Send Them To

Hawaii!

Tahiti Wails at Prospect of Indian Migration From Fiji

From Our Papeete Correspondent HERE, indeed, is the “most unkindest cut of all”

Just at the time we have cleared our islands of Scythians, Bactrians, Phili stines, anthropologists, crackpot writers, gargons, borogoves and the Frumious Bandersnatch, you voice the proposal (on page 35, October “PIM”) to ship the troublesome Indian community of Fiji to our Marquesas Islands!

Why not pour this torrent into Hawaii —our Sino-Japanese-Korean-Portuguese- Filipino-Hollywood Blonde Melting Pot; with a few Andaman Islanders for good measure? The Sugar Barons would rejoice. The Chamber of Commerce and the Booster Club would “point with pride” when the new census figures are published. And one must not forget the garden of delight which would be blos soming for the anthropologists, a few generations hence.

Those of us who hope for a happier post-war Pacific Islands would “view with alarm” the several schemes and propo sals which amalgamate Polynesia, Micro nesia and Melanesia in one problem.

There is as much difference between a Polynesian, a Micronesian, and a Mela nesian as there is between a college pro fessor, a Hollywood clown and a Farm- Block Congressman. The mentality, man ner of life and background of each are radically different.

Melanesia appears to offer large tracts of land suitable for European settlement.

Polynesia, on the contrary, is thickly settled, with every hectare of arable land in cultivation. Polynesia offers about the same opportunity to the settler from abroad as does Switzerland.

The problems of Polynesia are those of any civilized community—education, sani tation, markets for produce, and defence against burdening the archipelagoes with top-heavy Government machinery.