Islands
p. 44 · Read in the full issue
Frustration In The Cook
MR. W. B. JACKSON, lecturer in Geography at Auckland University College spent six weeks in Rarotonga at the end of 1950 making a “pilot survey’’ for a Ph.D thesis. On his return to NZ he said that the Cook Islands were a forgotten frontier.
No ship had called at Rarotonga between August and November, he said. Flour and bacon supplies ran out; meat and dairy products were very scarce and eggs were 5/- per dozen.
Although the Cook Islands had formerly produced large quantities of bananas, tomatoes and oranges for export, exports are now very small owing to the fact that native growers in the past have seen too many of their crops rot on the trees through lack of ships to lift them.
The natives, now, Mr. Johnston said, have nothing but a feeling of frustration regarding fruit growing and have turned to wage-earning, either in the Cook Islands, or, if they can get away, at Makatea, the French phosphate island, or in New Zealand.