Banana Industry
p. 129 · Read in the full issue
An Isolated
Territory Of Nz
Nines Developing Banana Industry
A VIRILE community of nearly 5,000, on the large island (100 sq. miles) of Niue, is usually overlooked when people are con sidering the South Pacific scheme of things. Niue is administered as a separate Islands dependency of New Zealand, with its own Resident Commissioner: but it is nearly always included, by political sur veyors, with the Cook Islands. It lies far westward of the Cooks, and is nearer Tonga than Rarotonga.
The Resident Commissioner, Mr.
A. O. Dare, was a prominent figure at the last session of the South Pacific Commission; and he told re porters that, although these are in dustrious Polynesians, producing copra, bananas and woven goods (Niue baskets are famous), New Zealand supports the Territory with an annual grant of around £lOO,OOO.
Niue now is trying to increase its annual export of 6,000 cases, to meet New Zealand’s apparently insatiable demand for bananas.
Niue was first reported in 1774 by Captain James Cook, and the recep tion accorded him by the natives was so unfriendly that he named it Savage Island.