Samoa

Prosperity In W.

From Our Own Correspondent Apia, Oct. 1 AN Apia firm has just completed de liveries under a contract for 120 tons of cocoa-beans to Palestine, at a very attractive price (about £135 per ton f.0.b.). The new contract price for plan tation, hot air-dried cocoa-beans of first grade quality is £135 per ton, or about £ll6 per ton paid to the planter. This means an advance of some £3O per ton on the last contract price (about £B6 per ton).

Given satisfactory weather conditions, the next cocoa crop should be a very good one.

A new factory for the manufacture, for export, of Samoan dehydrated ban anas (banana figs) has been opened re cently by the New Zealand Reparation Estates at Mulifanua Plantation.

The factory is situated at Vaibase (Vailele) Plantation. It is reported that the demand for the product in New Zea land is increasing rapidly and the NZRE is at present unable to fill all the orders.

Aloma Products Ltd., which was to have started a canning factory for coconut cream in July, has so far not begun operations, owing, it is reported, to the non-arrival of essential engine parts from England.

The recent appreciable increase in the price of copra may to some extent affect the economics of the enterprise.

There is marked building activity in Apia as well as in country districts.

New buildings now in progress include stores for O. F. Nelson & Co.; a building for I. H. Carruthers Ltd.; a concrete building for the Methodist Mission; and a church on the property of the Seventh Day Adventist Mission at Vaea.

Many new buildings already started had to be suspended through lack of lumber, cement and roofing iron.

Amongst such buildings are native churches in all districts of the islands.