter of only 20 tons. The Tongan Government’s small despatch boat which has been used in an emergency, is now laid up in definitely with a broken tail-shaft, and the smaller ports of Tonga in conse quence are entirely isolated. Pre sumably, these most awkward condi tions will remain until commodity prices recover and the Pacific Terri tories pass out of the depression. * * * A VALUED contributor sends this paragraph from an American journal: Meatless, waterless, loveless, and clothesless. That’s to be the rule or rules in a new Garden of Eden to be set up on a tropical South Sea island, and Professor Juan Amon-Wilkins, of Brooklyn, is booked to sail away in a few days to pave the way for a colony of twenty or thirty recruits, who are said to have been following the precepts of the cult in New Jersey.

Water will be replaced by fruit juices, soap will be on the prohibited list, hair must be permitted to grow, clothes will be discouraged, and romance entirely forbidden. Those who obey the laws “may live for centuries.”

“Why,” asks our contributor, point edly, “should they want to live?”

THE B.S.I. Government offices, Messrs.

Carpenters’ store, Messrs. Burns, Philp’s store, and Messrs. Lever Bros, offices are each situated on small islands, a few miles apart, in Tulagi Harbour, British Solomon Islands. The manager of Lever Bros, decided, one Monday morning recently, to do some business with other firms, and pro ceeded to the Burns, Philp establish ment. He found store and office closed.

Mystified at this, he re-embarked and chugged across to the Carpenter store, to find all closed there, also.

Still mystified, and becoming annoyed, he proceeded to the Government station. Post-office, Treasury, Lands Office —all were closed, and the place seemed dead. By this time, the manager was bristling with indigna tion, and decided to return home.

Rounding a corner, he met the Gov ernment Entomologist.

“Why is everything closed up over here?” he demanded. “We are all working on Gavutu.”

“It’s a Bank holiday,” answered the entomologist.

“But there are no Banks here,” roared the manager.

“Christ is not here, but we still keep Christmas!’’ retorted the insect expert, and passed on, leaving the manager speechless. * * * A WOMAN left Sydney a year ago on a Japanese steamer, on a holiday trip to Japan. The steamer some how managed to hit Yap, one of the Yap Islands, in the Caroline group, and left her bones on the coral reef. The ship’s company were rescued and hospitably treated. The Australian woman returned to Sydney the other day, and was met by a reporter. The reporter ran shrieking to his office, and

this was the kind of rubbish subse quently published: “She was one of the first white people seen by the inhabit ants ... The natives were very friendly and fed the passengers on coconuts and bananas.” Yap, as a matter of fact, has been an important centre of the Northern Pacific cable system for many decades, and a European staff has been maintained there. At the present time, there are some 300 Japanese on the little cluster that comprises Yap, as well as a dozen Europeans, and the natives are among the most sophisticated in the Japanese Mandated Territory.

THAT industrious delver among things archaeological, Mr. A. J. Vogan, in forms us that an ancient inscription found by him in a cave in the Fiji Is lands about 1930, has now been pro nounced by Professor Sadler, of the University of Sydney, and by American experts, to be Chinese script of a period of 2,000 years ago. Mr. Vogan holds the view that Chinese navigators were the first to find their way from the Northern regions into the South Pacific, and in this he is well supported by other scien tific opinion. H. G. Wells, in his “Out line of History,” accepts this theory,, and quotes Mr. Vogan as one of his authorities. * * * EVIDENCE of the remarkable service which the Mission organisations continue to give the Pacific Islands natives is again to hand in a series of eight books and pamphlets, well printed and neatly bound, which has been pro duced at the Melanesian Mission Press, Maravovo Uagoon, Guadalcanar, British Solomon Islands. This notable Islands printing house is under the direction of Mr. F. R. Isom, and work of a remark ably high typographical standard is done there. Practically the whole of the book lets are printed in the languages and dialects of the Solomons.