Lonely Islanders Without Much-Needed Ship

Chronicle (Levin), 16 August 1949, Page 6

Lonely Islanders Without Much-Needed Ship

• AUCKLAND, August 18. The Government is searching the world for a small ship which can be bought or chartered to maintain comniunications with the Tokelau Islands, New Zealand 's most remote depondency. No vessel is at present available to link the three inhabited atolls of the group with th'e nearest Euro|>ean civilisation in BamOa, 300 niiles away. Lying a few degrejs squth of the equator, the Tokelaus. are the loneliestand most primitive o¥ island possessions under New Zealand administration. Thirteen hundred pqople live on the three atolls of Fakaofo, Nukunono and ^.tafu, existing on a staple diet of lisli, ?oconuts and breadfruit supplemented by a rare dish of pork or chicken. Only recently they have learned with suspicion that eggs too can be used as food. There is no running water but if the rain wrater eisterns are dry, the islanders fall back on an inexhaustible store of coconut milk. Ships of the Royal New Zealand Navy call at the islands once a year and for a time a small vessel of the landing craft type was sent to the group from Apia once or twice a year. This service was abandoned two or three montlis ago. The islanders fear that there may be no means of marketing their copra crop. Except for Tokelau postage stamps which sell profitably to collectors, they depend solely 011 earnings from eopra exports to buy their few imported requirements. A Boman Catholic missionary, Father Alec McDonald, formerly of Wanganui, is the only European living in the Tokelaus. He is in radio contact with Apia in Western Europe but on at least one occasion a fault in the equipment left him without communication with the outside wrorld for three months. In addition to its efforts ,to secure a ship which can serve the Tokelaus, the Island Territories Department has acquired the auxiliary ke.tch Ranui as an aduiinistratipn vessel in the Cook Islands. Formerly used by the Public Works Department, the Ranui will be sent to her new base at Rarotonga when she has c-ompleted refitting ai the Devonport naval dockyard.