Tongan Natives' Poverty
pp. 35-36 · Read in the full issue
Is Church a Burden?
Letter to the Editor.
THE inhabitants of the island of Foa, Haapai Group, Tonga, are complain ing bitterly about the shortage of food.
Yams, kumala, taro, manioc, etc., most ly are consumed, but supplies were squan dered or wasted at the last Wesleyan Mission Conference, which was held in the Haapai Group, and the new crop, which will be a very small one, is not ready. The copra price being low. it takes about eight sacks of dry copra to buy a sack of flour.
I am afraid our natives work too much
in God’s vineyard, and too little on their own yam-patches.
The island of Foa has an area of 5 sq. miles and a population of 900. Yet it supports no less than 15 churches, 6 well-paid ministers, and 88 lay-preach ers.
Church services are held on Sunday four, and often six times, besides Monday at 5 p.m., Wednesday at 7 a.m., and Friday at 5 p.m. The native who works on his plantation in the bush, must leave off at about 4 p.m., just when the day becomes pleasant to work.
I am. etc..
F. T. Goedicke.
Haapai, Tonga, 10/9/’3B.
Pastor T. Howse, of the S.D.A. Mission in Samoa is on furlough in Australia.
Rev. J. W. Burton, general secretary of the Methodist Oversea Missions, ar rived in Sydney from New Guinea by the last “Macdhui”, after conferring in Rabaul with Methodist missionaries.
Major C. A. B. Joske, 0.8. E., M.C., E.D., Major A. H. Stafford, E.D., Fiji Defence Force, and Ratu J. L. V. Sukuna, Fiji Defence Force, have been appoint ed Honorary Aides-de-Camp to His Ex cellency Sir Harry Luke, new Governor of Fiji.
A new Melanesian Mission flag, issued by Royal Warrant and approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury, was flown for the first time on September 21 by the mission steamer “Southern Cross”, then at Auckland, N.Z. The hoisting of the flag coincided with the 67th anniversary of the murder of Dr. John Coleridge Patteson, Bishop of Melanesia, by natives of Nukapu, in the Santa Cruz group.
The flag is the gift of the parish of St.
George’s, Ashtead, Surrey, England.