Samoa's Labour

Failure to Replace Chinese

AFTER the never-to-be-forgotten

“Goodwill Mission” from New Zea land visited Western Samoa in 1936, and peremptorily ordered the repatria tion of the Chinese labourers then engaged on the Samoan plantations, the Samoan and New Zealand authorities made various efforts to provide Western Samoa with a labour supply from some other source. The Samoan plantation owners fought strongly for the retention of their trained Chinese labour but the New Zealand labour politicians would have none of them, and a large propor tion of the Chinese were repatriated.

Labourers from Niue were tried. They are famous as workers—but it was found in Samoa that they did not like cocoa plantations or rubber tapping, much preferring to work on copra plan tations near the sea—so most of them were returned to Niue and the officials looked elsewhere.

It was found that the natives of the Cook Islands were not interested in plantation employment away from their own country; and that the natives of the Tokelau Islands were not a practic able proposition, being few in numbers and very isolated. Some optimists had another look at certain classes of Samoan natives: but no hope was held out there —the land-owning Samoans definitely will not work for wages.

There are still a few Chinese remain ing in Samoa and it looks as if the mat ter of their repatriation has been taken out of the hands of the New Zealand theorists, because under present inter national conditions it is virtually impos sible to send these men back to China.

Mr. H. W. Hardy, Registrar of the Papuan Supreme Court, has returned to Port Moresby, Papua, after leave in Australia.