Private Enterprise Asked To

BSIP Government Withdraws and-

Try Its Luck

The great Ilu farm experiment in BSlP—which was said to have influenced the choice of Honiara, rather than Old Tulagi, as capital —is over. Ilu is to be sold.

FU farm is about 17 miles out of Honiara. It was developed during the war by the Ameri cans who used it as a vegetable farm. After the war it was acquired by the Government, which, fired with the thought of turning the reluctant Guadalcanal natives into farmers, decided that Hu was the place where they would be shown how.

It is doubtful if one native has be come a peasant farmer as a result of the existence of Hu; the farm has, on the other hand, been a considerable embarrassment to the Government. Initially rice was tried out there but for various reasons was unsuccessful; at an other time it was to supply Honiara with vegetables: latterly it has been a livestock station.

Lack of money, lack of staff and inability to coax practical men there from Australia and New Zea land have contributed most to the failure of Hu. Yet the country has every appearance of fertility—it is not unlike the country on the dry zone of Fiji and probably would be admirable for sugar-cane, amongst other things. As PIM has pointed out before, it is a thousand pities that Piji-Indians are not permitted to lease areas of this country.

The ominous thought is that Guadalcanal would probably sup port a million or so Japs or Chinese, and at present it produces nothing but a little copra and timber.

Tenders for Hu will close with the Chief Secretary, Western Pacific High Commission at Honiara on October 31, 1954.

The property consists of various farm buildings, including European quarters, labour lines, stockyards, tractors, farm equipment, and tools, pigs, horses and 134 head of cattle, (two pure-bred Hereford Bulls and 2 pure-bred Zebu bulls are im ported), as well as 1,000 acres of flat alluvial-plain Crown land of which 200 acres are improved. It is roaded, fenced, drained and watered and would be available on a 99-years lease.

Annual rental for the improved land will be 2/- per acre, and, for unimproved kunai grasslands and bushlands, 6d. per acre. A further Crown area of grass and bush lands south of the property may be avail able for lease if required.

Purchase price must be paid in cash, and the successful tenderer will be required to take over the farm not later than December 31, 1954.