The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, JULY 6, 1914. NORFOLK ISLAND.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 63, 6 July 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, JULY 6, 1914. NORFOLK ISLAND.

July the first of this year was a day of note for the residents of Norfolk Island, for on that date the long cherished desire to ho placed under the control of the Australian Commonwealth Government was realised. Originally a convict settlement, it became a. whaling station, and once again a convict island. Finally the descendants of John Adams and the mutineers of the Bounty, became the inhabitants and have held the island over since. It is a tiny spot, about five miles long and three miles wide, over nine hundred miles from Sydney, and about four hundred miles from New Zealand. In 1788 it was first colonized by convicts sent from New South Wales. In 1806 the penal station

was abandoned, and for ovor twenty years the island was used as a whaling station. From 1826 to 1855 it was again used as a convict settlement, and became a perfect sink of iniquity. In the last-mentioned year the convicts were withdrawn, and a few months later the descendants of the Bounty mutineers who for sixty-five years had lived on Pitcairn Island, were removed on hoard the ship “Morayshire” to Norfolk Island, the little community consisting of ninetyfour males and ninety-nine females. It is their descendants who occupy the island to-day. The reasons for desiring direct control by the Commonwealth are that the administration has been very lax, steamer communication most erratic, and the islanders have had practically no outlet for their produce. Last year a petition was forwarded to the Commonwealth Government asking it to take over the island, failing which it was suggested an appeal should he made for New Zealand to assume control. The Norfolk Islanders are quiet, peaceable people, but inter-marriage, me easy life, and the almost perfect climate, have tended to degenerate the people, both mentally and physically. The total population to-day is something under one thousand.