Up Front

with the Editor

As I keep saying, a yearly quota of Islanders should be allowed nto Australia to live. I have yet to see a good argument against it rom anybody, including the Commonwealth Government. There are, levertheless (and it should not detract from what I believe is the noral right of the Islanders to come) problems when Islanders go ibroad in significant numbers. I mean problems for the Islanders md the Islands rather than for the host country.

Auckland has the greatest concenratl ° n ° f immigrant Polynesians tside the Polynesian islands, but ight The n rea7 a nmblems e 1-“ wll ome in places like Wue and the look Islands, where a depleted work

is sjns£: S‘s i

The latest territory to be facing p £ r^ b -S m IS ’u° f a l ! places ’ le New Hebrides, where for some ;ars now the New Hebrideans have Jen hurrying off to New Caledonia • work. There are more jobs for Jtter money in the neighbouring ckel colony, and currently ther? ■e about 3,500 New Hebrideans ere.

A recent official study of the New ebridean expatriates made by a unbined team from the British and rench residencies in the New ebrides presents an interesting picre. It’s not exactly a nickel-plated e they lead there.

Fnr * p^KrX StanCC ’* 5° n l rai lT t 0 what

a^hfvp C nEt ethe . Hebri-

ans have not being going into New uedonia s nickel mines. Most of em are in the building industry 5 the study notes, “New Hebrians prefer to live in town where ijy can keep each other companv d to work in a team . . . life in the ines, being at once harder loner and less conducive to soci’al con 'ts, is unlikely to appeal to New jbrideans living in a strange counr« s range coun- This attitnHp , nlv me elv ’if not ply merely to New Hebrideans

working in New Caledonia, but to all expatriate islanders in any strange country. Hence group-living . The New Heb "deans in New Caie found the S £. u " d h t , hos f d “ n 8 heavy

r‘v f

saa:s£3

home permanently. That’s a total of somethin g like $2.4 million a year, . 1 g ,°°P ly v sbare of earnings is a * S ° spe . nt . ln New Caledonia on t?’ m , mai iy cases on housing.

Th e study found that while living 2 uarters P rovided b y the private £ rms ’ P artlculai "ly D. J. Gubbay and Co., were good, those who had to fi ? d their own accommodation were ? ften over e r owded and exploited, J," v f" 6 30 P e °Pl e lived, f Sl5 to a month each, same Property, six people P d 520 , a m P ntb to share an out house so low they couldn’t stand up m h. In another house sub-leased to a New Hebridean, 42 people shared seven rooms at a rental of $2O a month each, • , f ,9 n tbe qUestl °P- of hquor the comn ] ei l ts: There is evidence ™* a g °° d deal x f T hea y y drinkin e g S • 9, n am ong New Hebrideans, y u at , 'y, eekends ’ and in fact he N - e ui Hebndea P s have earned an anenviable reputation in this regard, ™ young man living in a strange P Untl 7 m slum conditions in an almost entirely male community, and w ? tb nothing in particular to do and ™ llh P lenty of mone y in his Pocket, is only too likely to succumb to the

temptations of Noumea’s numerousz bars and places of amusement . . . itJj is very difficult to see the solution too this problem.

Are the advantages worth it? In thee New Hebrides they have been debat-J ing the question, and some interestingg points are made by Mr. L. Tagaro inn a letter to the British Newsletter, Vila.!

“My observation,” he says, “is thath the New Hebridean exodus ten Noumea helps accelerate our social* evolution, some of which will cause; social problems. Nowadays you have’ no difficulty in identifying a nevw arrival from Noumea with his pair ot( fancy trousers, matching wide leathers belt, a Western cowboy leather jackets and a pair of sharp pointed shoesz What a contrast! What is more, somei actually act like Western cowboysz Beatlemania fans leave their hair anoi beards long. It is good to imitatof Western fashions, but consider the gaflj when you jump out of the Caravellel aircraft with your sharp-pointed shoes and a little while later sink them ini the mud in the ghost villages on thu islands.”

The ghost villages are what realM are troubling Mr. Tagaro, who res marks that “real income, not mone:s income” makes a family, a village oo a country rich. He goes on, “As see it, this is an agricultural countri with only limited commercial enten; prises. However, this does not meair that commerce cannot be further buili here. But can we really build up comr merce further if we keep on losino one of our main factors of production to Noumea? The factor is labour. Thir is coupled with another main facto of production land which lies idle witfj no one to cultivate it.

“We deprive our labour system bd letting all our able and strong mea go to Noumea. Whom do we expeos to grow surplus crops for sale in ttrl villages and towns or work the copn< and cocoa for our country’s expoiti Certainly not the old men, housewives schoolchildren or those already dof ing other services.

“Perhaps we should import Indian* to come and work our lands and in crease our real income and the couii try’s national exports. No use talkini about our lands and the economn exploitation by foreigners if we cair not learn how to use them ourselwv to our best advantage.”

He’s being ironic, of course. B f it’s an interesting thought. There maybe an opportunity in the Nes Hebrides for those thousands of Am tralian farmers forced off the lan* by the droughts and the fall in pm duce prices in recent years.

Stuart Inder