PITCAIRN ISLANDERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 December 1939, Page 3

PITCAIRN ISLANDERS

SHORTAGE OF FOOD UNLIKELY. PROVISIONS LANDED RECENTLY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. In a cable message published yesterday it was stated that a tramp steamer had reported to the Commonwealth Minister of External Affairs that the Pitcairn Islanders were in such desperate need that they were practically starving. The message stated that there was a suggestion that the British Government might remove the inhabitants to another place of abode. When seen in Wellington yesterday Mr Robert Christian, fifth in the line of descent from the original ringleader of the mutiny on H.M.S. Bounty (Fletcher Christian), said that the message could not be right, as only a fortnight ago between 50 and 60 tons of provisions were received at Pitcairn from relatives of the islanders resident in Wellington. He knew these provisions had arrived, as they had received word to that effect through the shipping company concerned and the Admiralty. 1 j I I “In any case,” said Mr Christian, “they might only run short of imported goods, such as flour, tinned meats, oatmeal, oil, tea and matches. At a pinch they could live indefinitely on what the island produces—fruit (bananas, oranges, coconuts, pineapples), and practically all the vegetables. But even on the score of imported goods the messages cannot be right, as I had personally to do with the purchase and shipment of the goods. “Pitcairn is very productive,” said Mr Christian. “Though it is only seven miles in circumference it is blessed with plently of good black soil that will grow anything. It always seemed to me that the deeper I dug the richer became the soil, and it was seldom one came on sand or rock. For example, though all vegetables grow well, subtropical fruit is cultivated in abundance, kumeras grow well and the islanders are also able to produce capital coffee.” Mr Christian said that the vessel which conveyed the last shipment of goods from Wellington to Pitcairn Island also took back to the island 11 Pitcairners who had been working in New Zealand for the past six to eight months, and who were glad to go back to their island home.

As to the cabled report that for the second time in the history of the island the whole of the islanders might be r,emoved, Mr Christina said that that referred to a remote time in the middle of the last century, when through the natural growth of population and a succession of bad seasons, the British Government transferred the whole of the people to me much larger Norfolk Island. But in 1860 four families returned to Pitcairn —Adams, Christian, Young and McCoy—and settled there once more. The community was strengthened later by the arrival there of two American sailors —Coffin and Warren —whose vessel had been totally wrecked on the Dulcie Islands, 300 miles away. They covered that distance of ocean in a ship's boat. Settling down, they married Pitcairn Island women, so that all islanders descend from these six families. QUITE UNNECESSARY REPORTED MOVE TO EVACUATE RESIDENTS. AUCKLAND, December 26. Denial of a report from Sydney that Pitcairn Islanders were desperately in need of food was made today by Mr Floyd McCoy, who acts as unofficial agent for the islanders in New Zealand. He said that though there had been a shortage of normal supplies, because of vessels being diverted from their courses by the Admiralty, the matter was well in hand. The decision of the Federal Minister of External Affairs to ask the British authorities to evacuate the islanders was entirely unnecessary. There was always a plentiful supply of island food —fruit, vegetables, fish, goats and poultry—to maintain the 240 odd inhabitants, inclusive of about 15 Europeans. Arrangements have been made through the Admiralty and the High Commissioner at Suva to see that the islanders were nbt isolated. It was not true that no vessel had called there for six months before the report made by the tramp steamer a few days ago. He had received mail dated November 8, stating that every thing was all right, though supplies were getting low. A vessel left New Zealand recently for the island carrying 30 tons of foodstuffs and other supplies, also several islanders returnirig from Wellington.