GENEROUS NATIVES

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 84, 5 October 1940, Page 9

GENEROUS NATIVES

WAR GIFT FROM TINY

COMMUNITY

Recording the gift of £100 towards I the Western Samoan War Effort from i Fakaofu, in the Tokelau Islands, the : Samoan correspondent of the United r Press Association states: "The money I comes from a small community of - about 575, all Polynesians akin to the 1 Samoans. There is no European in I the wrole group. The Tokelau Islands are three atoll rings of coral islands, never more than eight feet above sea level, and with about 1200 ! inhabitants in all. They have been j British since 1916, and in 1925 the j oversight of their administration was | transferred to the authorities in | Western Samoa. The highest local i officials are the three native ' magistrates and a native medical ! practitioner; they are visited for a few • j hours once a year by a European | official from Samoa, j "The only staple item of trade is | coconuts, and the quantity available is !so small that shipping connection has j always been precarious. At the [ present time, the islanders . have had f I 'only one visit of a trading vessel in I I! nearly two years, and are on diet, |' comprised entirely, of local foodstuffs, \ which seldom varies from coconuts J I and fish. Long acquaintance with j privation has made them a frugal I people, and they are remarkable for, [the manner in which they; have ac-{

cumulated Post Office savings accounts in Samoa, one or two amounts being quite large but the others mostly small, and almost every Tokelau household has ready cash stored away to meet emergencies. It is from their accumulated funds in Apia that the gift of £100 to war purposes, has been made. At.the same time they have made gifts -of £11 to-the. Ked Cross {Society," ; '