THE HURRICANE AND AFTER.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1390, 25 March 1912, Page 6

THE HURRICANE AND AFTER.

NEWS FROM TUB ISLANDS, (B» Toleeranh.-l'rc.*. ißjocintlon.i Auckland, March 23. Apparently the position of tho native population in the liauirui group, as the result ol (he devastation caused by the recent hurricane, is not quite so prions as was at first anticipated, llr. A. Miller, ot Auckland, returned by the A tun from the islands this morning, his visit to the group being for tho specific purpose of investigating the actual damage done. Tho natives, ho found, wore not faced with any immediate possibilities of starvation, or even dire trouble, since the copra supplies ivero coming forward very freoiy, and would continue to do so ior the next four months. Maizo and other crops were being planted and would be available lor food purposes in another six months, while tho banana plantations, which had suffered severely, would agnin begin to reach a state of productivity in imotlier nine months. The yam crop'had also failed, but before the end of the year these should be bearing again. Trade would admittedly bo dull lor a period, but if the natives took care of the money which they would receive for the supply of copra on hand, they would lx> able to tide themwives over tho trouble ahead. In all, some 200,000 coconut trees were destroyed in tho gale, but this number, Jlr. Miller states, only represents about a fourth of the plantation area, and conditions should be nearly normal in the llaapai group eighteen mouths hence.