Whither Bound?

If Tonga Has a Future, What Is It ?

WHEN Fiji residents round-trip to Tonga now, they take with them their cast-off shirts and frocks to trade for baskets, mats, trays, shells and other oddments of native manufacture.

To-day, superficially at least, Tonga is the poorest country in the South Pacific.

Nowhere else are the store shelves so unashamedly naked, the inhabitants so ragged, the prices of such consumer goods as there are so exorbitant.

It is almost impossible for the visitor to get® off the wharf at Vavau, which is some degrees worse off than Nukualofa, without scores of huge Tongans surrounding him or her, each clamouring for attention and the favour of an old shirt or frock. “Friend,” they say, “here is a nice basket. Give me a dress for it. My wife has no dress and cannot go out. Or (with a fanatical gleam in the old Polynesian eye) three packets, of American cigarettes—but don’t let the Customs officer see you!”

But the term, superficial poverty, is used advisedly. This apparent state of affairs is on the debit side. On the credit

it can be said that the Tongans look as healthy and well-fed as anyone else; they have no “Indian problem,” as in Fiji; domestic or national unrest as in Samoa; and no war-wounds to lick, as in other South Pacific Territories.

And, in spite of material shortages, it is probable that the Tongan is not less happy than his counterpart in the jungles of Sydney or London or Auck land, even though the wife of the Sydney sider, Londoner or Aucklander has at least one dress in which to go out.

BUT the mere fact of fundamental content does not explain why Tonga, which had its dollar-prosperity, and whose products are in greater demand to day than ever before, has bare store shelves and inhabitants who refuse money (because it will buy them nothing they want) in favour of cast-off European clothing. And this, mark you, wnile the neighbouring territories of Fiji and Samoa, by comparison, swim in manu factured goods.

Fiji may have had its brief period of shortages in 1943, but to-day there are plenty of piecegoods, food, household linen and wearing apparel, most of it imported from Britain or Australia, whose own inhabitants are strictly rationed. Samoa has an abundance of American goods, both clothing and food— including such canned delicacies as crab, olives, asparagus and salmon.

Tonga's unfortunate position, compared with neighbours, can be attributed to the facts that Tonga has little to sell, in order to obtain exchange; and, although Tonga does rejoice in independence, it Is of microscopic importance when it must take a chance with larger nations. Fiji sells sugar, gold and copra overseas, and Samoa sells cocoa, bananas and copra.

Both also gathered in a lot of American money, in exchange for curios, foodstuffs and general entertainment. Both conse quently established strong overseas credits.

Tonga has not had these advantages.

There were much fewer troops from America and New Zealand in Tonga.

Fiji, being a Crown Colony, was allotted her quota of British goods. Western Samoa, possibly due to the proximity of American Samoa and the presence in the Territory of large numbers of US troops, and certainly due to the fact that she was given a percentage of New Zealand’s own import quota, hasl had, and has still, plenty of consumer goods—although not always in sufficient quantities to please the newly dollar-conscious Samoans.

SUCH trade negotiations as Tonga has been able to arrange on her limited credits have been made through the British Consul in Nukualofa, and traders in the kingdom have been permitted to import only a fraction of the manufac tured goods they were bringing in before the war. The third largest importer in Tonga is permitted to order only 7 per cent, of what he imported in the base year of 1939. That is why the wife of our Vavau friend cannot have a new dress There appears, however, to have been no such restrictions on the importation of foodstuffs from New Zealand and, con sequently, during these last years Ton gans have been spending much of their limited dollar wealth on Dominion butter and bacon, while New Zealanders at home were restricted on both.

It is said in Tonga that the Tongans have saved little of the money they earned during the war from New Zealand and

American Forces. Part of it went to pay back debts to the stores, part in taxes, and the rest to feed themselves. Not withstanding the fact that the Tongan can grow much of his food, he does buy some imported lines, and it is easy to understand why this would eat into the family income when one sees the exorbitant prices which are charged in Tonga for ordinary commodities.

Flour is £3O per ton, at least 100 per cent, more than in Sydney, where it is bought. Tea is 5/3 per pound; butter 2/10; and everything else is in proportion.

It could be said, then, that Tonga’s dollar prosperity went into Tongan stomachs, and certainly there is little indication in the kingdom to-day that it went any where else.

IT will be interesting to see the trend of affairs in Tonga in the next ten years.

To-day, there is nothing there for the European, and every indication that there never will be anything. That, per haps, is not important. But what of the native Tongan?

Certainly, he has gained what every native race is bent on gaining to-day— technical freedom and independence.

But is he greatly benefited thereby?

In all the other Pacific Territories there is young blood, with new ideas, bursting to do something in the new world. Many of those ideas are crazy, but they are ideas.

In Tonga, one is conscious, at once, that there is nothing of this budding en terprise. No one pines there to can coconut-cream, or grow rubber, or process candle-nuts, or go in for tourism, or start a cannery. Or if they do, they pine in silence. Although the radical-minded may hate to accept these facts, this apathy can be attributed to lack of Euro peans as much as to lack of Tongan

enterprise.

WHAT, then, do the Tongans intend for their kingdom? If freedom from European competition and inter ference is a goal in itself, then they have reached that already. To keep it a self contained little backwater seems to be the only discernible plan at present; but, whatever authority may say in Tonga, it is evident that the rank and file Tongans, in their avid desire for the ordinary pro ducts of a 20th century world, have al lowed their minds to wander some dis tance from mediaeval Polynesia.

A hungry world can find a use for Ton gan products at the moment. But when that world returns to normal, it is doubt ful if there will be much clamouring at the gates unless Tonga does something to attract attention for herself. The king dom at present has nothing distinctive to offer the world—nothing even for the tourist, who can get better in a hundred other places—and there are no indica tions that there are any plans afoot to alter the set-up.

The policy of sinking out of sight of a crazy world may have much to commend it. But it remains to be seen whether, in the ultimate wash-up, it will be a good or bad thing, or whether mental, com mercial and political stagnation is what the ordinary Tongan really desires for himself and those who come after him.— J.T.

Mrs. E. A. James, Miss Lorna James and Mrs. J. C. Goad left Sydney by the “Marella,” on November 22, for Port Moresby. Mr. E. A. James represents the Australian War Damage Commission in New Guinea, and Mr. Goad is on the staff of the Commission there.