UNTOLD WEALTH

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 135, 4 December 1929, Page 13

UNTOLD WEALTH

PHOSPHATES OF NAURU

LIFE, IN THE ISLANDS

(By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post.") ] AUCKLAND, This Day. I Fifteen years' continuous service in the. Gilbert and Ellice Islands, stands to the credit of Mr. A. 3T. Grimble, Resident Commissioner, who arrived at Auckland by the Maungauui on his way back from a year's leave.

Mr. Grimblo started as a cadet in the Administration just before the war, | and now, while still a young man, he is at the head. His headquarters are at Ocean Island, a little patch of land fabulously wealthy by virtue of its phosphate deposits, and even in a community which contains only 100 white people, ho finds life full of interest. In Nauru and Ocean Islands the surface of the phosphate deposits has hardly been scratched, Mr. Grimble said. Improvements recently made to the shipping and storing facilities will allow the export of 400,000 tons of phosphate annually from Ocean Island, but at the contemplated rate of export there is enough phosphate for another 100 years.

"The phosphate deposits are -worked by equal numbers, of Gilbert Islanders and Chinese, about 1500 all told," said ■Mr.. Griuible. "There has been a considerable improvement in their relations, and we do not have to cope with any labour troubles. In the whole colony there are 40,000 natives and 150 Europeans. Of the Europeans about 40 are scattered round the Lagoon Islands, mostly Missionaries." Mr. Grimble admitted that living conditions were not all that they might be. There was plenty'of fish and poultry, but fresh vegetables were an unheard-of luxury. Tinned goods were the staple diet. Indeed, the trail of the empty tin was marked all over the islands. Communication, too, was difficult, but a 150-ton dispatch vessel had been ordered and would be put into commission shortly.

INTERESTING NATIVES. "I have become very much interested in ethnological studies in the group," Mr. Grimble said. "I have been doing fairly comprehensive work, and hope to bring out a book on the subject of the immigration of the native races from the East Indies to the Islands of the Polynesian Group. Tho Gilbert Islanders are very much akin to the Maoris. They have preserved the traditions of the old Hawanki days in the names of their ancestors, and these ancestral names have also been preserved by the Barotongans and the Maoris. They have exactly the same tale about beine driven from Hawaiiki by tribal dissensions, and there are many other points of similarity which are of great interest. ■ ...

The natives havo developed the cult of ancestor as one of their peculiar tribal customs. They keep the skull 'of an ancestor and treat it just as they would a human being, placing food before it, speaking to it, aud since the coming of the- white man. even providing it with tobacco." The major difficulty i n the administration of the gronp was the clearing up of 64,000 land disputes among thl natives, Mr. Grimbie continued. So far. approximately 20,000 had been settled The land customs were very involved, and varied ou each island. In a conference for the settlement of a dispute the natives would argue for hours, even days if they were allowed. One point about the Gilbert Islands that is not generally known is that marvellous sea fishing can be obtained there, 5 Mr. Grimblo said. "Shark, spearfish, boneta, and trevalli are found *n Profusion. They are great fighting nsh, and although wo are very isolated at present, thcro is every indication that a fine doepsea fishing ground could be developed in the islands." Mr. Grimble will remain in Auckland tor a few days, and will sail for Ocean Island by the first phosphate steamer