The Temptation Of The

Pacific’S Idle Land

THE latest Cook Islands annual report shows that of the 57,000 acres of land in the Group, 35,000 acres are suitable for culti vation of some kind, yet over 15,000 acres of this lies idle.

Reasons why this land is idle are lack of any economic pressure forc ing the occupiers to make use of it and legal difficulties preventing others from leasing it.

The native Land Court in the Cooks is gradually dealing with such land as it is surveyed, but at the present rate it will be many years before the titles are settled.

With Pacific Islands populations increasing at a great rate it is obvi ous that the day is not far off when there will have to be an answer to the question of whether the occupiers of such land are entitled to hold it merely because their ancestors possessed it. Clearly they are eventually going to have to use it for themselves for produc ing food for others, or have it taken away from them by force of num bers by some alien people.

In Fiji, it is regarded as sacrilege to speculate in public as to how many millions of Japanese, Chinese or Indonesians could make a com fortable living according to their own standards, on the land that

lies idle in that Group.

Jps.