SAMOA.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17259, 24 September 1921, Page 5

SAMOA.

ECONOMIC TROUBLES. CHINESE LABOUBEBS. (FBOM OUB OWK COBRZSPONDKfT.) SYDNEY, September 10. In Ehe last of the Berieß of special article* on Samoa that have been appearing in the "Sydney Morning Herald," Mr Percy S. Allen, the writer of them, says: — Samoa's troubles are mostly due to economic factors, for which the Government is in no way to blame; and these troubles are not peculiar to Samoa In most tropical countries depression exists at the present time, owing to the values of their products being at a low ebb; and even in soma places where labour is very cheap and indigenous to the soil, planters are having great difßoulty in making ends meet. Prices, for example, of rubber and cocoa, two industries that promised so well, are at the moment below the cost of'production, and many have been hard hit, and unwarrantably blame the administration. The scarcity of labour and its comparatively high cost, combined with the low prices ruling, make it very problematical whether any plantation schemes could be carried on profitably in Samoa at present; but m time things should turn out betTh'e Chinese are the best labour Samoa ever had. In the past Samoa has had a great many of them —up to 3000—but they have been gradually repatriated because of a feeling m New Zealand that they were not desirable. { During the period of German rule the Chinese were constantly signing on after completing their terms, and were encouraged, to do so; but since New Zealand's administration their departure has been enforced after their three years' term. Recently, however, they have been solicited t 0 stay,'so acute has the labour shortage become; and the Government has made arrangements to import 1000 new Chinese from Hongkong, who are to be paid 30s per month, with everythingtfound.' • Experiences In Tahiti. A serious injury would be done to the planting and other agricultural industries in Samoa if Chinese labourers were not available, for it would be.difficult to replace them. The Samoan natives cannot be depended upon as field labourers. They demand (5s per day with food, and do very little work for it. Other Polynesians and Melanesians are increasingly difficult to procure, and, in any case, are not to be compared with Cninese for usefulness. Objection has been made by some people in Now, Zealand-, not to the Chinese residing or working at Samoa, but to their being introduced under contract, but this is because there is not a full comprehension of the situation. The contract system as at present in force at Samoa assures, firstly, the payment of wages earned, by the labourer; secondly, the repatriation at the expiry of his agreed term of service ; and. thirdly, his leaving the country at the end of three years, and therefore not becoming a permanent resident to the detriment of the population 'of the islands. The result is protection to the Chinese labourer, which is desirable, and also protection

t 0 the future interests of the natives and whites in the Pacific. It would be probably impossible to ensure a supply of labourers under free Chinese immigration and, if that were possible,, the result would be the same as at Tahiti, at which place more than 3000 Chinese are now resident. Hero we have an object lesson worthy of consideration. In 18t>4" a number ; of Chinese, were introduced under contract to work in the A-tiihaono cotton'plantation, an enterprise financed from London. When, in consequence of. the fall in values of South Sea Islands cotton,-the business went liquidation in 1878, and the repatriation of the existing Chinese, was being arranged for, by the Government, several influential residents persauded the authorities to permit such of the Chinese as desired to remain to do so, on the ground.that their services were needed as labourers....... Being then free froni contract, soma of the few who remained in.the country engaged themselves on plantations, while others became market gardeners, and others, again, established small tea and coffee shops, and opened small stores, which gradually grew in importance. Soon those labourers who had been employed by the whites became employees of their fellow-countrymen, whose success attracted from China a commercial class, who extended their operations, and have ultimately attained control of the local market for vanilla beans. These Chinese do not, as a rule, grow the vanilla. They have established stores' at short intervals along the roads, both in Tahiti and in the neighbouring islands. They buy the green beans from the grower, and cure the same themselves, which appeals to the native, for it enables him to .avoid the tedious curing process. The net result to the native is very much less than would be the case if he cured - the beans himself, but he is induced to eell the green beans, partly because of the immediate return, and principally because the Chinese take advantage of him by making him advances of food and clothing, etc., repayable in green beans. These advances are generally in gjoods at high-prices, which the native submits to, because the Chinese storekeeper takes care to push goods on him, and thus keeps him always in debit. Tho iuter-marriage in Tahiti of the Chinese with the native .women gains for them a daily increasing influence among the people. They are acquiring more and more land; the half-caste Chinese, already numerous, will be more so as time goes on, and, in fact, there is every possibility that within a comparatively short time half the population of the French possessions in the Eastern Pacific will be of Chinese, extraction, and ultimately nearly the whole. So here is an object lesson against permitting the free ingress of ,Chinese into Samoa, and thus ultimately establishing a Chinese population in that place, which would not only result in the disappearance of the' natives, but would certainly not be looked upon with favour by either New Zealand or Australia Tahiti is a paradise to the Chinese, and Samoa would be equally so, if restrictions upon their permanent settlement in the latter were removed, j as some desire.' Samoa's Main Requisite. With a more assured labour supply Samoa. should, when the world-wide depression that is affecting the wool and other'products of temperate climes as well as tropical raw products is relieved, soon experience a return of the prosperity it formerly enjoyed. A cheap labour supply is the main reauisite. As it is now many plantations that were formerly in a high state of productiveness have, through lack of cheap enough relapsed into a jungle condition, and large areas of fertile land remain untitled. One cocoa, plantation in which, I was informed, £IOO,OOO of Australian-capital was investedj. has reverted to native bush; another cocoa' plantation owned by a Sydney company, and valued at one time at' £35,000, has been abandoned; and several rubber concerns have gone to pieces. Crown Estates. The Administration has taken over thousands of acres of cultivated and uncultivated lands that formerly belonged to the deported Germans,- and the New Zealand Government believed that out of these they would make such large profits, as the Germans did, a 9 would reduce the cost of administration to a minimum. Thar has proved to be a de-

lusion. All the Crown estates are likely to_ show losses. There are some who think- there was too great a hurry to deport the Germans, and that it would have been better, for the sake of the prosperity of the group, to hare retained some of the men experienced in plantation work. There has undoubtedly been bad management. Some incompetents have been put in charge of plantations, who before going to Samba soarcely knew the difference be tween cocoa and cocoanuts. There been too many white officials employed, with consequently too high a salary list; and with costs so large the Crown estates cannot be made to yield the profit anticipated, even supposing the markets were normal again. Probably the most sensible course would be to lease them.