Labourers Wanted
p. 11 · Read in the full issue
Samoan Planters’ Plight
From Our Own Correspondent.
Apia, Oct. 28.
AS a sidelight upon the Chinese question, it is worth noting that planters here to-day, owing to the stimulus of greatly improved quotations for cocoa, copra, bananas, etc., are anxiously seeking labour, but they cannot get it. All the Chinese la bourers, of course, are employed and the planters are trying to get Samoan labour ers—especially to assist in bringing in the cocoa crop and also for weeding and bush felling.
Actually, they are experiencing the greatest difficulty in obtaining any Samoan labour at all. The Samoans are enjoying so much prosperity, as a result of the ac tivity in the banana and copra markets, that they refuse to work on the plantations for any wages that may be offered.
Yet the New Zealand Government pro poses to send away our Chinese labour!
Mr. J. G. Hid es, formerly Assistant Resident Magistrate in Papua, gave an interesting lantern lecture to members of Tattersall’s Club, Sydney, on November 11. His subject was “Savages in Serge,’’ and he praised the magnificent work of the Papuan Armed Constabulary, which, he declared, “had kept open the laneways between civilisation and the stone age.”