The Press THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3,1966. Future Of Nauru

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30975, 3 February 1966, Page 12

The Press THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3,1966. Future Of Nauru

It will be 25 years before the phosphate deposits on the Pacific island of Nauru are worked out, but already the debate on the final settlement of the native population of Nauru is approaching a peak. The Nauruans are rapidly assuming a greater political sophistication and they are aware that they are properly within their rights to demand adequate compensation in some permanent form for the virtual exportation of their homeland. In almost exactly similar circumstances the Banabans of Ocean Island were successfully resettled in the Fiji group. A scheme to resettle the Nauruans on an island off the Queensland coast did not, however, prosper and the Nauruans turned back to the rehabilitation of their island. An expert committee is now to study the feasibility of taking soil to Nauru to replace the worked-out phosphate. The charm of this proposal is its simplicity, the drawback its huge cost.

The proposal i.« bring the mined lands back into agricultural production by backloading soil on the phosphate ships which otherwise travel to Nauru in ballast is not a new idea. Since it had already been agreed that some Nauruans would always wish to remain on the island permanently, some rehabilitation has always been envisaged by the Nauruans. But it would be going much further to ensure that the entire Nauruan community—at present more than 2500 and increasing annually—could secure a reasonably economic life on the island: and this is what the investigating committee must closely consider. The committee must, of course, establish whether rehabilitation is technically feasible —that is, whether the porous coral rock will hold soil permanently. Large-scale rehabilitation has been regarded in theory as prohibitively costly, but what is now required are coolly assessed financial facts. Against the cost of rehabilitation must be set off the equally daunting cost of resettlement elsewhere, which is the only other alternative. The Nauruans hold their national identity to be the main premise in any resettlement. The best way to assure this is to make it possible for them to remain on their island, and they are prepared to spend a high proportion of their considerable resources to be left as they are.

Nauru is no jewel of the tropic seas. On a narrow belt around the island, 150 to 300 yards wide, pandanus and coconut palms grow, and inland, around a lagoon in the south-west corner, some fertile land gives room to bananas, pineapples and other fruit and vegetables. Rainfall is very variable, and '.ue soil is too porous to hold moisture. Fish are not always very plentiful close to the island, and stormy seas often prevent small boats from venturing out beyond the reef, but the lagoon is used for fish farming. This somewhat unfavoured land is, nevertheless, the ancestral home of the Nauruans and there will be no happier answer to their future than one which leaves them in possession of their island. Costs are still the greatest unknown factor, and for these the expert committee’s report must be awaited. New Zealand has been the second market (after Australia) for Nauru’s phosphate exports for more than 40 years, accounting for 25 per cent to 30 per cent of the island’s output in recent years. Our farm lands and oui export-based economy have benefited to the extent of many millions of pounds from the application of phosphatic fertilisers, mostly from Nauru. There is more than a suspicion that New Zealand has never been charged the ruling world price for its supplies from Nauru, and there is plainly a moral obligation on New Zealand to contribute towards the rehabilitation of the inhabitants of the island. An undertaking by our Government to pay its due share of whatever rehabilitation scheme is decided on is due to the Nauruans. A statement to this effect would, incidentally, forestall any accusations of exploitation by New Zealand of one of the world’s smallest nations.