Nauru’s 1934 Report to League

of Nations

¥ ESS than square miles in area, -■-* Nauru Island, held under League of Nations mandate by Britain, New Zeal and and Australia, is a paradise. It has no public debt, no drunkenness, no maternal mortality, and no woman has been gaoled there for nearly eight years.

These facts are included in the annual report to the Council of the League of Nations on the administration of Nauru by the present Administrator (Comman der R. C. Garsia). The island has a population of 2,677, of whom 1,567 are native Nauruans.

Its imports for 1934 amounted to £98,085, and its sole export—rock phos phates—was worth £470,872. The gen eral revenue was £19,798, to which a trust fund for royalties on the phosphate recovered added £2,703.

Expenditure included £2,010 on native education, £4,106 on health, and £4,658 on public works. There were 58 births during the year. Despite vigorous steps to combat leprosy, three mild cases oc curred. Generally, the health of the in habitants was good.

At the end of 1934, 928 Chinese workers were employed in the phosphate mines, and remittances to relatives in China during the year amounted to £9,886.

Mr. A. Travers Black, Sydney mining engineer, who has had considerable ex perience in New Guinea, left Sydney by the August Montoro for Port Moresby, later to fly across to Wau. During a three months’ stay in the Mandated Ter ritory, he will investigate several areas for an Australian mining syndicate.