Progress In The Islands

The Areho, and Human Society

DURING the early years of the cen tury scientists became interested in the small shelled snail, the Areho, which inhabits the valleys and interior plateaus of Tahiti; because it was dis covered that this small gastropod is ad vancing through the stages of evolution more rapidly than any other known living creature.

Those who have resided in the Islands of the South Pacific during the last quarter of a century have witnessed a similar phenomenon in human society: the rapid evolution from the security and contentment of life on the land through the process of mechanisation, the crowding into the settlements, the rise and fall of economic cycles—to that most perfect flowering of modern civili sation, rival labour unions and the juris dictional strike.

Papeete has now a population of about 13,000 compared with 8000 before the war. This has followed the pattern— and the percentage as well —of the over crowding of industrial centres in the United States. The housing shortage has been the natural consequence of this migration.

Progress is a wonderful thing. We have seen its advance (in the Islands) through the stages of evolution at a speed rival ling that of the Areho.

Is it leading us to that “green hill far away,” or to some place where the vegetation is not so luxuriant and where there is a taint of brimstone in the air?

The study of the Areho by the scien tists has given us no clue.—Aß.

Accompanied by her two children, Mrs.

Ernest Slee returned to Port Moresby by air in January. Her husband is an Ad ministration official.