SUNDAY ISLAND.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 253, 6 August 1937, Page 7

SUNDAY ISLAND.

THE RETURNED SETTLERS. INTERVIEW WITH MINISTER. % (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, August 5. The return to New Zealand on the Maui Pomare of the dissatisfied settlers from Sunday Island, and the statements made by the men, were referred to to-day by the Acting-Minister lor External Affairs (the Hon. F. Langstone). after he had a conference with them. “The information supplied by the settlers,” said the Minister, “confirms in no uncertain manner my impression that any attempt to settle the island is merely a process of collecting money from a few who will always bo found to respond to the allurements of an island home in the Pacific. There may be such island homes, but they arei not to bo found at Sunday Island. “I sincerely hope that we have heam the last of these ineffective efforts to settle the small area of freehold land on this island. Not only wore the men unable to sustain themselves decently and were forced by circumstances to appeal to the Government to take them back to the mainland, but they arrived in this country practically destitute. They had to be succoured by the Smith Family organisation pending employment being found for them through the Government placement officials at Wellington. “No doubt denouements of tlie kind have their uses, and 1 am hopeful, as a result of the publicity given to this one, that no other members of our community will be carried away by alluring, pen-pictures, painted by prospectuses or by agents, to spend their savings on what lias been proved to bei a fools’ paradise.”