DROUGHT IN TONGA.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 October 1915, Page 5

DROUGHT IN TONGA.

EASING HORSEFLESH. ■ : NATIVES IN A SORRY PLIGHT. Captain Ross, of the schooner Yeafcel, ■ who returned to Auckland oil Thursday .0 from the Tongan Group, said tfeat during thirty-five or forty, years' experience liti had never known the position to be ,' |so serious, In Vavau, when ,he was to- '' cently there, they were eating hones. ?' Previously in time of drought or famine . the Government had sent shipments Of' , rice and potatoes, but on this occasion . ■ the people of Vavau seemed to be on the vergo of starvation. In fart, the iposition throughout the group seemed to H be exceedingly bad. He had never be- } ' fore known an occasion when hurricane* '. and drought had simultaneously affected .1 the whole area of some 400 miles. Usual-, ly only one, or at the most two, islands . suffered, and the other islands were, able ',,-; to come to their assistance. At Vavau :i there had not been any rain for months, ■' : In fact, the whole southern .group was 1 .-,'< drought-stricken. When the YsabeL •■ called at Vavau they were unable to'fij get even a pint of water without *V paying for it. Water, in fact, waiieing -V retailed at one shilling per gallon,- The J Government supplies of water had com.'.,;'* pletely given out, and the outlook w»s' ■''' very serious indoed. So serious was the ';,) position in the island of Niuaidu that it '■ was safe to say that there would be no '.\? business done there for the next t»o ift years. ' "'

, ■ : ■ : , ; 'l. ■= < V > ~ Some amusement was caused at the 4 i last meeting of the Wellington Land ■• : Board the other day when preparations' , i were being made to conduct the ballot ',•', for certain lands. There were only three applicants for one block, and not hear-' ing his name, one of them asked the. i reason. The Commissioner (Mr. t. N. : Brodrick) informed him that preference i was always given to married couples i with children, and therefore he was not - ' eligible for the first ballot. "How 46 ; you know I won't have some, though?" queried the anxious applicant. "That question jb beyond the board's power to answer," remarked the Commisswner, who said that should the winner of the ballot be unable to comply with the con- ,- ditions, the questioner would be in the text ballot. "I am too unlucky for that ' to happen," observed the disappointed applicant, as he left the room in h hurried manner. A surprise, however, awaits the chadless husband, for owing to certain technical reasons the two remaining applicants were unable to take posses? sion of the land, and he therefore' Wj,, comes the successful competitor, ' The Postmaster-General has arranged to accept/from the public books and magazines for the entertainment of sol-' diers on active service, and .to have'them carried free of cost. The reading matter may be handed in at any post office, with the request that it be sent forward for the use of the troops on active service. It will be dispatched to Wellington, antl from that point by the Defence Department by means of the troopship*. . The following will not be accepted!*- ' (I(Newspapers of any kind, (2) mags--1 zines more than a year old, (3) books '". or magazines (a) written in a language : other than English (unless it be an educational text book,), (b) dirty (c) incomplete (d) known to have been exposed to infection (any such ' book or magazine if not discovered to have ■ been exposed to infection until after "' acceptance to be destroyed), (e) hand* ''. Ed in merely to propagate a particular view, (f) wrapped or packed in any way, (g) addressed to any particular soldier or unit (unless, of course, they be prepaid and addressed in the ordinary way as a postal paclcet). Writes aji officer from tho trendies in Flanders:—"We read the newspapers -, almost as soon as you do. All this'"' squabbling about freedom or compulsion, -' the merits of this man or that, reads "■ like a grisly jo-.t, . . .We are not fighting tor this principle or that; we are fighting for our lives. We are not fighting against this or that oircnsive excrescence in Prussian culture, We are lighting :i. mighty people exquisitely specialised in all the machinery and • organisation that . makes for victory. The other evening I read aloud a newspaper extract from a Cambridge lecturer to the oll'ect that luauy Englishmen would sull'er even death rather than be compelled to light. Tho reading of the extract was greeted with jeer*. The lecturer is quite safe. He knows we can't afford to start killing our own folk, but he ought also know that he's doing his bt-st to kill liis pate who are not endowed with that couseientiouaneas which secures at once safety and a sense of , martyrdom. I hppo Vm not bitter. But my main point is this: Wo shall, i n any case, drain through tho major portion of our young manhood. If we <[ o it stupidly or disjointodly or with friction, wo shall lose our manhood and at the »ann> time miss the prize. But if the whoie of England plunges into the' task with tlie unanimity and devotion of a religious crusade, beside which not interests or so-called principles are of the slightest consequence, then we sbaU indeed lose men, but we shall win our prize, and the next generation w£U W glad of. it, seeing that the prize is notih ing less than the life of England. Between the two there is no middle count,

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