SHOW BOAT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 302, 21 December 1932, Page 14

SHOW BOAT.

SPECIAL TRADE EXCURSION. DUTCH LINER TO EAST INDIES. (Prom Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, December 16. A good deal of interest ie being taken here m the projected cruise of the Dutch liner Nieuw Holland through the East Indies with an advertising display of Australian goods. The Royal Dutch Packet Company offered the use of this splendid vessel to the Victorian Chamber of Manufacturers as "a special trade ship," and arrangements are now being made for the Jiner to leave Sydney on her Singapore trip next April, carrying Australian merchants and manufacturers and exhibiting their produce. The steamer is to be met at every port by thje leading business, men of the locality and. it ia believed that this experiment will produce a very beneficial effect upon Australia's trade with the East. Nonexhibiting tourists will also be carried, 'but the purpose of the cruise ia primarily commercial.

Of course, the generous offer made' by the Dutch company is not wholly disinterested, for the Dutch authorities hope and believe that this, cruise may prove the means of opening up extensive trade relations 'between the Eaet Indies and Australia. There is nogjoubt that-the . East offers an enormous Tind almost untouched market for Australian goode if only it is properly exploited. At a recent public function organised to draw attention to this project the Sydney manager of the K.P.M. Line pointed to the amazing fact that "if Australia were as thickly peopled aa Java, she would hold all the people in the world, and a few more."

1 The possibilities of trade development in this direction are really immense, if the situation is carefully handled, and vigorous efforts are being made by the Federal Minister of Commerce, Mr. Stewart, and Brigadier-General H. G. Bennett, president of the Sydney Cham'ber of Manufacturers, to arouse public interest in this experiment and secure its success.

The bare fact that, as Mr. Stewart hoe saidj Australia sends seven commercial representatives to London, one to Canada, and none to the rest of the world outside the Empire is a sufficient commentary on the apathy hitherto displayed here in regard to the great commercial possibilities awaiting us at our own door and the moral of all this should not be lost upon New Zealand.