CHINESE IN SAMOA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18216, 9 October 1922, Page 8

CHINESE IN SAMOA.

ATTEMPTS AT "GO SLOW." Fjsx telegraph.—-special reporter.] WELLINGTON. Satarday. The number of indentured Chinese in Samoa on March 31. 1922, was 1591, being made up as follows:—Old labourers imported during the German occupation, 241; arrived by the Haldis, 420; arrived by the Ascot, 922; arrived by the Taiyuan, 8. " The difficulties with which owners of plantations had to contend. during the past year were to a certain extent shared by the department," . states the annual report of the Samoan Agricultural Department. " Many plantations, owing to neglect during the war period and the shortage combined with the high cost of labour, had been allowed to get into a bad condition, necessitating a considerable amount of heavy work to restore them. This fact, together with the inexperience of the new labourers and the prevalence of septic sores during the wet season, at times caused discontent among the labourers, resulting in some canes in attempts to initiate a ' go-slow ' policy. " The institution of standard tasks, which were adopted wherever possible, in order to combat this policy, at first met with opposition, but with the realisation that the tasks set were in no cases excessive, the opposition ceased, and one constant source of friction was to a great extent removed. " The high cost of luxuries, and of tobacco in particular, compared with prices current in China, is also an everpresent source of complaint. The new labourers, coming* almost entirely from the Houngshan and Sanning districts of Kwangtung Province, are of a good type. The percentage of undesirables is very low. Relations between employers and labourers are generally good, and suggestions made from time to time by this uepartment in the interests of the workmen, individually an d collectively, have jaeen well received^"