An Analysis By An

Cook Islands'

Troubles

An Analysis By An Old Resident

Letter to the Editor COMPARING the PIM version of recent disturbances in Rarotonga with native eye-witness reports by reliable individuals, one wonders if your reporters on the spot have given the whole pic ture.

I do not think that “dumping Albert Henry in the lagoon” would materially improve the situation. Although Com munist-inspired propaganda may have reached this Group—l’ve never seen any —the grievances go deeper than any mere sudden rush of “isms” to the Cl head. An unbiassed observer sees the following faults; — The CIPA is too militant and insuf ficiently intellectual. It aims at reform; but the means taken to get reform are too crude and insolent to do anything but prejudice the person from whom better conditions are demanded.

Native living conditions are in dubitably bad; standards are low, poverty great. But if increases in income are simply followed, as is so far the case, by corresponding rises in the price of goods, there is no real benefit even when the CIPA gains a point. This should be ex amined, for the inflationary trend of the present has deadly possibilities. I seri ously believe that folk were better off, practically speaking, when oranges were 2/6 a case, than they are to-day at 11/-.

I am inclined to agree, within limits, that removal of non-Rarotongans from Rarotonga to their own home islands might be a good plan. But the important point is that they shouldn’t have been allowed to travel so easily to Rarotonga in the first place. As for the exodus to NZ, I consider it folly on the part of those responsible for its introduction. In time it will quite upset the balance of the Rarotonga population. The excuse of war-time necessity does not now pre vail. New Zealand can do without Islands labour when its own at last come to their senses and decide to work again in the factories** Conditions on the Makatea prosphate fields were at first not good, but the im provements since made—largely by the good efforts of the benevolent and maligned altruist. Major Ward —have altered the set-up radically, and Cl natives cannot be said to be “enslaved” — they go there because it suits them.

NEITHER Albert Henry nor Mr. Ward may be fairly described as trouble making “birds of passage.” Albert is of Aitutaki descent, and he possesses full rights as a Cl Polynesian. I have known him for twenty-two years. Major Ward is a wealthy European—l met him once— whose interest in Cl affairs is purely the result of a trip to the group, upon which he met and talked with discontented natives —more particularly veterans of the first World War, who, disabled or ill, had up to then been pensionless. They get money now for their disabilities — thanks to the “wicked,” “interfering”

Major! I have not seen any reference to that in Rev. J. Cormack’s article.

The Cl situation is not simple. There is so much of right on both sides, there are so many abuses needing immediate re form. that what is really needed is a Royal Commission. rpHE “trade union” idea, put forward J. both by the CIPA and the moderates, could not work successfully upon any island but Rarotonga. At Mangaia,

for instance, there is no “employer class”; and the few Europeans here, compelled by Union interests to pay exorbitant rates for field or building labour, would just let the project intended lapse, if it proved expensive beyond reason.

Upon this island of Mangaia, where every native has his own land and home, conditions do not call for as high a wage rate as in Rarotonga, where many have no permanent abode and depend upon working for a white man or company to live. To apply a “blanket” union rate, and to turn every white man desirous of employing natives on a job into an “ex ploiter” (to be well and truly soaked by the unionists!) is sheer absurdity in a community where the white population may total four or five in all.

Centralisation of native labour control in Rarotonga, and the creation there of arbitrary conditions affecting the whole Group, would be a major error. This writer was surprised to hear of Mani hikians getting 6/- a day (plus meals) for working the schooner. It looks good pay to me; the demand for eight shill ings, on such a poor and isolated island, would be regarded by Mangaians as ex cessive (I refer to the average man, not our Red Feds). In spite of the rise in expenses, six shillings a day in the Cooks is equal to a pound a day in Sydney.

I was also interested to note the re marks re “anti-European sentiments”

among the Polynesian population. The most anti-European Maori that I am acquainted with is my wife! But her antipathy to a certain type of haughty “haw-haw” is not founded on racial pre judice. We have been belittled, and even

actually insulted at times, by unpleasant whites. So what?

I am, etc.,

E.G.

Cook Islands, 20/4/48.

Recently the French authorities at Tontouta airfield confiscated a sum of £3O Australian and 40,082 US dollars (representing over two million francs) which was being taken out of the country by an Australian building contractor who had been engaged on construction work in Noumea. The position of Australians who contract to do work in New Cale donia needs clarifying as it is hardly con ceivable that Australians would go to the French colony to work for francs which they are unable to convert on returning to their own country.