SAMOAN AFFAIRS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11292, 18 August 1922, Page 10

SAMOAN AFFAIRS

MARKED IMPROVEMENT COMPLETE POLITICAL AND COMMERCIAL CHANGE. INCREASED PRODUCTION. I'EK TRESS ASSOCIATION. AUCKLAND, August 17. Marked improvement in the affairs in S'amoa, both commercially and politically, has taken place in the last twelve months, said the Secretary for External Affairs (Mr J. D. Gray), ia an interview, after a five-weeks’ official visit to the mandated territory. From a commercial standpoint, Mr Gray expreseed himself quite satisfied that Samoa had come through the worst of the had time, and at present was in a better position than either Fiji or Tonga. One of the main contributing causes was the fact that throughout the last eighteen months of acute depression, the Samoan Administration. with the approval of the New Zealand Government, had kept the Crown estates going, and had also carried out its previously-arranged policy of public works. GRATIFYING FEATURE. Another gratifying feature was that the Samoan native population was showing 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 Faipules, or Samoan Advisory Council, had presented a petition to the Minister for External Affairs asking that the administration be transferred to Britain. LOYAL TO NEW ZEALAND. In its latest session, in April and June of this year, the same native Parliament had, on at leasr t.wo owywions, passed sincere and formal motions expressive of confidence in the administration and loyalty to New Zealand. Replying to criticism which recently appeared in a Sydney paper, and cabled to New Zealand, “that the Administration could not secure as good results from the expropriated estates as the former German owners,” Mr Gray said three areas were now producing a very high grade of copra and cocoa, which easily held its own on the London market. On the Mulafanua plantation, which was the largest cocnanut plantation in the Pacific, and comprised 4000 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. This crop had been produced with fifty less labourers than were employed by Germans. Very much the same could he said of other plantations. CANKER NEGLIGIBLE. The opinion had also been expressed by a leading planter and resident of Samoa, in a recent interview to the Sydney Press, that the cocoa industry wns doomed to extinction within the next few years owing to the ravages of canker. From searching inquiries during his visit, Mr Gray stated that this opinion was completely at variance with that of experts in Samoa. The amount of canker that existed was quite negligible, and was confined, exclusively, to very old trees.