In 1938 Dr. Ellison conducted New Zealand’s last big roundup in the Cooks, combing the islands for lepers. On Penrhyn he was entertained by Phil Winton, a wealthy pearl trader. Winton fed Ellison royally, and at the end of his stay the Doctor went to thank the cook for her distinguished meals. He took one look at her and said, “You’d better pack up and come with me on the boat.” Winton had made the mistake of forgetting that leprosy could come in by the back door.
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A few months after my return to Fiji I went on leave to the States, to be gone until the beginning of 1927. Meanwhile Sir Maui Pomare, always anxious about the leper situation in the Cooks, had chartered a ship and gone there to take patients off for Mokogai. Leaving Suva for home, I was on the crest of a wave. The Central Medical School was an assured fact—practically. Now I could boast to New York and Utica that four years of propagandizing and wire-pulling had achieved the unachievable. All the groups controlled by the High Commission and by New Zealand would send the money, send their quota of students. Soon we would be breaking ground for the long-deferred project.
It was a case of crowing before you are out of the woods.
When I returned to Suva Dr. Montague’s long face proclaimed bad news. What had happened in my absence was worse than I had expected. The Cook Islands had withdrawn from the Medical School scheme, and not through any fault of parliamentary politics. It was Sir Maui Pomare himself who had suddenly quit the game. But when I learned the truth I held no resentment against the great Maori.
It seemed that Pomare had gone in his rescue ship to a spot in the Cook Islands where they dumped lepers and left them to die in their own way. Under his administration the situation had bettered somewhat, but it was still a poor makeshift. Pomare’s one desire was to get the poor devils to the modern leper colony.
The boat you charter for the haulage of lepers isn’t exactly a luxury liner, and the trip to Mokogai was slow, dirty and dangerous. At last he got them there, some thirty patients, and was taking the greatest care to see that they were properly landed. When that job was over he came down the gangplank, not a very presentable Cabinet Minister; rough travel in a rough boat had soiled his clothes, exposure had darkened his complexion and he hadn’t shaved for a week. Down on the wharf he was stopped by a dandified young Medical Officer, obviously fresh from London, who held up an arresting hand and twittered commandingly, “Colored people this way, please!” I don’t know how many kinds of hell New Zealand’s Minister of Health gave the efficient youth, but plenty I imagine. Pomare inherited temper from a long line of Maori chiefs.
Pomare took the next boat to Suva, went straight to Montague, then to the Governor. To both he said that the High Commission hadn’t sense enough to keep these brats away from responsible positions. He had seen what he saw on Mokogai, and he was through. So long as he remained in office, he declared, no health project favored by the High Commission would ever get the shadow of a red cent out of his ministry. And that broad ultimatum withdrew the Cook Islands’ co-operation from the Central Medical School. Without the Cooks, we were just where we had been before, helpless to go on.
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Children say, “He’ll get over being mad.” With a strong and stubborn character like Pomare’s, this softening of the temperament was not so sure. I tried to steady myself with the knowledge that at least six important Pacific groups were still behind our plan. I remembered Queen Salote’s generous question which had given me the first big encouragement: “Are we too small to do our share?” But time was precious now, and whatever we did must be done at once. Pomare controlled a section of Polynesia which we must include, or quit.