COOK ISLANDS TRADING.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 November 1934, Page 6

COOK ISLANDS TRADING.

If the statements made last week by a recent inhabitant of the Cook Island Group are correct the economic conditions in the Dependency are anything but cheering. Expprts are half the value they were ten years ago, imports have shrunken similarly, and last year there was an unfavourable trade balance of nearly £3OOO. The drop in the value of exports is accounted for mainly by the fall in the prices obtainable for copra. That commodity, the principal export from the Group, in 1928 was worth £lB 10s per ton. Last year the value had dropped to less than £9 per ton, a position primary producers in Taranaki will appreciate to the full. Returns from the citrus plantations proved less remunerative last year than had been hoped for, and with the transport facilities irregular, as well as the possibility of a new trading arrangement with Australia, the outlook for the sale of Rarotongan oranges in the Dominion does not appear very promising. The same applies to banana exports from the islands. A quota system was introduced in the hope of stabilising prices, but a reduction of 15,000 cases last year as compared with the number shipped in 1932 does not seem to have improved matters for the grower. When to these difficulties there was added a reduction in the subsidies from the New Zealand Treasury it is not surprising that the Group’s accounts for the past financial year closed with an excess of expenditure over income. According to visitors to the Group, the Cook Island oranges are of high quality and the supply is much greater than the demand. To organise sufficient shipping to bring the fruit regularly to New Zealand entails a cost that has been considered prohibi-

five hitherto. But unless the Dependency is to remain a charge upon the New Zealand taxpayer it would seem essential that some development of its resources must be made possible.