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228 THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING 1995

sure of the heavily aid-funded Te Mau­tari (the national "commercial" fishingcompany) may have been a blessing indisguise in that its workers subse­quently became more committed toworking for the company. What ifmore aid were to be withheld orrejected?

The book's comments regarding dis­tributions of the earnings of the Reve­nue Equalization Reserve Fund shouldtake account of the nature of this asset,where the country has few other"earners," as well as the nature of theI-Kiribati commitment to forgoingconsumption. As the president states,"the Reserve Fund is seen as an insur­ance which should not be squandered.It is a sort of security which the coun­try has built up over several years withgreat sacrifice" (306). The real issuethen is when, and for which invest­ments, can the fund feasibly finance adirect investment in the domestic econ­omy? For example, while social wel-

Iare-c-an-5e-illiprov-ed, tfiefunacannot-provide US standards of health andeducation.

Policy compromises may be post­poned and development myths mayprevail, but it is encouraging to readthe candid overviews by two of thelongest-serving cabinet members, Pres­ident Teannaki and Vice President Iuta.Overall the book makes a substantialcontribution toward a more completeunderstanding of the vulnerability andstrengths, trials and achievements ofKiribati politics and development.

STEPHEN J POLLARD

East-West Center

~:-

Planning the Future: Melanesian Citiesin 2010, by John Connell and John PLea. Pacific 2010 series. Pacific PolicyPaper II. Canberra: National Centrefor Development Studies, AustralianNational University, 1993. ISBN0-73 I 5-1694-X; ISSN 0817-0444.Paper, A$25'

This book is the second in a series,edited by Rodney Cole of the Devel­opment Studies Centre at the Austra-lian National University, of "dooms­day" forewarnings about the PacificIslands. The series is funded by theAustralian International DevelopmentAssistance Bureau, a governmentagency. With luck, many of us willstill be around to see whether theforewarnings come true. The primefocus of the series, as indicated by theeditorial note, "highlights the conse­quences of failing to recognize andplan for the effects of populationgrowth." The target audiences arelsland-Ieaders-and-"tnos-eln -metropoli-tan countries responsible for the designand delivery of Overseas DevelopmentAssistance. "

With the publication of this policy­related series, Australia seems poisedto join Hawai'i, including the PacificIslands Development Program at theEast-West Center, as a second majorsource of advice for Pacific Island lead­ers who may, of course (and this issometimes not fully recognized), alsodefer to their own departmentaladvice, their own consultants, andtheir own regional bodies and universi­ties. The insider-outsider research fieldis spiked with mines that may preventthe Australian National University

BOOK REVIEWS

',," , ,-

229

message getting through. Collaborativework often treads more softly.

The book, a joint effort from theUniversity of Sydney, is by populationgeographer John Connell, whosemajor input is likely to have been thepopulation chapters-population andurbanization, urban primacy andregional development, and urban econ­omy and society-and urban plannerJohn Lea, whose background suggestsa greater input in the remaining chap­ters-on urban management and plan­ning, land policy, and housing, watersupplies, and sanitation. Each chapterprovides an overview of the issue athand and a commentary on the indi­vidual countries of Papua NewGuinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu,and Fiji. The authors have endeavoredto maintain a reasonable balancebetween countries, but the unevenavailability of the secondary data onwhich they rely has meant that thiswa.s_notalways12QSsibl~.Th~QIl1jssiQn

of French-speaking Melanesian NewCaledonia does not imply that itstowns have no problems.

The book is useful in providing gen­eral information, not available else­where under one cover, for thoseunfamiliar with the Pacific or thosewho have not thought through thepopulation problem in urban terms­and this could well include the two tar­get audiences. For those more familiarwith the local scene, the book muststill be Classed as "a good read," but ithas not broken new ground. A bookaimed at the "establishment" may notbe the best place to talk about subordi­nate global relations and internal classand sectional interests, but something

of causal complexity should have comethrough. How, otherwise, are Pacificleaders to debate the merits anddemerits of the limited options avail­able to them?

The root of the problem is not sim­ply population increase and rural­urban migration. Most of the internal"ingredients" of the impending disas­ter are mentioned, but separately.There is no mention of external causes.In the opening chapter, appropriatelycalled "A Call to Action," lack of will,poverty, problems of infrastructure,the physical environment, and man­agement are presented. Later is discus­sion of urban employment, "high"wages, land shortage, and the smallrateable base, each of which is impor­tant but relative, connected, and per­ceivable from other perspectives. Thesituation is described but not analyzed,and it is doubtful that it can be with­out new research, new data, new per-

_s12ec:tiy~s,jAJh~jsla.nds.Jtjsjllst: IJ.Qt

possible to research such a book byexcursions out of Sydney.

I learnt most from the urban man­agement chapters, perhaps because Iknew less about this area in the firstplace, but perhaps also because Con­nell's broad sweeping brush paints nonew scenes, and his position is notalways without contention. One exam­ple may suffice. I am not convinced byhis figures on primacy in Papua NewGuinea or Fiji. For Papua New Guinea(and this is not sour grapes) he seemsunaware of two major monographs Iwrote for the Department of Statistics(Inter-Provincial Migration in PapuaNew Guinea, 1985; Migration andUrbanization in Papua New Guinea:

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23° THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING 1 995

greater depth of inquiry, and some­what more care. Would I recommend itto its target audiences? Definitely yes.And a wider audience? Yes, but withcaution.

No book is perfect.

A CROSBIE WALSH

University of the South Pacific

Lokal Musik: Lingua Franca Song andIdentity in Papua New Guinea, byMichael Webb. Apwitihire: Studies inPapua New Guinea Musics, 3. PortMoresby: Cultural Studies Division,National Research Institute, 1993.ISBN 9980-68-019-9, xxii + 272pages, illustrations, maps, musicalexamples, appendixes, notes, bibliog­raphy. US$IS.

The close reading Michael Webb givesof contemporary urban musical

.t::)(pre.s.si()!LiI1J?~l'll<l1'oJe\\TJillil1e.a~epa-.

rates this book from reams of ethno­musicological studies in the PacificIslands that fixate on "traditional"music cultures (invented or otherwise).Virtual fringe on the fringe, for musicscholarship itself has been marginalwithin Pacific Islands studies-witness,for example, the absence thus far ofmusic articles in this journal. LokalMusik merits the attention of the moredisparate community of Pacific Islandsscholars, for it illustrates vividly thepower of contemporary popular musi­cal means to resonate broader socialconcerns.

Webb focuses specifically on songswith lyrics in Tok Pisin, a regional lin­gua franca. His concerns are threefold:"the particular ways in which T[ok]

The I980 Census, 1987), and animportant paper in a special 1980census edition of Yagl-Ambu (10[3]:47-58,1983) that showed how differ­ent measures of employment-type pri­macy produced different hierarchies.For Fiji, even apart from a miscount oftowns and an inaccuracy in Suva's trueshare of the 1986 population (57 per­cent, not "just over half"), he statesthat Suva's primacy has declined rela­tive to Lautoka. His estimate excludesLami, which was part of Suva in 1976.A more accurate estimate, includingLami at both census dates, shows Suvato have increased its share of the urbanpopulation between 1976 and 1986from S3 to S7 percent, and its primacy(measured against Lautoka) to haveincreased from 4. I times larger to S·7times larger.

These and other factual inaccuraciesare not too important in themselves,but they do cast doubt on other.as~.um12tioll~.Cln<:l~()Ilcl!1~()Ils.The...claim, for example, that differences inrural and urban wages cause migrationhas some general validity, but wagedifferences do not explain the persis­tence of migration when urban work isnot available (eg, Walsh, Honiara:I986 Census Atlas, 1992) or consider­able differences in provincial migrationrates where rural wage levels are simi­lar (Walsh, Asian and Pacific Migra­tion Journal 1(2): 196-219, 1990).Sour grapes at being uncited again? Ihope not.

The book has its uses, and those ofus who could have written it anddidn't will be grateful to its authors fortaking important issues to a widerpublic; it is just that we may haveexpected a little more that is new, some

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