The Thriftless

Polynesian

A Problem in Tahiti

From Our Own Correspondent.

Papeete, Aug. 16.

SINCE the virtue of Thrift—together with many of the other virtues ac quired by our ancestors in the course of their long climb from the stone age to the Age of Stainless Steel and T.N.T. —has largely been jettisoned by that cos mos we euphemistically call Civilisation, Nordic mankind has taken another step toward the Polynesian Utopia that has been the dream of romanticists since the publication of Bougainville’s ecstatic praises of Nouvelle Cythere.

It would appear, therefore, that Poly nesia has set the fashion for modern financial ideology, as has Ashanti for present-day Art. and the Portala at Lhassa for Architecture.

In the Polynesian mind there is no comprehension of thrift. In the lan

guage exists no word which remotely ap proximates its meaning.

There was, indeed, a time when Tahi tians regarded the lands, descended to them from their ancestors, as a sacred trust; to be guarded and passed on, undiminished, to their progeny. But, that was during an age when there still survived a reverence for and an obli gation to ancestral custom. These, to day, have gone with the wind; as have the traditions, poetry and manners of the old culture. The average native of contemporary generations takes no thought whatsoever of the morrow.

If the value of his land will bring him a motor car, unnumbered admissions to the cinema, and a general good time, ancestral inhibitions and the fate of pos terity are cast into the depths of the sea outside the barrier reef, and he quaffs deeply of the joys of the present.

Already the shore property on the north and east coasts of Tahiti has pass ed into the hands of Europeans, and the former owners have retired to their diminished acres, situated under the coastal hills and in the valleys. The Government has taken measures, by salutary laws, to protect the native against himself; but wise regulations cannot prevent a landowner from mort gaging his property, squandering the proceeds, and eventually becoming dis possessed by foreclosure.

The economic future of the native on Tahiti is not promising, if this sort of thing continues.

Raiatea is somewhat in the same state, combined with inter-family land quar rels, which would require the delibera tions of a college of barristers to straighten out.

The mental attitude toward all of this, on the part of the younger natives, is “Aita Peapea”—which, freely translated, signifies: “Let the morrow take care of the things of the morrow”.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Pacific Islands administrators generally will find this ar gument a little difficult to follow. There need be no mortgage, foreclosure and permanent loss by natives of their lands if the native title to land is regarded by the Government as inalienable. That has been the basic principle of admin istration, for a long time, in most Paci fic territories controlled by British coun tries. Ignorant or thriftless natives may not be capable of holding land; but, in that event, the Government takes it over, as a trustee, and leases it to those who can use it profitably. But the land remains always the property of the in digenous natives, and the rentals are applied for their benefit. The titles to much land were obtained from the na tives. however, in the early days, be fore there was established government.