"COMFORTS"

NZ Truth, Issue 1142, 20 October 1927, Page 4

"COMFORTS"

Do Solomon Islanders " Come First?

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Auekland Rep.) What must have been the feeling of many half-starved and out-of-work men and their weary, struggling wives, with ragged, ill* nourished kiddies around them, when one day recently there appeared, in a daily paper a picture of many huge cases piled upon a wharf at Auckland, which, the letterpress announced, comprised comforts for the Solomon Islanders, to be conveyed thence by a mission steamer? pOMFORTS for the Solomon Island- *•' ers, forsooth, while in this onetime bonny Dominion there are hundreds of starving or semi-starving people, who — let politicians and others say what they will — cannot get work or earn enough to keep body and soul together, let alone feed adequately the little ones who must some day grow to manhood and be looked to for loyal service to their country. It is years since we have heard of any dearth of foodstuffs in the Solomons, where nature is lavish in her bounties and a meal is to be obtained by reaching into a banana palm or climbing a coconut tree. If the comforts comprise clothing — more is the shame, for it is a wellknown fact that clothing has been the scourge of the Pacific Islanders, and this we believed was long since recognised by those who carry the gospel to our so-called heathen brothers. But think of the bitterness that must [ have been implanted in the hearts of : the less fortunate among us when that photograph was displayed depicting "comforts for the Solomon Islanders!" By all means let those who feel it their bounden duty and service to take the gospel into the spiritually darker places continue to do so, for there will ever be those who would prefer to earn a name with the glamor of a far-off land where social conditions do not entail the deep pondering that would be necessary among ourselves. Beneath the waving palms, within the blue lagoons, life has not the same complications, and mosquito-nets and quinine go a very long way towards mitigating the alleged hardships. But here at home the problems are too deep-rooted and too immediate to appeal; and so, while those of our own kith and kin beg for bread or the wherewithal to buy it, their indolent brown brothers are the recipients of "comforts." "Charity begins at home" is a maxim which would be well observed in such times. And was it not a missionary who said: "... The greatest of these is charity".?