In 1936 the Foundation’s business took me to London, where I told my story to three famous anthropologists: Elliot-Smith, Haddon and Malinowski; their sympathy was all with my plan to protect the two islands, Rennell and Bellona. The important man to see was Sir Thomas Stanton, Briton’s Chief Medical Officer. Sir Thomas was easy to meet and to talk to. He was one of the Central Medical School’s enthusiasts. When I had finished my work in Fiji, he suggested, why couldn’t I go to the West Indies and organize an institution on the Suva plan? And I was delighted to hear that he had about decided to promote my friend, Dr. McGusty, to the post of the High Commission’s C.M.O. Nothing could be better luck for the Pacific, and I am proud if I put in a good word for a good man. I hope I had a share in his appointment.
My main proposal, aside from a plan to protect Rennell from mischievous influences, was to have a thorough anthropological survey made there. I suggested that the Bishop Museum of Honolulu take charge of this, for it had been founded in memory of a high-born Hawaiian lady, and her husband’s wealth had made it pre-eminent in Polynesian culture. Dr. Peter Buck, a Maori, was curator; the Museum could furnish just the talent we needed.
I was referred to the Colonial Office, where I struck the mysterious snag. Possibly the British objected because the Bishop Museum was an American institution; if so, they were stretching a point, for its leader was (and still is) a New Zealand Maori.
More likely it was the Church that stood in our way. When the news spread that I thought the old-time religion of Rennell was good enough for the people, and that the missionaries had only brought murder, disease and discontent to the little island, the Bishop of Melanesia sent a thundering message, declaring that he could “permit no boundaries to the Empire of Christ.” Possibly the Adventists were putting in an oar, too; for I had heard one of them say in objection to the exclusion of his faith: “For we bring to the Rennellese God’s greatest gift, the Bible.” And there was another who said, “I would feel that I must go, even if I knew that as a result every one of them would die.”
Governments and missions have been too often slandered, I think, because they have failed to accomplish miracles. In the Pacific they have been called upon to face hell and high water, literally, and my hat is off to their many achievements for the good of humanity. But I left London with the bitter knowledge that I had encountered the blind side of Christian officialdom—the sort of bigotry which means lack of understanding.
Perhaps I carried my message a year too late. As Barley said, “Sea-changes are very sudden on the Pacific.”
Four years after the Zaca cruise I received reports from Eroni, saying that gonorrhea had spread from the White Sands to remoter districts where white men had never gone. Malaria was everywhere—and I had found no trace of it when I surveyed the island in 1930 and 1933.
Outwardly the natives were prospering. The chiefs were building more and better houses with the handy tools for which they had traded their racial integrity. In 1920 when George Fulton’s ship went there to recruit, he had seen no houses at all; a healthy, contented people were sleeping in caves or in the open. Now Rennell Island was having a building boom, and her population was going steadily downhill at the beck and call of every trading stranger.
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About 1937 Dr. Crichlow made a survey there, and his worried findings came to me roundabout, in a letter from the Solomons. Everything that I had feared had come to pass. Gonorrhea had increased so that not a child had been born on Rennell Island in the past eighteen months.