Cocoa Planters Are

Bitter

Plight Ignored By N.Z.

APIA, June 2.

THE planters of Western Samoa, and especially those engaged in cocoa production, are feeling very bitter to wards the New Zealand Government at present. Prices have fallen seriously in recent months, and prospects are black, and all their appeals to New Zealand for assistance have been practically ignored.

It is no exaggeration to say that, un less the cocoa planters are given some practical assistance at an early date, this valuable industry of cocoa planting, which has been a mainstay in Samoa for many years, will be ruined.

The cocoa planters recall bitterly the fact that when Mr. Langstone, as head of the “Goodwill Mission”, in Apia, in July, 1936, insisted that the wages of the Chinese should be raised, he promised the planters that the N.Z. Government would not ask them to undertake this extra expenditure without a* the same time guaranteeing the planters an ade quate return on their produce. The Gov ernment, soon afterwards, arbitrarily raised the wages of the Chinese—and. in addition, insisted upon the repatri ation of half the essential labourers. But it never has done anything to protect the price of cocoa. It was only another “politician’s promise”, and. as planters have no political influence or represen tation in New Zealand, their outcry against the breaking of the Ministerial undertaking has been simply ignored.

It is reported from Hollywood, that the film stars, Frances Langford and Jon Hall, (who was Terangi in the “Hurri cane” film) eloped on June 4.

After their marriage, the couple left in Hall’s 52-foot ketch for a honeymoon in Tahiti, where he was reared.

Mr. and Mrs. O. Colohen, of Labasa, Fiji, left Sydney for the Colony by the “Niagara” on June 9.