Happy Christmas
p. 123 · Read in the full issue
Samoa Had a Happy Christmas
rpHE very heavy rains of mid- December suddenly ceased and in the last week before Christ mas bright sunny weather gave the people of Samoa the genuine festive feeling.
After the crop failure during the first half of the current year cocoa planters are now harvesting a bumper crop and are kept busy day and night with picking, fer menting and drying their cocoa beans.
The S/S Foylebank, which de -0 j o j 0 q }snC mdy uiojj Christmas lifted a cargo of 1750 tons of copra and cocoabeans, including some 460 tons of cocoa beans for the English market.
The next cargo steamer, the Westbank will be delayed until January to lift more cocoabeans and part of the 5000 tons of copra now stored in Apia sheds ready for shipment.
There is still no improvement in banana exports and the prospects for the first half of 1957 are not encouraging. The shortage of Samoan foodstuffs continues. t The Conseil General of New Caledonia closed its budgetary session in December after voting a
record budget of 950 million francs (£6,650,000) for 1957. Apart from ttle n ew tax on foreigners (Dec.
CIM) , no new taxes were intro duced.