A Planter’S Life In

New Hebrides.

WE have taken the liberty of publish ing the following extract from a private letter to the editor from a planter in the New Hebrides. People, who read and write rubbish about the “romance” of the Pacific Islands, are invited to seek the romance in this simple recital of an average planter’s life.

“My wife and I went up to Australia last November, as we received word through 4QG, Brisbane, that her mother was very ill. We thought we would call on you, on our way back, but that was knocked on the head by the hurricane in February.

“By the time we got definite news, we had to hurry to get things together to get home, as all our buildings were un roofed and some destroyed altogether.

We had to take timber and iron for the roof of the dwelling house back with us.

“Our two sons were here during the hurricane. The settlers and natives say it was the worst ever known. The loss reported in the May issue of P.I.M. is not exaggerated, as far as our coconut palms are concerned. Most people say our palms suffered the worst on this island. A great number are down altogether, others badly bent and twisted about. In places it looks as though the wind had come straight down and then formed into a whirl wind. With other palms, the trunks are standing, with the tops snapped off and some of them broken in two places.

“The dwelling-house, store, two copra drying houses and bakehouse were un roofed, and beds for drying the copra on were also blown away. The copra house, which was a concrete building, collapsed altogether.

“This is a pretty hard knock for us settlers, on top of low copra prices.

Copra has been as low as £4/10/- per ton here and the highest I have re ceived since April, 1931, is £7/10/-. That was in May, 1931. In October I received £5/10/-. Just after the hurricane, my son says, they were offering £7/10/-.

This trip (June 24) they paid £6/15/per ton. So you can see we are not making fortunes down here.

“Although the French settlers got as sistance from their Government, as far as I know the British Government has given no assistance to the settlers here.

When I heard that the French were assisting their settlers, I wrote to the Resident Commissioner here to see if we could get anything, but so far I have had no reply.”