TINY KINGDOM

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 28, 30 December 1932, Page 8

TINY KINGDOM

HAPPY TON GAN ISLE. QUEEN’S BENEFICENT RULE.' After spending seven years in 'the last kingdom in the Pacific, the Kingdom of Tonga, Miss G. Blamires, who has been headmistress of the Tubou Girls’ College, the only girls’ school in the group, has returned to New Zealand to take up educational work here. Miss Blamires looks back with pleasure on her seven years among the happy, friendly Tongans., who, she says, are the most hospitable, generous people in the world. The Tongans, she told a representative of the Press (Christchurch), are very like the Maoris in appearance and intellect. They are ruled by the monarch, Queen Salote, under an hereditary monarchy, and the rule of the Queen, thanks to her fine personality, is absolute. There is a Parliament, a Privy Council, and a Cabinet in this little nation of 29,000 people, but the Queen, from her palace at the capital, Nukualofa, exercises a practical control over the whole group of 156 islands. Tonga is a British Protectorate, and a British Consul and Agent is stationed at the capital. He has powers over the financial administration, and possesses the right to veto financial bills in the Legislative Assembly, but in all other matters the Government of Tonga holds absolute sway. It is said that during the war the people of Tonga contributed more money a head than those of any other nation in the world. Anzac Day is commemorated annually in the group by a public holiday and a reception at the palace. Tukou College, of which Miss Blamires was headmistress, has more than 100 girl pupils. The school is run by the Methodist Mission, which Christianised Tonga at about the same time as the first missionaries arrived in New Zealand. Since then Tonga lias served as a base for the Methodist Mission, from which missionaries have been sent to Tahiti, Samoa and the Solomon Islands.

The Tongans were very honest, Miss Blamires remarked, but they had different, and perhaps more practical, ideas about property than we had. If you were starving and a friend had a surplus of food, it was not thought dishonest to go and help yourself. Indeed, if the positions were reversed, you would actually "fexpect your friend to come and take what he wanted, and probably be offended if he did not. Like the rest of the world, Tonga is in financial difficulties. Copra was once a product of great value, but in the last eight years there has been little market for it. In 1924, for example, the Tongan copra crop was worth more than a quarter of a million; in 1931 it was worth less than £BO,OOO. The group also exports bananas to New Zealand, but the market here is limited, and most of the crop is allowed to rot. - The depression, though, does not worry the average Tongan. Moreover, it is" so long since the price of copra dropped that the average Tongan has forgotten what it is like to be wealthy, and is perfectly content to live with very little in liis pocket.