Official Misrule And Growth of Unionism Cause Tension in Cook Islands

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26625, 22 November 1947, Page 8

Official Misrule And Growth of Unionism Cause Tension in Cook Islands

A recent message in the Daily Times stated that a delegation consisting of the president and secretary of the New Zealand Watersiders’ Union will visit the New Zealand Island Dependencies next year with the object of fostering trade unionism in the different groups. In the following article a special correspondent describes recent developments in the Cook Islands.

Written for the Daily Times by Edwin Gold, Mangaia.

The C.I.P.A.—Cook Islands Progressive Association—is very much in the news down here to-day. In the present stage of its influence, the association practically controls native public opinion in the group. A growth of recent origin, the association has great political power, and persons who under-rate this power are likely to fall into grave error. What produced and fostered the revolution (for such it is) against an order of things that had lasted some 25 years in this New Zealand dependency, is Worth noting by those who, unable to obtain citrus fruits in the South Island of New Zealand for so long, may be inclined to blame the “ new order ” —or, possibly, the Internal Marketing Department and the Administration. With a view to presenting the Cook Islands set-up for the southern reader’s analysis, I will give some of my own experiences of the 21 years of my life here as planter and “small” trader. These two decades may be summed up in the brief phrase, 21 years of trouble! I have lived under the rule of three resident agents of the New Zealand Government, and have not yet met the official with whom I could be sincerely friendly. Living under this one-man autarchy has been at times painful. I am not voicing a personal grievance, but am attempting to make clear some of the facts of a system which has caused some very serious injustices. Conditions of Unrest It is the conditions of one-man dictatorships that created the Cook Islands Progressive Association; that enable that unruly organisation to continue, and to foment, in the Cook Islands, labour and plantation troubles having their root in the discontent created by a state of official inefficiency.

bad interpretation, the insolent attitude of. some members, and the Minister’s total lack of realisation that the Cook Islands are not a contented community.

Low Living Conditions The actual daily fare of the islander is neither rich nor sufficient, save on the lucky days when fish are plentiful. I should like to put the Minister or visiting official in a flea-infested bare hut, feed him on stale dry taro and winkles, let him be rained-on whiffi working at high pressure on the orange plantations getting fruit ready for shipping (a week's work in hilly terrain and thick bush), for 9s, and, by way of climax, call up a lusty hurricane to rob him of even the hut, while the I.M.D. keeps him waiting three weeks (or more) for the nine shillings! Before that week was out he might do more (and worse) than pay his “ sub.” of 3s to join the C.I.P.A. which, although I may not agree with all it does, at least attempts to divest the Cook Islands of that infernal aura of sham romance with which, following Hawaiian example, the satellites of autocracy and big business have endeavoured to white-wash the present shortcomings. Such is the dismal but true portrait of Cook Islands life and society. Contrast it with the I.M.D. boast—specious enough if you are not in the territory —that the planter is “ getting more money now than ever before.” When the Government, through the 1.M.D., has given the Cook Islanders a spending capacity above their yearly expenses, so that there is something to put in the bank after providing for all the necessities of life; and when the people are properly housed, decently fed, provided for in Sickness, and assured of decent burial in olc| age, then it can boast of having done something. But to-day we have the poor with us; the old wither away, from neglect and poverty; there is great mortality in infancy; the sick starve because the normal activity that wins bread is impossible to them; and cyclones wipe away like cobwebs the dismal huts this poverty-stricken folk dwell in.

Here you have the seeds of actual, violent revolution in the Cook Islands. The natives are a mild and patient race, who endure hardships and injustices very philosophically—up to a point. Beyond that point, the fury of a patient people, unleashed by the influence of an organisation such as the C.I.P.A. and the information it disseminates of good times being experienced by the New Zealand Maori, might be disastrous. Let the authorities beware of goading the Rarotongan too far, or placing too many burdens upon the mild Mangaian. Labour Unions Trade unionism, another much-dis-cussed Cook Islands innovation, has arisen out of the low wages formerly paid to native day labourers. Even the most skilled carpenter, ironworker. etc., got only four shillings a day, and plantation labour, on the lower islands of the group, was paid as low as two. A further source of what is described here as " slave labour” were the “bush beer” convicts, male or female, who could be hired-out from prison for one shilling per half-day (this system has been abolished here at Mangaia, to the. regret of the prisoners, who used to enjoy working for a master who gave them breakfast before the work began, and did not drive them like the police who oversee the work of the gangs placed upon “ official ” tasks. All “ free ” labour m the Cook Islands now is determined on raising the rate of day wages. Carpenters demand 18s a day for a basic award rate, while land workers ask for at least five shillings per eight hours’ turn-to. In Rarotonga, strikes, holdups, and other forms of protest against low wage rates have resulted ihj increments, but—and here is the difficulty that spoils the best plans of union leaders —as soon as an increase is granted in wages an almost immediate reaction on the commodities and food market destroys the advantage the native worker has gained. The Cook Islander is sadly bemused to behold these phenomena of inflation, familiar enough to dwellers in New Zealand cities; to him, a gain is a gain, and die does not expect it to prove but an “Irishman’s rise.” Here lies a danger: the simple and uneducated islander may, under the disappointment of such a false gain, come to the conclusion that he has been deceived, and turn against every European in the group. Royal Commission Needed There are so many sides to the Cook Island labour problem that nothing less than a Royal Commission, and the decision of that body to get rid of a large number of the present administration staff, could settle the prevailing tense situation. This writer takes no sides: I will, however, commit myself to the extent of saying that I think the administration is keeping some people, who should be in the Cook Island service, out of it, while many totally unsuitable men, who would be better back in New Zealand, misrule thenvarious bailiwicks. The Cook Island situation, although extremely delicate, is not hopeless. The putting out of the “limpets” of our local Government, and the employment of men neither “ anti-native ” nor “ big business ” might result in the conveyance to the Islands Department of a truer picture of the prevailing conditions Visiting Ministers and Secretaries for Island Affairs might see (and hear) something more of Cook Island life than a pork dinner,a hula dance of welcome, set and sycophantic speeches by orators who know what will please and what will not. I know that the New Zealand Government takes nQ very kind view of the C.1.P.A.: this, I fear, is due to,

But when the Minister calls, the pigs that you never see at daily dinner are cooked and the Honohollywood hula girls dance—for the Cook Islands are “ more prosperous,” under a Socialist State control, “ than they ever were before in their history! ” But—are they?