UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBUI CHRISTCHURCH, N.Z.

A.—3.

1934. NEW ZEALAND.

COOK AND OTHER ISLANDS. [In continuation of Parliamentary Paper A.-3, 1933.]

Presented to both Houses of the General Assembly by Command of His Excellency.

MEMORANDUM. Cook Islands Department, Wellington, 12th July, 1934. I submit the annual report of the Cook Islands for the year ended 31st March, 1934. The trade figures for the year show a slight improvement over the previous year in respect of both imports and exports. Revenues continue to fall, and the figures for the year under review show a decrease under the amount of the previous year's revenue of £4,777. The year closed with an excess of expenditure over revenue of £2,213 4s. Bd. The continued collapse of the copra market is a serious matter for the local Treasury, and is felt severely throughout the Group. The Lower Islands obtain a measure of relief from the export of fruit, but upon the copra trade the inhabitants of the Northern Islands depend almost entirely, both for currency and for sea communication with the outer world. With the loss of the copra market the export trade of the Territory is dependent upon other products of the soil, and a special effort has for some years been made to improve the quality of the orange export trade, an effort in which growers are participating by improving their citrus areas and propagating high-grade orange stock. The Medical and Educational Services are being maintained, but with ever-decreasing financial assistance from the New Zealand Treasury towards the cost of these services their performance is throwing an undue burden on the local Treasury, to the detriment of other general services, which are being carried out only with the exercise of stringent economies and the holding-over of important works. The visit of all the Arikis of Rarotonga, accompanied by a party of retainers, to many of the important Maori maraes of the North Island, including the historic site of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, was for Maori and Rarotongan one of the great events of the year. It should not only promote closer association between two branches of the Polynesian race, whose progress under the British flag is an outstanding testimony to the beneficence of British rule, but it should bring to the Rarotongan a greater realization of the good will the people of New Zealand bear towards him. A. T. Nα ATA, Minister for the Cook Islands.