MINISTER SUPPORTED

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 459, 17 June 1937, Page 6

MINISTER SUPPORTED

THE SUNDAY ISLAND SCHEME Ship’s Officer’s Views Frees Association —Copyright. Auckland, June 16. “He’s dead right.” In these words Mr F. A, Wilson, formerly chief officer of the Hinemoa, and a frequent visitor ito Sunday Island, summed up the recent warning issued by tue Minister of Lunds (the Hon* F. Langstone) to intending settlers. “The whole thing is hazardous and there is little hope of anyone making a do out of it.” A phenomenal undertow and surf ranging round the major portion of the island made ship-to-shore communicU.tion always dangerous. Although there was a good anchorage in Denham Bay, a precipitous' range of volcanic rock ha'd to be surmounted to reach the fertile land, which whs only about 300 acres in extent, and on the other side of the island. The party of Messrs Parker, Asquith and Bacon, who sailed to the island in the same ship as Mr Wilson, spent a week in crossing the range to Fleetwood Bluff, end (then they had to leave some of their heavier gear behind. “No company with less than £500,000 capital could ever hope to provide the necessary facilities over the 'territory,” he said. The return for the money involved would be a mere fraction.

“As for using overhead gear from a large auxiliary schooner, as suggested, it is ridiculous. For one thing, the ship would have ,to stand well off the island, and with the rolling of ithe sett it would not work. Not for fruit, anyway, although it be feasible for cargoes like phosphates. “There are occasions when it is absolutely impossible for a ship to lie off, let alone take off fruit. It is not feasible. Mr Langstone evidently made good inquiries and he knows what he Is talking abou't. The climate is good, but no one can live on a climate.”

He added thlat during five months the party of settlers previously mentioned made three attempts to launch a 16-foot whaleboat in the surf near Fleetwood Bluff. Twice the boat overturned, and on the othei- occasion the party wlas successful. "My strong advice to anyone thinking of going there is to make full Inquiries first,” concluded Mr Wilson. Story of Failure. It was exactly one hundred years ago that an attempt -wias made by the first settlers to establish permanent habitation on Sunday Island. About 1842 repeated earthquakes scared the residents off, and for the following eight years the island was deserted. Then two Americans took possession with the object of cultivating fruit and vegetables for replenishing the supplies of visiting whalers. They, too. were frightened off by a volcanic eruption, and subsequent efforts to settle the island, which is only 20 miles in circumference, have invariably ended in failure, either from lack of communication with Ithe world outside or from subterranean disturbances. Despite tfie island’s unenviable record of disease, failure and earthquake, together with fts many other disadvantages, eyery now and then intending settlers set oiit and endeavoured to overcome these obstacles.

One of the grimmest tragedies ever countenanced in the South Pacific during the days of blaekbirding, when the price of human existence was 'a mere bagaltelle, was enacted 'on subtropical Sunday Island. In the seventies l the demand for labourers in the Peruvian mines created an excellent market for recruiters, and hundreds of care-free IsMnders were blackbirded to be broken by the unaccusltome'd and brutal toil in the mines.

A slaver, bound for Callao with a freight of about two hundred' natives from around Niue land adjacent islands; some 300 miles to the east of the Tonga Group Was overcome by a mysterious contagious disease, which rapidly spread through the ship's company. Sail wlas crammed on and all haste made for Tonga, where the sick were refused a landing by force, and the slaver set every inch of canvas for the most convenient landfall.

At Sunday Island (the natives were heartlessly' abandoned. Th‘ e island became a land of death, and eventually the survivors were carried off to Peru, where they were place t at work in the mines. Only one of the two hundred nartves ever reached his own land again, and that was by way of Honolulu many years later.