THE HURRICANE AND AFTER

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 230, 27 March 1912, Page 2

THE HURRICANE AND AFTER

NEWS FROM THE ISLANDS. Auckland, March 23. Apparently the position of the native population in the Haapai group, as the result of the devastation caused by the recent hurricane, is not quite so serious as was at first anticipated. Mr. A. Miller, of Auckland, returned by the Atua from the Islands this morning, his visit to the group being for the specific purpose of investigating the actual damage done. The natives, he found, were not faced with any immediate possibilities of starvation, or even dire trouble, since the copra supplies were coming forward very freely, and would continue to do so for the next four months. Maize and other crops were being planted and would be available for food purposes in another six months, while the banana plantations, which had suffered severely, would again begin to reach a state of productivity in another nine months. The yam crop (lad also failed, but before the end of the year these should be bearing again. Trade would admittedly be dull for a period, but if the natives took care of the money which they would receive for the supply of copra on hand, they would bp able to tide themselves over the trouble ahead. Tn all, some 200,000 coeoanut trees were destroyed in the gale, but this number. Mr. Miller states, only represents about a fourth of the plantation area, and conditions should be nearly normal in the Haapai group eighteen months hence.