MALADOROUS NAURU.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 209, 3 September 1919, Page 6

MALADOROUS NAURU.

A -little further light was thrown on the question of the -Nauru, mandate in Parliament !a_t evening l during the course of the debate on the Peace Treaty. But the financial side of this transaction is still nebulous. As far as we are able to learn the Pacific Phosphate Company has asked £3,000,000 for its plant and rights on Nauru. This company, we ibelieve, has a nominal capital of £1 £00,000, of which £700,000 is paid up, and it also owns and works Ocean Island, about 400 miles distant from Nauru. Its Nauru rights consisted of an agreement to exploit the extensive phosphate deposits ■on the island on a royalty hasis, Ibut with the .passing of the island from German to British sovereignty the agreement presumably became void, and could only be renewed by the Imperial Government. The value oif -plant is probably not in excess of £100,000, and the balance is represented by the right to work the phosphate. Of the quality of the deposit, Mr. T. G. McMahon, F.R.G.S., says -it "is not of the same high grade as that of Ocean Island," and it must Tjc "borne in mind that the proposals do not include the acquisition of Ocean Island, which is represented in the company's capital, and from which a large and steady production can be mainta-ined for very many years. So it. would seem that the bargain that is proposed needs very careful investigation on the financial side, and this is just where Mr Massey'-s failure to consult Sir Joseph Ward, Dominion Milliliter of Finance, was both an autocratic disregard of procedure and a grave discourtesy to a colleague. There is no occasion to stampede this Dominion into an agreement which on the face of it looks as if it might involve our producers in paying a price -in advance of that now ruling for phosphates. There has been a suspicion all through the propaganda that has marked this business of an attempt to convey the impression that it is a question of phosphates from Nauru or nothing. As a matter of fact the phosphates used in this Dominion have of recent years come almost exclusively from Makatea, in the Society Group, an island situated about the same distance from New Zealand as is -Nauru. The Makatea deposits, worked by French and British capital, are estimated at 10,000,000 tons, which on the basis of the extreme estimate of 500,000 annually from Nauru (the figures at present do not exceed 100,000) would last twenty years. The only really satisfactory feature in Mr. Massey's statement yesterday is that the acceptance or rejection of an arrangement with the Phosphate Company will rest with 'Parliament. -Before Parliament deals with the matter we trust that it will insist on the very fullest details as to the whole transaction.