Depression Causes Samoans
p. 25 · Read in the full issue
To Return To Primitive Life .
From Our Own Correspondent.
APIA, February 12.
AS a result of the low copra and banana prices and the limitation of banana shipments, the spending power of the Samoan native is consid erably curtailed.
In consequence, he has to-day to go without many luxuries he has become used to in previous good times. The consumption of bread, biscuits, canned meat and canned fish, has very much decreased, and the native is now satis fied with his breadfruit, taro, yams, bananas, and the proceeds of his fishing.
One hears of native village meetings where people deliberate on a cessation of banana shipments at the low rate fixed by the Administration, also on reducing their purchases in the stores to the absolute minimum, after the rise in prices occasioned by the increased tariff duties.
Motor ’bus owners, taxi-drivers, and picture show proprietors all complain about bad business. The native is re turning from the joys of the mechanical age to the simple life of his fore fathers.
At the present time, the Samoans are very anxious to work on the European cocoa and banana plantations, even at much reduced wages. Men and women work for a daily wage of 2/-, without
meals, and 1/- a day with food, on weeding plantations. Bush felling is done for £1 per acre, contract price.
However, there is not much work of fering at present, so the labour supply far surpasses the demand, as planters are, owing to last year’s unsatisfactory cocoa crop, unable to undertake much new cultivation and developmental work.