YOUTHFUL COLONY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 158, 4 June 1940, Page 6

YOUTHFUL COLONY.

THE GILBERT ISLANDS. WORK OF MISSION. An outline of missionary work in one of the most .remote and youngest colonies of the British Empire, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, was given to the “Manawatu Standard” by Rev. G. H. Eastman,' of the London Missionary Society, who has been stationed for 22 years-in the Gilbert Group and is at x present visiting Palmerston North. Coral atolls and sandbanks, the islands appear as dots on the map, said Mr Eastman, but some of the atolls encompass lagoons as much as 40 miles , long by 15 miles wide. Until the latter part of the last century the people were all pagan and undertook inter-island or inter-tribal fights, Mr Eastman proceeded. Now, they are much more peaceable, .and under the,, influence of' the Gospel and the British Government, ,as expressed by the British Colonial Office, are loyal and law-abiding people of the Empire. The coconut palm and the pandanus (or screwpine) are the only trees which grow in profusion oh 1 the islands, and the natives have-a hard struggle for existence. Formerly the people were worshinpers of fetishes—blocks of coral or sticks of wood decorated with feathers. Sorcerers, or fetish priests, had great influence among the islanders but. while there are still remnants of this fetish worship, Christianity is winning its way to the hearts of the people.

Ocean Island and Nauru Island are also in the district for which Mr Eastman and liis colleagues are responsible. Sir Albert Ellis, of Auckland, the New Zealand Commissioner of the British Phosphate Commission, is a good friend of the London Missionary Society and takes much interest in the religious work done among • the Gilbertese labourers working the phosphates, on Ocean Island, proceeded the visitor. At Beru, on the Island of Rongorongo, the society has a large central institution (of which Mr Eastman ,is the principal) and situated there is a high school for boys (taking up to 100, or more) and for girls (taking 70 pupils), with a training college for native pastors and their wives. These pastors are appointed to villages throughout the group and establish'churches and village schools. The British Colonial .Government is interested in the education of the natives and co-operates with the Missionary Society in the development of this work.

Mr Eastman mentioned that flic society’s missionary schooner, the John Williams Vi, which is based on Suva, Fiji, is maintained by contributions from the children of Sunday schools of the Congregational Churches in Great Britain and the colonies.

Gilbert Islanders are now populating the Phoenix Group, said Mr Eastman. A number have been established in the Phoenix Islands and are planting coconut palms with the view that in a few years the islands will be able to support a much larger population. Three islands of the Phoenix Group may probably become more productive than those of the GilbertGroup. The latter, although small, are of considerable value to the British Empire because of their strategical importance as a “frontier” to the British possessions in the Pacific; and the phosphate deposits on Ocean Island and Nauru Island are extremely valuable also to Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

Formerly Nauru Island was a German possession but is now a mandated territory under the British Empire, said Mr Eastman. The Gilbert Islanders, once warring tribes, now live in peace and are most loyal to the Empire. Many of the young men have offered their services in defence of the Empire should these be required. The people of Ocean Island, who are, comparatively speaking, well-to-do on account of the royalties gained on the phosphate mined there, have made a gift of £IO,OOO to the Imperial funds.