These two Master's theses were both submitted in 1974, one by Judith Ann Bennett (M.A. History) and the other by Eric N. Witt (M.S. Agricultural Economy).
The purpose of this research is to examine a method of land control, in this case customary land tenure, and its effect upon increasing agricultural development. Other factors influencing the level of agricultural development are also reviewed. Data from three village sites on the island of Guadalcanal ... are presented concerning the production and consumption of subsistence root crops.
The original intention, in 1972, to examine the impact of the intercolonial labor trade on a geographically confined and still isolated area of the Solomon Islands was precluded in part by Peter Corris' penetrating study of 1970. As a result the focus of investigation shifted to the specific effects of the labor trade on village nucleation and relocation, the thesis being that returnees from the plantations of Fiji and Queensland were catalysts of change who introduced the idea of larger settlements.