Recovery In The Gilberts
p. 58 · Read in the full issue
ACCORDING to Sir Garrick Robertson, of Auckland, NZ, the old Island trader is now a thing of the past in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.
Sir Garrick recently spent several weeks on Bairiki, Tarawa. All imports and ex ports, he said, were arranged through native co-operatives.
Last year, a handicraft co-operative was formed; it had already exported mats, fans, baskets, etc., to the value of £2,000.
The islanders were anxious to increase this trade particularly with NZ.
Response to Britain’s need for fats had been good. They had contracted to supply 6,000 tons of copra in the current year.
There were still many signs of war on Tarawa—particularly at Betio islet, where the Americans had landed in 1943.
But coconut trees planted to replace those destroyed during the Japanese occupation and subsequent fighting, were already from six to eight feet high.
Miss Dorothea Henslow, who visited Brisbane recently to give talks on New Guinea for the Australian Board of Missions, said that the war had deepened natives’ faith in Christianity. Former members had rejoined the missions, and in some places groups of 500 non- Christian natives had asked for mission privileges. More personnel and more money were needed to extend the work.