Concern Among Solomon Is.

Planters Administration May Increase Minimum Native Wages Rate

From Our Own Correspondent TULAGI, April 2. concern is felt among Solomon Islands planters at the approaching discussion of the amended wages rate.

Apparently the Administration is still only scantily supplied with information as to the cost of copra production. The recent price of a little over £lO per ton appears to be regarded officially as eminently pro fitable, and warranting an increase in the amended wages rate.

Cannot it be impressed on these people that £lO per ton yields a very bare profit, which would take a decade to recoup the losses of the last few years? That £lO per ton is not the minimum price of copra— there is no minimum price, the planter being at the mercy of the market —but the present wage rate is a minimum only.

There is no limit to the increased wages that may be given. If, however, the present minimum is increased, a fall in the copra price will reproduce the situation of the last few years.

Officialdom has at its disposal the list of plantations abandoned in recent years: surely that should suffice to warn it against interference with the present ar rangement. If planters would supply the Administration with facts about their dif ficulties, perhaps they might dispel that deep-seated impression of the wonderful time the planters, and plantation com panies, have.