SUNDAY ISLAND.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 211, 6 August 1937, Page 6

SUNDAY ISLAND.

RETURN OF REFUGEES. COMMENT BY MINISTER. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Aug. 5. The return to New Zealand on the Maui Pomare of the refugee settlers from Sunday Island and the statements made by the men, were referred to to-day by the acting-Minister of External Affairs (Hon. F. Langstone) , after he had a conference with them. “The information supplied by the settlers,” said the Minister, “confirms in no uncertain manner my impression that any attempt to settle the island is nicely the process of collecting money from the few who will always be found to respond to the allurements of an island home in the Pacific. There may be such island homes, but they are not to be found at Sunday Island. “I sincerely hope that we have heard the last of these ineffective efforts to settle a small area of freehold land on this island. Not only were the men unable to sustain themselves decently and forced by circumstances to appeal to the Go\ T ernment to take them back to the mainland, but they arrived in this country practically destitute and had to be succoured by the ‘Smith Family’ organisation pending employment being found for them through the Wellington Government placement officials. “No doubt denouements of the kind have their uses and I am hopeful, as a result of the publicity given to this one, that no other member of our community will be carried away by alluring pen-pictures painted by prospectuses or by agents, and spend their savings on what has been proved to be a fool’s paradise.”