Samoan Mau And

Bananas

Industry May Be Wrecked

From Our Own Correspondent.

APIA, June 2.

WITH the local cocoa price down to less than £22 per ton, and no profit at present in the cocoa industry, the banana export business has become the mainstay of our economic life. Re cently, 17,000 cases of bananas were shipped to New Zealand, and the de mand apparently is increasing, owing to the good quality of the fruit and the rigid inspection enforced.

It is, therefore, deplorable that the success of the banana industry should be threatened by a ceaseless and trouble some agitation against the Govern ment’s present hanana-oxport organi sation. The Man, for apparently per sonal and political reasons, is adopting all sorts of methods to make the organi sation difficult. It even went to the length of sending circulars to all native shippers of bananas and asking them to supply details of any complaints they might have against the present system of inspection. So far, the Government has flatly rejected the intrigues of the Mau, and the banana scheme is working admirably—but under a definite sense of uneasiness.