Cook Islands

No Paradise

In The

Letter to the Editor

'VTOUR interesting publication falls X sometimes by the wayside, over the Cook Islands. May I point :out: No Cook Islands tomato-grower ;can be found who last year got £4 :per 20 lb box—or even 3 - per lb, NZ breeds of cattle, much crossed ;over the years, thrive exceedingly .well here, and are good milk and beef producers. As in Fiji, no Zebu blood is needed, even to keep an official in a job.

The “farm” of 49 acres stands mostly on end, and has only about 112 acres good for experiments in cotton, ginger, coffee and peppers —the last of which grow wild —and they have all been tried by old time growers and found non-com mercial. Many, including officials, cannot see what they have got for some £3,000 of the NZ taxpayers’ money, allocated for agriculture.

According to the genial but ver- Dose Ross Walker, manager of the fruit monopoly, no start has been made on the cold store building, liter some 20 years’ gab-fest. Every one is “agreed in principle” from Cabinet down—but no one does mything.

Your correspondents seem shy of stating as cold facts that there still ire 62 lepers in Aitutaki: that the arge outer-islands passenger ser vice continues; and that the Island las hundreds of cases of yaws and luge sores, with which a lone NMP xas to battle among a recalcitrant >opulation without any adequate lospital or even good quarters for limself and his wife.

The horses at the Beachside races ire by no means longhaired or »oorly fed—quite the contrary. Your mknown correspondent knows nothi ng about horses, races, or the fun he crowd gets out of it all.

You would be surprised to know low fed up residents and some fficials are with the Planners’ wild

waste of good cash on £B,OOO houses • for officials), on lime and rock houses, and on God knows what, while there is no road-building, and very little being done to water in takes—a pipe shoved into a creek which cattle, pigs and dogs use, not always with parlour manners! PWD has been shifted 6 miles away from Avarua, the centre of trade and Government. It is an interesting process to get a few bolts or a couple of pounds of nails—by truck rated at 3 - per mile!

Scott, of Fiji, hit it on the head when he remarked that “newcomers and honourable birds of passage” didn’t know what they were talk ing about. Rarotonga applauds, hav ing some 40 or more of them doing,

badly, what 13 or so used to do, with success.

Both races are fed up. The CIPA- Commo organisation is by no means dead. An article in Auckland Star said: “If the minister is too busy to visit the Cook Islands, then he should give his job to someone who can.” Those sentiments get loud applause here.

I am etc.,

R. V. Hosking

Rarotonga.

April 7. 1953.

f; Mrs. Ella Maiming, a well-known resident of Honiara, BSIP, arrived in Sydney on a 2-months’ business visit on May 6.