Budget Headache
p. 33 · Read in the full issue
Falling
Prices
Western Samoa Faces Budget Headache
FACED with a greatly decreased revenue as a result of the fall in cocoa prices and every sign of a poor cocoa crop, and with all the emphasis on expansion of medical services, education, and public works, the Government of Western Samoa will face problems in 1956 that did not have to be considered in 1955, a prosperous trade year.
Adverse weather conditions in recent months have seriously affected the current cocoa crop, which is not expected to recover before the end of 1956.
Some local businessmen are already forecasting the beginning of “the seven lean years,” A steadily dropping cocoa price and the 10 per cent fall in the MOF price for copra show that economies will have to be made somewhere.
The paying days for the cocoa in dustry are over, says a correspon dent especially for European planters who have to pay exorbitant wages for indifferent work. Some
are already talking of abandoning their cocoa plantations and going in for cattle raising.