Samoa
p. 31 · Read in the full issue
High Prices In
Effect of the War
From Our Own Correspondent APIA, April 9.
FROM the outbreak of the war against Japan, for nearly 3 months, Western Samoa had no shipping communi cations or mail services connecting the Territory with the outside world. Im ported foodstuffs ran out or were very low, and planters and traders suffered considerably from the lack of export facilities and unprofitable produce prices.
Natives stopped the cutting of copra and cocoa beans accumulated in Apia sheds.
Actual warfare did not reach Western Samoa, though the shelling of the US Naval Base of Pago Pago, Eastern Samoa, by a small Jap vessel early in January, caused some excitement.
However, transport facilities are better now, and the commercial position has
improved.
Owing to the cutting of communications with the Philippines and East Indies, the prices for Samoan copra, cocoa beans and rubber have been greatly increased.
Copra is now (early April) purchased in Apia at 7/6 per 100 lbs., with £9/12/6 per ton for larger lots. Cocoa beans are quoted at £65 to £75 per ton for plantation cocoa. This is the off-season for cocoa, and stocks on hand are small. So far, the price of bananas has not been in creased and stands at 5/- per case.
Benzine and kerosene supplies are strictly rationed, though other essentials, mainly foodstuffs, have so far only been
temporarily restricted. Local food supplies are sufficient for all needs so far.
Prices of imported foodstuffs, clothing and boots, however, have risen very ap preciably. Wages of labour have gone up in consequence, and European planters complain about a serious labour shortage on plantations, owing to remunerative employment offering in American Samoa.
Trainee Maurice Scott, who held the rank of captain in the Fiji Defence Force at the outbreak of war and who sub sequently joined the first contingent of RAF recruits to leave Fiji, has gained his wings at a South African flying school.
He is the son of Sir Henry Scott, KC, and Lady Scott, of Suva. Another Fiji man at the same establishment, Trainee K. Nicholson, only son of Mr. and Mrs.
W. Nicholson, of Suva, has also been awarded wings and been commissioned as a Pilot Officer.
Captain William Bernard Robertson, who spent a number of years among the Western Pacific Islands as an officer on the old Melanesian Mission steamer “Southern Cross”, died in Auckland re cently at the age of 59. In recent years, he was a well-known master mariner of the New Zealand coastal trade.