FIJI HURRICANE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 70, 24 March 1931, Page 11

FIJI HURRICANE

PLANTATIONS; RUINED

WORK OF YEARS DESTROYED

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, 23rd March

• To have the result of years of labour irretrievably" ruined and their means of livelihood - virtually disappear, in about half an hour was tho experience iof Mr. Claude de Mouncey and his son. Desmond de Mouncey, who arrived by the Aorangi from Suva to-day.' They owned the island of Wakaya, ten miles ! due east of Levuka, and they experienced four /hurricanes within sixteen months, the last being on 2nd March. ~ Their coconut plantations, were "ruined, their trading vessels smashed up on the beach, and their homestead was wrecked. ,''.'■ , "There will be no living on the island, even for a native, for the next three years," said Mr, do Mouncey, sen., "and even at the expiration, of that time it is very doubtful if there will be a -living. ■ Because of the-state of the copra markets to-day;.at £9 10s per ton, it does not pay to: grow .copra; When we bought .the island in- 1924 copra was selling at £21 10s per ton, but now whale oil has taken its place. We know copra will'not come back to where it was, oven if the slaughter of .whales causes a shortage. There is any amount: of oil to be had from sharks. There is too' much capital invested in tho whale oil industry for it .to be abandoned at" any time."