The Less Gloomy Side of the
pp. 61-63 · Read in the full issue
Editorial Note The Less Gloomy Side of the Picture
OUR contributor maybe is unduly pessi mistic. He lays too much emphasis on the decrease in native popula tion.
Every Central Pacific race, without ex
ception, decreased rapidly in numbers in the two or three generations immediately following its impact with Europeans; and every one, without exception, recovered, and is now showing a steady and satis factory natural increase. This applies to all the Polynesian and Micronesian races —the Maoris (New Zealand), Cook Islanders, Fijians, Samoans, Tongans, Gil bertese, Nauruans.
It does not yet apply to the Mela nesians, simply because the New Hebrides, Solomons, Bismarck Islands and New Guinea races—especially the latter—have been a comparatively short time under European influence, and have not yet turned the corner. Mr. Osborne’s coastal Papuans have had only 30 or 40 years of “Europeanisation.” In another 30 or 40 years they probably will be making, in a racial sense, a good recovery.
It is true that Papua offers very poor prospects for most of the industries familiar to Islanders. But Mr. Osborne overlooks oil. If oil is found in Papua in marketable quantities—and all the signs and portents are in its favour—Papua, from being a veritable Cinderella, will be come one of the Pacific’s richest Terri tories.