SAMOA'S TROUBLES.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 215, 9 September 1921, Page 6

SAMOA'S TROUBLES.

DUE TO ECONOMIC FACTORS. NEED FOR CHEAP LABOUR. THE STATE PLANTATIONS. (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.) (■Received 12.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, this day. The "Herald's" special commissioner, in a concluding article, says: "Samoa's troubles are mostly due to economic factors for which the Government is in no way blamuble. The scarcity and cost of labour, combined with low prices of tropical products, make it problematical whether any plantation schemes could be worked at a profit" The writer discusses the Chinese labour question and Xew Zealand's policy in connection therewith, and says that instead of the early policy of encouraging their repatriation recently, owing to acute labour shortage, the Chinese have been solicited to stay, and the Government has made arrangements to import a thousand new Chinese from Hongkong. Serious injury will be done to agricultural interests in Samoa if Chinese labourers are not available, because it is difficult to replace them. Referring to Crown lands, he says that the Administration has taken over thousands of acres of cultivated and uncultivated lands which belonged to deported Germans, believing that they would produce large profits and thereby reduce the cost of the Administration to a minimum. This proved to be a delusion, and all the Crown estates are likely to show losses. There have been too many wiiite officials employed, consequently too high a salary list, preventing a profit, even if the markets become normal again. Probably the most sensible course would be to lease these estates.— (A. and N.Z.)