Dr Fox on the Solomons’

future

As the Solomon Islands this month accede to politi cal independence, it is interesting to recall some facets of Dr Fox’s view of their future, as expressed in his book Kakamora.

The veteran missionary wrote: “The Solomon Islanders are, and always have been, a race of small farmers. They have always been devoted to their land and taken pride in working their small farms. But they have worked them by primitive methods, the digging stick, not the plough ... The new self-supporting Church Association movement, though only at the beginning, has great future possibilities, not least be cause it originated with one of themselves, and has been worked out along Melanesian and original lines.

The plan is for each island to have one or more of these church farms, leasing the land from their own people, paying their own people to run them and work them in their own way, but using better methods than in the past, and so spreading a knowledge of these bet ter ways to every village on the island, and to every individual farm. They are growing new crops: rice, cocoa, and other things, hoping the villagers will follow suit, so that all will have more food and more variety than they had before, and that they will be able to sell their produce and so have more money than they once had for their needs. On their farms they hope to have cattle and poultry, to get hullers for the rice they grow, and some day tractors and such things to work their land. They will also, it is hoped, develop other indus tries ...

“Given medical and agricultural help, the Solomon Islands people can be saved. But not by big schemes, nor by spending a lot of money. They can work out their own salvation, and it is better that they should ...”