The Ke Rmadecs

Now To Be Officially Surveyed

REFERENCE to Anglo-American com petition for ownership of islands of hitherto unsuspected value is contained in an article on “Canton Is.” elsewhere in this issue.

Another development is the quiet de parture, by the N.Z. Government motor vessel Maui Pomare, from Wellington, on July 12, of a N.Z. official expedition, for the Kermadec Islands, which lie between Auckland and the Tongan Group. The party includes a surveyor, an engineer, a radio operator and a water-diviner.

Officials have been reticent about the expedition; but it is known that the party carries one year’s supplies, and that the Kermadecs lie on the direct air mail route between Hawaii and New Zealand.

The party will establish a meteorologi cal station, to give weather reports to trans-Pacific aeroplanes.

The development has an amusing side, because only a few weeks ago the N.Z.

Minister for Lands, warned people against a plan made by a private com pany to settle people on Sunday Island (largest of the Kermadecs). The Mini ster (Mr. Langstone, of Samoan “Good will Mission” fame) declared that, if a settlement were placed on Sunday Island, the N.Z. Government would accept no responsibility and certainly would not provide communications. There is no harbour or sheltered anchorage there.

But the Pan-American Airways search for islands, suitable as airports, has altered all that.

EDITORIAL NOTE.—The Kermadecs were named by the French navigator, D’Entrecasteaux, in 1793. In 1837, two British men. Baker and Re d, with two Samoan girls as settled on Sunday Island, and farmed and fished and sold their produce to whalers. Baker, after a visit to Samoa in 1842, introduced goats, which still are numerous. About 1843, the Reid family departed.

A little later, earthquakes became frequent (there is considerable thermal activity there) and the Baker family also left, and the island was deserted. An American settler named Halstead arrived in 1850, and Henry Cook, with his Maori wife# and daughter, and two Maoris and their wives, in 1851. Eruptions, two years later, drove out the Cook party; but the others remained : and there was quite a settlement there. When a pest-ship came in 1861, and an epidemic killed a number of the inhabitants of Sunday Island.

The remainder fled. Another party of immigrants were frightened away by eruptions in 1869.

Other attempts at settlement failed. When I was ashore there in 1914, an old settler named Bell and his family were in occupation ; but they left soon after that. A small British community has become established during the past three years.

Sunday Island has 7,200 acres, and is fertile, well-wooded and well-watered, and a beautiful

and pleasant place, with a mild and equable climate. There are several rocky islets scattered about in the vicinity, comprising the Kermadec group ; -but they are only a few acres in extent.

—R.W.R.

Sir Maynard Hedstrom, managing director of Messrs. Morris, Hedstrom Ltd., of Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga, arrived in Sydney from Suva by the Mariposa on July 12. He was accompanied by Lady Hedstrom.