MONEY, ROOT OF ALL EVIL

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5307, 21 January 1947, Page 7

MONEY, ROOT OF ALL EVIL

210 ISLAINlDERS SAY "TAKE IT AWAY." Money is the root of all evil. It is a flop. It is useless, ugly and a nuisance, and the ihabitants of Tristan da Cunha, Britain's islet speck in the South Atlantic, 2000 miles west of Capetown, say : "Take it way; take it away." In other words they have had it. And they ought to know because they gave it a three-year trial. Now they h'ave got rid of the stuff. They- saw m'oney for the first time in 1942 when a British naval party landed to erect a war-tim|e radiometeorological station and took ashore £3000 in English and South African currency to hire island lqbour. Patiently, politely, the islanders listened as an officer explained all about the coloured paper and pretty rounded pieces of metal, went on to uncover some of the mysteries of banking, and praised the delights of working hard to hoard piles of the new stuff. They were not impressed, but, for three years they humoured the visitors, accepted the stuff as payment instead of potatoes, and even carried it around in the pockets they need for knives and string and things that really matter. Last year all but a handful of the Men-Who-Use-Money sailed away. Very soon all the money was in the island's brand new Post Office Savings ) Bank (except a few pieces saved as war souvenirs) because that was what the Man-Who-Introduced-Money had told them to do. Now news comes from Tristan that having given the monetary system as practised, by the outer world a fair trial the islanders are •solid that it doesn't make sense. You can't eat it; it doesn't have roots, evil or good, so it won't grow; away with it! And, anyway, some of the other Men-Who-Use-Money had mentioned perils called income tax and other taxes (not to mefttion rates), which were known to follow money around. Tristan has gone back to her potato currency. Someone does a job for. you: right, you reward him with some potatoes, something to eat. A pre-war cruise-liner offered Ihe island ladies some face powder and lipstick. They accepted it wonderingly, and went on wondering- until someone explained that it was used by ladies in the outside world as bait because men were scarce. How the Tristan ladies laughed, because in this little "paradise" nature sees to it that there ai'e always more men than women