Another Important Book About New

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Another Important Book About New Caledonia

7 CALEDONIA came of age iring the last war when the •pulace took matters into its hands—certainly with some ilian economic and naval ig—and rallied Free France; protesting, with much the unanimity, against the high and and oppressive rule of al de Gaulle’s envoy, George y d’Argenlieu. se events showed that a a colony had arisen in the ; with a mind and an in ality of its own, a country later than Australia had suc ly exorcised the memories of let past. The simple-hearted aurageous ex-Governor Henri in his book, Grandeur et mce du Gaullisme dans le me, which was published in irne after the war’s end, ined the new outlook of a y facing up to itself, and at jady to demand, within the i Union, a more liberal re of self-government, island’s new sense of a

worthier destiny was again stressed by the celebrations in 1953 of the centenary of French occupation.

A Centenary Committee in Paris then set about sponsoring a number of important publications which since that year have been issued from time to time by the Paris press.

Jean Mariotti’s, Nouvelle Caledonie, the book of the Centenary year, has been followed by Pere Patrick O’Reilly’s two indispensable volumes of biographical and bibliographical researches to which PIM has already drawn attention, and by Yves Person’s La Nouvelle Caledonie et VEurope, which I have not yet read, though I am told it is very good.

The latest of these centenary publications to reach Sydney is the Geographic de la Nouvelle Caledonie, published in Paris last year, the Noumea price of which is 360 SP francs.

It is the work of Dr. J. P. Faive, with the collaboration of Professor J. Poirier, of the Ecole National of Overseas France, and Pierre

Routhier, a lecturer at the Sorbonne, who was formerly head of a geological mission to New Caledonia (1946-49). It is likely to be a standard work on the island for many years, since the only geographies issued in the past are inadequate and long outdated.

The new geography treats

authoritatively of the geological build-up of an island now known to be one of the most mineralogic ally rich in the world, a fact that must make it the envy of other Pacific areas; it gives a good idea of the flora and fauna, unique to an unusual degree, as every naturalist who has visited the country has reported; and it con tributes a valuable historical review of what has taken place historically from the days of Captain Cook and the French explorers down to the present day.

In these chapters space is found for an appreciation of the work of the pioneers: Paddon, the first trader and cattle-man, and Higgin son and Lucien Bernheim, early “kings” respectively of nickel and chrome; also of the most notable of the Governors, Guillain in early days: Paul Feillet, in whose day penal transportation made way for Asiatic labour; and Joseph Guyon, whose energetic schemes in the later 1920’s were unhappily frus trated by the self-interest, timidity, and laisser-faire attitude of an all too isolated community.

Such unhappy tendencies are still at work, yet New Caledonia is a more alive place to-day than it was before the war, as its mining potentialities in particular are be coming realised —and mechanised, thanks to the chronic shortage of labour.

One therefore turns with special interest to the remaining sections of this useful book, those which cover mineral resources, and lesser resources which come under the heading of agriculture, cattle raising, and fisheries—activities, these last, with which the pros perity of the native Melanesian population as well as of the “colons” is closely bound up.

As well as illustrations of mines, and Noumea, and the Tontouta air field, there are useful diagrams

showing imports and exports, I rise and fall and rise again of t population since transportati ended in 1897, weather charts, ai in an appendix, lists showing oji put over the years of nickel, chror iron, cobalt, manganese, copp lead and zinc, gold and coal, thou the two last-named never amoum to very much.

Here are statistics of value 1 the business world.

Such matters apart, one is g* to find the authors, in the chapt

give them scope, showing less of the uniqueness and ■ of the largest island in the an island of striking ains, and (where it has not iestroyed by fire, the mining nies and the timber people) iting bush, and with a barrier stem rivalling that of Queens nth, in the atoll perfection of iyalty island of Ouvea, some

of which Queensland’s Great

r Reef is unable to boast, t is also a pleasure to find h. a book as this is a tribute ew Caledonia’s two best s, the late Georges Baudoux xpensive illustrated “centenary ” of whose works, as well as iper edition, have now been in Paris—and Jean Mariotti, as several fascinating volumes ive life “in the olden time’’ credit, volumes for which he known in the contemporary

literary world.