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work is being done in the training of Samoan teachers, who are proving a great success, and by means of periodica] attendance at the training-school for refresher courses and supervision by travelling Inspectors are being kept up to a relatively high standard of efficiency. All pupils qualifying for teachers are in future to undergo a practical and theoretical course in agriculture, as well as a course of vocational training in the Apia Technical School. By this means the spread of knowledge of practical use to Native life will be gradually disseminated throughout the islands. Two pupils have been selected for higher education in New Zealand during the present year, and two Native teachers have been detailed to proceed to the Dominion to visit Native and technical schools for the purpose of broadening their outlook and acquiring knowledge of teaching methods in New Zealand schools. The affiliation of certain Native schools in this Territory with schools in New Zealand has created great interest among the pupils of the schools concerned. The approximate expenditure on education for the year under review was £9,700, and the proposed expenditure for 1927-28 is £10,250. It would not be possible to carry out the education of the 2,417 pupils attending the Government and Government assisted schools for this sum but for the fact that the Native District Councils provide the grounds, plantations, and fales for schools free of charge. (d) Cultivation of Native Lands. Copra. —The efforts that are being made to awaken the Natives to a keener interest in agriculture and improved methods of cultivation and production include— (a) Instruction in schools : (b) Articles on agricultural subjects published in school journals and in the Native newspaper : (c) Inspection of plantations by the Director of Agriculture and the four European Inspectors as well as by the seventeen Native Inspectors: (d) Regulations governing cultivation, cleaning of plantations, and products for export.

Graph showing Native Copra Production.

These and other means of impressing the Natives with the importance of better and more extensive cultivation of their lands, and so making provision for their increasing needs and for a rapidly increasing population, are gradually taking root in the Native mind. New areas are being brought under cultivation every year, and coconut plantations alone have been increased by 6,000 acres during the past three years, and are being further increased in accordance with the policy to provide for a minimum of 2 acres per head of population. Economic pressure is, however, beginning to play its part in educating the Natives to greater efforts, for the problems arising out of the increased cost of living are not confined to advanced communities, but permeate Native life in this Territory and cause the Natives to appeal to the Administration to do what is impossible—viz., to reduce the price of goods they purchase from traders' stores and to compel the merchants to pay them a higher price for their copra. This request is but natural, for, while the Natives, as purchasers, have to pay the increased post-war prices for their goods, as producers they only receive for their copra the same or little more than pre-war prices. For several months during the past year the price paid to the Natives in many part of Samoa for copra was about £10 per ton, while at the same time higher prices were being paid for Native copra of no better quality in Fiji, Tonga, and other South Sea islands.

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