Uncertain Times.

Tahiti’s Business Trials.

From Our Own Correspondent PAPEETE, April 21.

THE business outlook in Tahiti shows no sign of improvement, in fact, dur ing the past month copra has touched a new low record figure of 35 centimes per kilo on the beach, with buyers not over-anxious to take it even at that.

Small native owners working their own properties will continue to make copra so long as it is saleable, but the larger plantation holders, with overhead ex penses and paid labour to support, now have to choose between carrying on at a loss or abandonment, which latter al ternative would mean that in a very short while their lands would become jungles of lantana and sprouted coco nuts.

The present situation is really serious.

Some benefit may ultimately accrue to the coconut planter in French territories as the result of the bonus it is proposed to pay on copra exported to France.

This was discussed some months ago and apparently shelved for a time; but the proposal is again under considera tion, and with better prospects of real isation than before. As yet, however, it is by no means an accomplished fact.

In the meanwhile, efforts are being made by the Administration to establish a castor oil industry in Tahiti and other adjacent islands, which we hope will meet with the success they deserve.

There is plenty of implanted land in the group suitable for this crop, and a large market for the product exists in France, principally as a lubricant for aeroplanes, but without some protection it would seem unlikely that the conditions here would permit of competition with other tropical countries, where labour costs are so much less, and which are more favourably situated as regards trans portation.

As the result of several recent bank ruptcies, and consequent heavy losses, import merchants are now doing busi ness on a strictly C.O.D. basis, particu larly with the small Chinese retailers who formerly enjoyed a credit of from 28 to 56 days and were often able to turn over their goods at a profit before

meeting their drafts. It will be no longer possible for a Chinaman to commence business without capital, and build up a stock in trade from advances made by commission agents in San Francisco or wholesale merchants in Papeete; but perhaps this will be all to the good in the long run.

The uncertainty of the exchange situ ation, as between the franc and the U.S. dollar, has also been responsible for con siderable dislocation of business during the past few weeks, to say nothing of the inconvenience caused to visitors holding American letters of credit or travellers’ cheques, some of whom were unable to await the outcome of events in America and were obliged to sacri fice their dollars at a rate of exchange much below par.