Tahiti Has Plenty of

Vichy Lies Are

Hurled Back

Tahiti Has Plenty of Good Food

Tahiti, July 25.

“/CHAGRINED minds, defeatists, propa- Vy gandists sold to the enemy are repeating, after the Franco- Japanese radio of Saigon, that an economic crisis is suffered at Tahiti, that certain essential products are lacking.

There is no crisis in Tahiti. Essential products are not lacking. One must say it loudly and be proud of it!”

These are the words of Governor Georges Orselli, the fiery Corsican, head of Free France’s island possessions in French Oceania. Spoken here and widely circulated on the island, it is believed his words were intended as a sharp rebuke to what he termed the “Franco-Japanese radio of Saigon,” which has been hurling invectives and Nazi propaganda nightly in this direction for several months.

“Never has Tahiti been so rich, never has so much money come in here,”

Orselli said. He quoted statistics show ing that Tahiti and the Society Islands received three times as much money last year as in 1940. Many essential food products such as flour, canned meat, rice, sugar, canned milk, and butter were pro portionately received in greater degree, he said.

Figures quoted on the importation and consumption of food items were taken as a direct assault on the Indo-China radio, which has been declaring with great repetition that Tahiti is slowly starving for lack of essential foods, that it should Join the “greater prosperity sphere” as Indo-China has, and have fat stomachs again!

“Think of France,” said Governor Orselli, “of Europe, of Japan, of Indo- China, for that matter, and compare them with your abundance. And if some defeatists put before you their sad plight, pray them to read the statistics of the Tahiti customs.”

The Governor cited figures showing that canned meat, one of Tahiti’s great deficiencies—according to the Saigon radio —was imported to the amount of 478 tons in 1941, as against 167 tons in 1940. Rice, another item often mentioned in the nightly Axis propaganda programme, was imported to the amount of 1,559 tons last year, as against 1,373 tons in 1940. Most of Tahiti’s rice formerly came from Burma.

“Of C9urse,” the Governor said, “we are receiving less wine, fewer cigarettes, less whisky, less of certain luxury pro ducts; but these are economies which permit an abundance of essential foods and the constitution of reserves for any future.

“Tahiti is rich, but this wealth is not equally distributed, and that is a problem for all time. Certain ones have too much, while others don’t have enough.

But our care will be that those who don’t have enough may have more, that a greater justice reigns, and in this task we will all help.”