TRADE IN THE PACIFIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 103, 3 May 1922, Page 9

TRADE IN THE PACIFIC.

■COMMENT OF NEW ZEALANDER EFFECT OF AUSTRALIAN NAVIGATION ACT. (From Our Own Correspondent.* LONDON, March 14. A New Zealandcr whose knowledge of the Western Pacific extends over a lengthy period, and recently covered a journey of 5000 miles more than Lord Northcliffe's tour, commenting to-day on Vapua, and the paralysing effect of the Australian Navigation Act, fully subscribes to the view of the Governor of Papua. The effect of the Act, which adds on transport charges to and from Papua and Sydney and the preventing of direct trade is, of course, suicidal to industry at any time, and worse at one in which the world is hard put to it to pull trade, together. The continuance of these penalising clauses of the Navigation Act, this New Zealander says. ■Fudge Murray's remarks re trade in will kill the trade of British and German New Guinea unless the Australian Government takes immediate steps to give traders an opportunity to get their goods to the best and cheapest markets, as the cost of transport between Sydney and New Guinea is now as high as the freight from Hamburg to German New Guinea in pre-war times. The importance of this is evident when it is known that a scheme is already on foot here to take up the pre-war British and German trade in the Pacific. It. has a capital' of £ 100,000, the whole of which is being devoted to the purchase of real assets. This concern ie anxious to gpt underway with as little delay as possible, otherwise a unique 'opportunity to lay the foundations of an all-British concern in Pacific waters will be lost. It is for this reason that its promoters echo with every emphasis possible Judge Jlurray's strictures against the Australian Navigation Act.