Tahiti Closed

Significant Act Likely to Protect Peoples of Polynesia

Prom Our Own Correspondent

Papeete, Feb. 1.

WHILE there is no official announce ment on the subject, it is generally understood that the islands of French Oceania have been closed against all visitors or settlement from abroad.

The sole exception is the port of Papeete. Papeete, being the port-of-call for the Colony will, of course, remain open to visitors. But even there —I am informed —passengers and crews of pass ing ships will be allowed ashore only until their ship is ready to sail; when all must depart with the vessel.

A number of people I know tell me that they have had to write friends and relatives (in the States and elsewhere) who had planned a visit to Tahiti, to give up any thought of coming to these South Seas, for a long time in the future.

In the first place, even should they be able to wangle permission to tarry on Tahiti (which they could not), there would be no place for them to lodge. The hous ing shortage is so serious that the prob lem of where to shelter any newcomers is, at present, beyond solution.

Old residents in the South Pacific have foreseen this isolation of the Polynesian islands as inevitable. A repetition of the notorious 1920 decade would not only threaten the annihilation of the Poly nesian race (as has happened in Hawaii), but would degrade white man’s prestige.

The United States Navy—which is a “hard-boiled,” realistic institution—was the first to put into force a policy of isolation at American Samoa.

It is the opinion of this writer that all Pacific archipelagoes (save only ports-of call, such as Apia, Pago-Pago, Papeete, etc.) will eventually be closed tight against visit or settlement. The trustees, on whom rests the responsibility, owe this protection to the Polynesian people.