It’s Not So Heavenly In Heaven

When American writer James A. Michener wrote his book “Return to Paradise” in 1950, the word he used to describe the Cook Islands was “heavenly”.

But it’s one thing to visit heaven and another thing to live there — and if you live there, heaven is not so heavenly , ’j, a ’ er a ’

This, at any rate, was more or less the burden of a speech which the Non. Parua Ariki, member for Atiu in the Cook Islands Legislative Assembly, made to the Assembly recently on the subject of education.

He said the Cook Islands had lost 33 school teachers to New Zealand in the previous six months, and that the situa tion was both acute and alarm ing.

“Many reasons have been

given ” he said, “as to why the teachers leave—big money, to be able to own a good home later in the Cook Islands, to live a life of comparative luxury, etc. . "f u < th \ problem seems to boil down to one unless fe Islands can provide and conditions similar to New Zealand, there seems no way to stop them and the position will get worse and worse.

“Imported officers do not want to come down here unless are supplied with good homes, good pay and good working conditions. Cook Islanders desire the same things.

“But there is not enough to satisfy them in the Cook Islands, neither pay. homes nor conditions of which they can be proud.”