Departure of American
p. 39 · Read in the full issue
Colony
From Our Own Correspondent
Papeete, Nov. 20.
THE American colony in Tahiti and adjoining islands has simply evap orated. The few who still are here are on the waiting list of the steamship company for cabin accommodation when ever available.
One party chartered the schooner “Bernice” to take them to Honolulu.
Our island is returning to something of the quiet and peace we knew before the curse of tourist exploitation. That ghastly city of California bungalows, which has ruined the west side of Tahiti, is still there but the occupants have departed.
Why it is that the American abroad spoils the primitive life of any place, is something I have never been able to ex plain. It was so in Mark Twain’s time, and it is doubly so to-day.
Our economic difficulties are precisely like those of all the island colonies where copra is the chief source of revenue.
Those optimists who believed that a world war would advance the price of copra to dizzy heights are grievously disappointed.