Won: A Constitution

One thing above all others the British Navy was slow to forgive: mutiny. Though Pitcairn Island had become a British colony in 1893, British ships still shunned the faraway, surf-swept island where the mutineers of the Bounty had settled. Until World War II, a representative of the British High Commission for the Western Pacific had visited lonely Pitcairn less than once a year.. When Native Lands Commissioner Henry Evans Maude hopped ashore on Pitcairn two years ago, he knew that his would probably be the last official visit for the war's duration. He found that government records had all been chucked into an old sugar sack. The spawning goat population was slowly munching up the island's greenery. Public boats (needed to bring goods ashore, since Pitcairn has no harbor) looked as neglected as unused outhouses. To teach Pitcairn Islanders how to shift for themselves, Commissioner Maude decided on a time-honored British expedient: a constitution of Pitcairn's own.

A century and a half had passed since Fletcher Christian and eight other mutineers with Tahitian wives and friends had sailed the Bounty to Pitcairn, run it aground and burned it. By 1800 all the mutineers but John Adams had either died quietly or been murdered. And for 29 years Adams, brandishing the Bounty's dog-eared Bible, had ruled the island wisely and well. From the U.S., a few years later, had come a Seventh-Day Adventist missionary who converted all the island's inhabitants. Since then, Pitcairners have been prohibitionists; education for children has been compulsory. But strong strains of Tahitian blood and a California climate made Pitcairn's 202 tanned inhabitants easygoing. Few serious crimes were committed, but everyone, within limits, did pretty much as he pleased.

Meeting with five members of the Pitcairn Council, Commissioner Maude spent three months drafting the constitution, then called together the General Assembly (all the island's adults), which ratified it. Fixed by the constitution are salaries of island officials: -L-24 each annually for the Secretary and Postmaster, -L-1 each monthly for prison wardens and wardresses (when required). Any family "which keeps more than four breeding she-goats" is subject to fines up to ten shillings. All males between 16 and 60 may be drafted to help repair and man public boats or act as public traders "when called upon by the island committee to do so." Anyone under 21 "who shall smoke tobacco in any form whatever" is liable to fines up to -L-1.

After getting a brand-new Government House built and holding mock trials to rehearse officials in their new duties, Commissioner Maude, satisfied with his job, bade a long farewell to Pitcairn. Until the war is over, its only regular contact with the outside world will probably be its radio.

While Pitcairn won a constitution, it lost a relic. Fretted by constant surf, sand in the shallows of Bounty Bay finally bared the Bounty's battered rudder. Promptly the British Admiralty claimed it, had it transferred to Fiji. The Navy had not forgotten.

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