Financial T roubles
p. 68 · Read in the full issue
W. Samoa Has Financial T roubles
THE Treasurer and Finance com mittee of the Western Samoa Executive Council were trying mid-March to find ways of balanc ing the 1957 Budget in time for the session of the Legislative Assembly due to commence at the end of the month.
The Government of Western Samoa is faced with a big decline in revenue and a continuous increase in current and capital expenditure A bad cocoa crop, a marked de crease in the price of copra and re duced banana exports have, in the last year, combined to make the task of running the Territory’s finances more difficult.
Some critics are blaming the current troubles on a Government spending spree following the boom year of 1955, when Samoa got equivalent to £Stg,slo per ton fob for her cocoa, and an average 40,000 cases of bananas were being shipped monthly to New Zealand.
There seems no immediate prospect of better cocoa prices or increased banana exports; and the export of copra may drop, due to the refusal of Samoans to accept the Government copra-grading scheme or the prices declared by the Copra Board.
II Brother Jude Featherstone, of the Marist Mission, in Bougainville, has been in hospital in Sydney for the past three months. t High Talking Chief Mariota Tuiasosopo, aged 52, long a leading figure in American Samoa politics, died suddenly on March 3. He was
founder of the present syste Samoan legislative policies and s as both Speaker of the House Senate President in past yean was a member of the Senate a time of his death. He is sui by his wife, Venise, daughter.
Betham, sons Palauni and Ma Jr.