Corporate entry: Planters' and Farmers' Association

Details

There were several incarnations of an association to promote commercial agriculture and farm products in the BSIP. The Solomon Islands Planters' and Traders' Association was formed at Gizo (q.v.) in 1914 to represent the interests of the smaller copra plantation companies. The Association produced its own journal, The Planters' Gazette, in the 1920s, and during that decade it tried constantly but unsuccessfully to get the two-year indenture contact period extended to three years. In 1927, the Association lobbied the government for labour recruiting ships to be allowed to carry trading facilities, but this was disallowed after a 1929 inquiry concluded that what the planters wanted was to increase their control over labourers. The Association lapsed during the 1930s and 1940s but was revived in 1949 and re-formed in 1950 as the BSIP Planters' and Commercial Association, with R. C. Symes (q.v.) as President. In August 1960, C. J. Symes began moves to form another Planters' Association for all areas of the Protectorate except the Western Solomons. By 1963 there was only one Association, renamed the British Solomon Islands Plantations' and Farmers' Association. Its members were engaged in coconut, cacao and oil palm planting, rice and soya bean farming and raising poultry and cattle. In 1966 the committee members were Paul Brown, R. H. Gordon, Dick Johnson, David Thompson and George Yee Fai. (Bennett 1987, 153, 165; PIM Apr. 1950; AR 1950, 5, AR 1967, 81; NS Aug. 1960, 31 Dec. 1962, 27 Aug. 1966)

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Published resources

Books

  • Bennett, Judith A., Wealth of the Solomons: A History of a Pacific Archipelago, 1800-1978, University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu, 1987. Details

Journals

  • Pacific Islands Monthly. Details
  • British Solomon Islands Protectorate (ed.), British Solomon Islands Protectorate News Sheet (NS), 1955-1975. Details

Reports

  • British Solomon Islands Protectorate, British Solomon Islands Protectorate Annual Reports (AR), 1896-1973. Details