“Tibby-Pacific”

A Popular Citizen of New Caledonia

A SORTING-CLERK in the Chief Post Office in Paris stood one day glaring at a post-card in his hand. “Sacre bleu!” quoth he, and took the post-card to his next-in-command. The card bore two words: Tibby Pacific.

The clerks, having no recourse, put it in a mail-bag for Noumea, New Cale donia, Central Pacific.

The card came duly to the table of a postal official in Noumea, He grinned, and five seconds later dropped the card straight into the letter-box of Messrs.

Hagen Freres.

That same day, it was placed respect fully upon the desk of M. Nicholas Hagen, who is addressed boisterously all over the Pacific Ocean, and in four great capitals —London, Paris, New York, and Sydney —as “Tibby.”

On the card was a message: “When you get this, send me a radiogram,” and it was signed by a man in whose good company Nicholas had made acquaint ance with some of the brighter lights of Paris.

The radiogram was sent. A year later, M.

Hagen made inquiries in person. He dis covered that his friend had made a bet

that a card posted anywhere in the world to “Tibby, Pacific,” would reach its des tination; and that, when the radio’d re ceipt came, his friend collected an ex cellent dinner. Monsieur Nicholas was vociferously certain that somehow he had been ill-treated; so four cheery gentle men took him to the best restaurant in Paris, and there soothed his ruffled feelings. ...

To start the history of Nicholas Hagen in the right place, we must go back quite a few years—to 1871, to be exact; and the place is a big German store, in Apia, Samoa.

The peace of a soporific afternoon was disturbed suddenly. A large, bearded man came roaring in at the sunlit door way, and strode through the darkened store. “Where is the durned skunk!” he shouted. “I’ll tear his lousy head off and ram it into his bloody copra! Where is he?”

The noisy gentleman was Captain Bully Hayes, and he appeared to be seeking

the life of the little, old German store keeper, as one easy way of settling a trade dispute. The German scuttled rapidly away into a back room, and Bully went in pursuit.

The storekeeper’s assistant, a tall, blond, heavily-built young man, stepped

M. Nicholas Hagen.—A snapshot on the vehicular ferry, 30 miles from Noumea, in September last.

out in front of the raging captain. “You please will leave the boss alone,” he said.

Bully bellowed, and struck. The young man guarded—and in two seconds the store was rocking to one of the prettiest little fights Apia had ever seen. And Apia, in the seventies, was accustomed to the arbitrament of the clenched fist.

Bully was knocked unconscious, and was taken away to his ship. He en joyed no sympathy—he was everlastingly fighting. There was more concern over the young Scandinavian. It was inevit able that Captain Hayes would return, seeking revenge. Apia was a lawless place. Better get the Scandinavian under cover, and quickly, said the wise ones.

Early next morning a schooner pulled out of Apia, for the westward, and the Scandinavian was aboard. He was val orous, but his friends insisted that he be also discreet.

A few weeks later he arrived in Nou mea; and he settled there, acquired French citizenship, and became influen tial and rich, and the founder of the fa mous Hagen family.

Nicholas Hagen is one of his sons.

There are several brothers —all men of personality and eminence. They have been merchants, traders, bankers, ship owners, pastoralists, planters; their col onising spirit and enterprise have as sisted enormously in French progress in New Caledonia and New Hebrides. But there have been two disastrous hurri canes in the New Hebrides, in addition to the Depression, and the great firm of Hagen Freres has taken it somewhat in the neck. Residents of Vila told me about this evil fortune; and when I got to Noumea I offered respectful condo lences to Nicholas Hagen.

He laughed his great, merry laugh.

“Oh, la, la!” he said. “I weigh nineteen stone, and I sit on my troubles!”

The hospitality of this jolly Frenchman is proverbial. He took me to his home, built by his father near a palm-girt bay behind Noumea, where I met his still beautiful wife and his handsome children; and he and his charming son-inlaw, M. Danton (a descendant, by the way, of that famous Georges Jacques Danton of the Revolution) insisted on driving me over half of New Caledonia.

They showed me the New Caledonian cattle, of most excellent quality, but mar ketless; New Caledonian deer, which roam the verdured ranges in tens of thousands, strangely ignored by Southern sportsmen; the splendid forests and the glorious coastline; and they gave me an oyster-and-crab luncheon, washed down with rare liquor, in the old, sun-drenched township of La Foa, that will linger always among my choicest Pacific memories.

M. Hagen drove like a devil. And, as he drove, he sang. None could resist his gay humour. We all sang; and the wild deer fled in terror over the nether most hills. When he was not singing, he quoted Goethe to express his philosophy of life; and he retailed delicious gossip from London and New York; and he re minded me of what Voltaire said about Shakespeare, and of what Luther said about human existence: He who loves not wine, women, and song, He is a fool, all his life long.

He told me some delightful stories of his roving life in the Islands. One night, he left a kanaka in charge of his schooner, while he slept. He gave the native a course to follow, as indicated by a particular star. When he awoke, he was distressed to find the schooner far off its course, and he spoke violent

words to the native. “All right, master!” said the kanaka. “Me losem one star— but me catchem anudder star.” . . . He told me also that the Pidgin-speaking na tive’s name for the Seventh-Day Adven tists is “Man he kaikai grass!”

Nicholas Hagen is now the directing force behind the Noumea shipping com pany, which runs the coastal steamship services around New Caledonia, and be

tween that great island and the Loyal ties. He has imagination and the true pioneer spirit, and is seeking constantly for new trade and new transport. He initiated a service between Noumea and Brisbane recently with the little steamer Loyalty. The plan was based on thor oughly sound reasoning. The big French colony needs large quantities of the goods that Australia produces, and it is only 700 miles from New Caledonia to Brisbane. But, so far, the service is not flourishing as it should, simply because of artificial interference with trade. Aus tralia’s tariff against French goods has caused New Caledonia to erect tariff bar riers against Australian goods; and, for some reason that is as obscure as it is unsatisfactory, the French merchants cannot buy flour in Brisbane for New Caledonian consumption with the facility that they can buy it in Sydney. Yet it is 250 miles further to Sydney. If only the gentlemen responsible for “economic nationalism” could be taken away to a quiet place, and efficiently drowned, it would be possible to develop a very valu able two-ways trade between Australia and New Caledonia; and, in that event, M. Hagen would be prominently in the picture. With incurable optimism, he is fighting for the development of that trade, even under present conditions.

Nicholas Hagen insists that “the soul of me is French” —and so it is—but he nevertheless is a complete cosmopolitan.

He speaks English perfectly, and almost without accent; he knows London and New York nearly as well as his beloved Paris; and he has wandered in far, strange places. “The last time my son in-law and I ate together at a strange table,” he said, as we attacked the viands of New Caledonia, “we were the guests of an Arab chieftain in Marrakesh, in Cen tral Morocco.” Five minutes later he was arguing with Mr. Holger Rosenberg (of Copenhagen and himself a very fa mous traveller) about the merits of a strange liquor they brew in some corner of South America.

R.W.R.