SAMOA UNSUITABLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 February 1921, Page 7

SAMOA UNSUITABLE.

FOR SOLDIER SETTLEMENT. VIEW OF EX-CONTINGENTER. “One of the troubles in Samoa,” said Mr. F. C. E. Codd to a Wellington Times reporter, “is that the Government doesn’t seem to be able to do anything with the Crown estates at the presenft time. The Government egn’t sell or let them, and that is keeping people from going there. But, as for sending returned soldiers, without any tropical experience, out there, I think it is a mistake. The climate seems to be against any man who has been out to the front or been knocked about at all. When the Parliamentary party was in Samoa, one or two members spoke to me of cutting up the D.H.P.Gt estates, of which 9000 acres are in eaeonuts. But I don’t think our men, and especially their wives and families, could stand the climate. It is toe hot.Moreover, by small holdings you would fib maldhg the labour problem still mote difSeult, be= cause you can employ labour much more economically on a place, say of 40OQ acres -than on small areas. The small holdings would mean so much more labor devoted to work about the house, for cart-boys, cook-boys and so on. The Solomon Island boys, too, seem to be leaving Samoa, and one Solomon Islander is worth four Chinamen in the coconut plantations. 'The Chinamen, how- : ever, are best in the cocoa plantations, ; because they are more or less used to j horticultural work.”