SAMOA SATISFIED

Evening Star, Issue 18050, 18 August 1922, Page 7

SAMOA SATISFIED

UNDER-SECRETARY RETURNS,

CRITICISM REFUTED.

“A marked improvement in Hie affairs in Samoa, both commercially and politically, has taken place in the last twelve months,” said the Uiider-Sccrctary of External Affairs (Mr J. D. Gray), in an mterview at Auckland after a tivo weeks official visit to the mandated territory. From a commercial standpoint Mr Gray expressed himself as quite satisfied that Samoa had come through the worst of the ibad limes, and at present was in a. better position than either Fiji Tonga. Ono of the main contributing finises was the fact that throughout Hits last eighteen months of acute depression the Samoan Administration, with the approval of Hio New Zealand Government, had kept the Grown estates going, and had also carried out its previously arranged policy of public works. Another satisfactory feature was that the Samoan native population was allowing a gratifying rate of increase, and recovering some of the terrible losses incurred during the influenza epidemic. The political situation had also changed, completely. A year ago the Taipulcs, or Samoan Advisory Council, had presented a petition to the Minister of External Affairs asking that the administration be transferred to Britain. In its latest session. in April and June Hus year, tno same Native Parliament had on at least two occasions passed sincere and formal motions expressive of_ confidence in the administration and of loyalty to New Zealand. _ . . Replying ,to criticism which recently appeared in a Sydney paper, and was cabled to New Zealand, that the administration could not secure ns good 10sults from the appropriated estates as the former German owners, Mr Gray_ said that these areas were now producing a very high grade of copra, ami cocoa, which easily held its own on the London market. On the Mulafanua plantation, which was the largest cocoaimt plantation in the Pacific, "and comprised 4,000 acres of bearing trees, the output in the past year had been at least 300 tons greater than _ in. any pre-war year since 1901, and this crop had been produced with fifty fewer laborers than were employed by the Germans. Very much the same could be said of other plantations. The opinion had also been expressed by a. loading planter and resident of Samoa in a recent interview to the Sydney Press that the cocoa industry was doomed to extinction within the next few years owing to the ravages of canker, hrom searching inquiries during his visit, Mr Gray staled that his opinion was completely at variance with that of experts. _ In Samoa the amount of canker that existed was quite negligible, and confined exclusively to very old trees.