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impossible to provide the materials during the war, In view
of these facte and inasmuch as the whole Buoject hạo been
under consideration for over five years by the Government it
is not seen how an opinion of "neglect" can fairly be formed
even against the Goverment, If you have a subject under
close
consideration you can at be said to be neglecting it,
particularly men it creates problems and me aus wich have to
be balanced against each other and difficulties which, at
the present time, are insuperable, or nearly Bọ. In so far then
as the writer comments on the ao tion of the Government, his
Comment does not appear to be fair comment because it is
based on assumptions of fact which are not true i.e. that
the Governmên t have neglected the whole question and that
communication could have been provided. There is and ther
point of view from which the comment may also be said to be
unfair. The writer represents the islands to have been crying
out for communication in vain for a long period. This is not
the case.
The islands, in so far as the term embraces the
ial anders i,6, the people who live in the Islands concerned,
have made no representations on the subject. They do not, as
a bọ dy, suffer and are unlikely to suffer from want of commani-
Cation since they are lowly villagers wi tii no po sse ssions
attræ tive to robbers, The only "islander" in any sense of
the word who is understood to have "cried out" for communica
tion is Mr.Alabaster and he does not appear to have made any
representations to the Government on the subject, The chief
people concerned in the question of communication were the
police, and they are concerned more from the point of view of
speody pursuit than of prevention, save in so far as swift
retaliatory measures, the result of communication, would tend
to insure prevention. So in writing about the "crying neede
of the distressful islanda" the writer seems to have been
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