| <trailer><p> <Labor Call,> <16 December 1915,> 
| <pb n="3"> </p></trailer>
| <headline><p> <IN THE PACIFIC On Norfolk Isle> 
| <By FRANK ANSTEY, MP> </p></headline>
| <p> Come to Pop Rock <mdash>-</mdash> valleys beneath 
| your feet, a mountain overhead. Come to see the Sun 
| God bathe Norfolk in the glory of the morning. </p>
| <p> It comes! Faint glimmers are the harbinger. Then 
| great shafts of flashing light pierce and dispel the 
| darkness. Out of the depths leaps Sol the Eternal. 
| Night has fled <mdash>-</mdash> a new day is 
| here. </p>
| <p> With light comes life from its slumber. Out of the 
| valleys come the cries of feathered creation. Bird 
| calls unto bird in mateship or defiance. On easy 
| wings they rise to sport their colors in the sun. 
| Songbirds are in the bush. Tiny wagtails dart by, 
| touch your shoulders in impudent glee or dance at 
| your feet in twittering joy. Over on the great rock 
| known as Phillip Isle a myriad birds rise from their 
| homes as if by signal given, and sally forth to seek 
| their food upon the sea. The giant albatross swoops 
| up, and volplanes back on unstirred wings. Birds of 
| song and strength and gorgeous colour <mdash>-</mdash>
| of sea and land <mdash>-</mdash> are all 
| around. </p>
| <p> Climb from Pop Rock a little higher to the summit 
| of Mount Pitt. Beneath you the panorama of the last 
| peaceful addition to the possessions and 
| responsibilities of the Commonwealth. Winding roads 
| through park-like lands. Tall pines line the roads, 
| climb the hills, and touch the mountain top. Wild 
| flowers, wild tobacco, wild lemons, mingle by the 
| wayside. The passion vine throws itself upon jutting 
| rock or stalwart tree to spread its products to the 
| sun. Little gullies trend from the central plateau to 
| the edges of the cliffs. On the plateau and the 
| hillsides graze horses, sheep and cattle. In the 
| gullies palms and ferns and flowers and fruits are 
| intermingled. Pineapples, oranges, peaches, guavas, 
| yams, figs, potatoes, maize, wheat, coffee, bananas, 
| taro, melons, mangoes <mdash>-</mdash> every edible 
| product grows with ease and little labor. The soil to 
| the top of the highest hill is of the richest and of 
| great depth. The rainfall averages over 40 inches per 
| annum. The climate is of the mildest. There is no 
| piercing cold or enervating heat, no flies or fleas, 
| mosquitoes or malaria. No mad houses or gaols, or 
| politicians or pressmen. No rich or poor, or "pubs" 
| or pawnshops. No levies on the incomes of the living, 
| or extractions from the property of the dead. Nothing 
| reptilian, nothing ferocious. Pleasures are 
| plentiful, work is easy. The communal doctor attends 
| you in sickness, and the community buries you when 
| you die. </p>
| <p> This isle of the blest is 900 miles due east of 
| Queensland's southern boundary. It is five miles 
| long, three wide, and 20 in circumference. In its 
| north-west corner is Anson's Bay, and the receiving 
| station of the Pacific cable. Further south are the 
| headquarters of the Melanesian Mission. Here is the 
| beautiful church of St Barnabas, and here 200 boys 
| from the Solomons and New Hebrides are trained as 
| missionaries to their countrymen. A road sheltered by 
| great pines trends to the south-east to the wool shed 
| and the runs that were once the Longridge prison. 
| Just there the pine avenue comes to an end, but the 
| road goes on, winding amongst the hills down to the 
| shores of Sydney Bay. </p>
| <p> RELICS OF OLD TIMES </p>
| <p> Upon these shores are more ruins, ruins of 
| convictism <mdash>-</mdash> gallows, treadmills and 
| triangles <mdash>-</mdash> dark cells, dumb cells, 
| hells of the underground <mdash>-</mdash> ruins of 
| barracks, gaols and stores <mdash>-</mdash> ruins of 
| hospitals, mills and domiciles. Everywhere walls 
| crumbling, roofs falling, doors hanging from their 
| hinges. It is creepy in the daytime; at night, when 
| the ghost birds give their cries to the wind and 
| desolation, you hear lost souls in their agony, the 
| clank of chains, and you hurry by. Just there, near 
| to the roar of the surf, in that gloomy fortress, was 
| the last hell of Rufus Dawes. Once there, in that 
| dwelling on the knoll, lived the gentle Sylvia. On 
| the other side of the road, the road known as 
| Quality, is the dwelling wherein Parson North 
| periodically wrestled for his soul’s possession with 
| the demon of strong drink. It is a dead city. It once 
| contained 2,000 men, the majority moving in manacles, 
| the minority warders and soldiery, The humans 
| <mdash>-</mdash> bond and free alike <mdash>-</mdash> 
| have passed to their graves. The city 
| <mdash>-</mdash> its structures, penal and industrial 
| <mdash>-</mdash> its streets and walks <mdash>-</mdash>
| its gardens, water works and sewerage system 
| <mdash>-</mdash> are fast fading to decay. Today only 
| a few families live within its boundaries. Near the 
| house of the commandant is a square begirt with 
| pines. In its centre convict officialdom had a 
| skittle alley or a bowling green <mdash>-</mdash> 
| which it was is forgotten. Along Quality-road are the 
| barracks and stores, loopholed for defence, like 
| castles of the middle ages. Further along are the 
| houses wherein dwelt the doctors, parsons, priests 
| and officers of convictism. Along the road, beneath 
| the pines, you pass to the cemetery, its tombstones 
| and quaint inscriptions fast smothering beneath the 
| wind-blown sands of the sea. The road continues over 
| "Bloody Bridge" and then winds upwards amongst the 
| hills <mdash>-</mdash> once more to the freshness, 
| brightness and pleasures of the homes of the people 
| of the plateau. </p>
| <p> POPULATION AND CHARACTERISTICS </p>
| <p> The population of Norfolk is 950. Of these 200 are 
| Papuans at the Melanesian Mission. The cable hands, 
| missionaries and white helpers, visitors, officials 
| and pensioners from the mainland, with their wives 
| and children, number 150. The other 600 are "the 
| Norfolk Islanders," descendants of the Bounty 
| mutineers, a mixture of English sailor and 
| dark-skinned belle of Papeete. From time to time others 
| have been permitted to mingle and to marry with the 
| island people. With one exception the admissions have 
| been of the white race, yet the blood of the Tahitian 
| first mothers shows itself in every family. In some 
| cases it is so strong that even after five 
| generations the color of hair and skin, the cast of 
| features, the modes of speech, the inflexion of the 
| voice, the gestures and mannerisms are pure Tahitian, 
| and when, as for some dance or festival, the feminine 
| head is adorned with the wild hibiscus, one sees 
| again the moonlight arm around the waist parade along 
| the beach of Papeete, and hears once more the easy 
| laughter and murmuring voices 'neath the palms. If 
| "blood tells," which is the blood? Is it that of the 
| sailor mutineers or that of the girls who went and 
| shared with them the horrors and the sorrows of the 
| after time? </p>
| <p> The characteristics of the people are much as they 
| were in Samoa and all the isles of Polynesia before 
| the days of the planter, the coolie laborer, the big 
| steamer and the tourist. Cried Kala the Netmaker to 
| the passing sailor in old Samoan days, <q> 
| </q></p>
| <p> This is the spirit that walks abroad in Norfolk. 
| There is a welcome at every door, a seat on every 
| verandah, a place at every table, but it is a spirit 
| that is fast disappearing from the main places of 
| Polynesia. It is the influence of environment on 
| character. When a place is overrun with tourists, 
| generosity is exhausted; when it is flooded with 
| low-class Asiatics the Islander is degraded; when the 
| place is "commercialized", the land monopolised and 
| the siren of the planter screams "Come to work!" 
| there is no time to bask in the sunshine. But Norfolk 
| lies out of the track of the great steamers, and its 
| repellent coast guards its paradise with jealous 
| care. </p>
| <p> The area of Norfolk is 8,500 acres. With the same 
| density the population of Victoria would be over 
| 6,000,000. Roads, reserves and Crown lands in Norfolk 
| take up 2,787 acres. The 600 "Islanders" live upon 
| 4,741 acres, an average of eight acres per 
| individual, or 32 acres for each of the 150 island 
| households. The Islanders live, except for a little 
| fishing, on the products of the soil. Upon the same 
| basis the rural population of Victoria would be over 
| 4,000,000. It is only one-tenth that number. </p>
| <p> NO CAPITALISTS </p>
| <p> On Norfolk there are no mines of coal and gold and 
| other minerals to multiply the wealth of the place. 
| There are no transport and factory workers to provide 
| a home market for primary products. There are no 
| buyers and brokers, and travellers and commission 
| agents, to "facilitate business." There are no 
| capitalists or "captains of industry" that provide 
| the workers with work. There are no appliances of oil 
| or steam, or electricity or wind, or water power 
| <mdash>-</mdash> not even a donkey engine or a buzz 
| saw. The trees from which the homes are made are sawn 
| into the smallest lengths and sizes by unaided human 
| effort. Yet the people live in comfort. </p>
| <p> At Norfolk there is no safe harborage. The landing 
| place anywhere is a rock, the means of communication 
| between the ship and the shore are rowing boats. The 
| ship calls once a month, sometimes, as now, once in 
| two months, and if the sea is rough it steams away 
| without taking in cargo or landing it. If there are 
| perishable products for export they remain behind as 
| fertilisers. Yet the people live in comfort. </p>
| <p> LANDLORDS AND MONEY UNKNOWN </p>
| <p> Value is quoted in terms of money, but money is 
| practically unknown, Trade is either direct barter or 
| an interchange of credit <mdash>-</mdash> so much of 
| my product for so much of yours at a future date. A 
| deposit of skins, hides, seeds, coffee, timber, jam, 
| etc., with the local trader, secures in return cloth, 
| sugar and drapery. Yet, with all these primitives, 
| drawbacks and limitations, destitute of instruments 
| of exchange or machines that augment men's efforts, 
| without a natural harborage or assured access to the 
| markets of the world, the Norfolkers enjoy an ease of 
| life and a degree of material well-being not excelled 
| by the multitude in countries that are armed with all 
| the skill, science and mechanical aids and 
| auxiliaries of civilisation. </p>
| <p> On Norfolk there is no landlord, no tenant, no 
| rent collector, no bailiff, no evictor, no one to 
| seize your chattels and throw you out on the 
| roadside. Everyone has got a home, a real home, not a 
| thing rented. They have good furniture, a few acres 
| of cultivated ground, poultry and pigs, a few sheep, 
| a few cows and a couple of horses. Nearly everyone 
| has got a piano or an organ, a sewing machine and a 
| jinker. </p>
| <p> They don't get these things by long hours of 
| arduous toil continued year after year, broken only 
| by periods of anxious searching for someone to buy 
| their labor. They get it easy, a few hours of daily 
| labor, and even that can be postponed for a bit of 
| fun <mdash>-</mdash> a picnic, a race, or a tennis 
| match. There is no army of parasitical middlemen 
| living on the production of others; no gambling in 
| requisites, no dragging in and dragging out, and 
| perpetual additions of costs and profits, that makes 
| the consumer pay so much and gives to the producer so 
| little. Norfolk Isle is a demonstration of the small 
| amount of human effort necessary to secure home and 
| clothes and food and comfort. </p> 
| <p><q> 
| </q> That's the Norfolk Island 
| greeting. Not quick, sharp, staccato tones, but slow 
| and sweet and tender. What a difference comes to the 
| human voice when in the heart kindness and love and 
| generosity find a real abiding place. </p>
| <p><q> 
| </q> 
| So the chat goes on, and then you say, "Good-bye" and 
| pass along.</p>
| <p> HOW DIFFERENCES ARE SETTLED. </p>
| <p> An official and an “islander have a dispute re 
| freights. It is an incident and an illustration. 
| <q> </q> says one. <q> 
| </q> says the other. Feeling runs high, 
| passions are strong, words are bitter, until language 
| falls exhausted. <q> 
| </q> says the islander. <q> 
| </q> retorts the official <q> 
| </q> is the query. <q> 
| </q> 
| Night comes, the official goes, a smiling face greets 
| him at the door. In this atmosphere differences are 
| settled or forgotten. Tomorrow smiles on peace 
| restored.</p>
| <p> DAYS OF JOY </p>
| <p> What will you do tomorrow? Come to the tennis. 
| Cascades will play longridge. Drop the work. 
| Everybody comes. Not cakes and ale, but cakes and tea 
| in plenty. Or is it that you love fishing? It is in 
| abundance <mdash>-</mdash> off the rocks or out in 
| the boats by Phillip and Nepean. Or will you wander 
| in the woodlands amidst the birds and flowers? Or 
| climb Mount Pitt, with dinner on Pop Rock, everybody 
| bringing something <mdash>-</mdash> poultry, sucking 
| pig or fruit? Or play cricket with the boys at the 
| mission, with Salamundi unshiftable at the wicket, 
| and the Bishop beseeching in Motu his Papuans to be 
| merciful? Or will you drive over to Bail Bay, or 
| Steele’s Point or the whaling station at the 
| Cascades? Or will you go swimming in Emily Bay, 
| safeguarded by the reef and lulled by the song of the 
| surf? Or will you go rides and drives along hill and 
| dale, through leafy avenues, to stop and chat by the 
| wayside and cottage door, ever to hear the fraternal 
| cry, <q> 
| </q></p>
| <p> CONTRASTS </p>
| <p> Ah! Those days, those never-to-be-forgotten days, 
| those kindly faces, those sweet voices and that vista 
| sweep of ocean that swept a gulf between this isle 
| and that grab and grind and greed and lies and tricks 
| and intrigue that men call "civilisation." You, 
| workless, hungry ones, "Come in and stop a little 
| while." You men who govern and dare not do the things 
| your conscience calls you can but stop a little 
| while. Night comes. In the great places of the world 
| the shadows fall on trains and trams and life-spent 
| efforts, on dodges, schemes and devious devices. 
| Theatres are emptying in the cities <mdash>-</mdash> 
| the trenches are changing shifts on battle fronts. 
| Civilised society is forestalling, cornering, 
| stacking, raising of prices; flesh is ripping, bones 
| cracking; there is bayonet charge and shot and shell 
| and scattering limbs. Over in Norfolk comes night, 
| the rustle of wind in the pines, the surge of the sea 
| on the reef, shadows pass, silhouettes of girls 
| astride in the saddle, lovers beside them, others 
| behind them, homeward going from their pleasures, and 
| ever as they go and part at the crossways the cry 
| goes up in long-drawn cadences, <q> 
| </q></p>
| <p> I sit and close my eyes and hear their gentle 
| voices call, "Come in and stop a little while." </p>