JAPANESE GOODS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 104, 4 May 1936, Page 8

JAPANESE GOODS.

IN NEW HEBRIDES.

OTHER TRADES CAPTURED. BRITISHERS' PROBLEM. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. According to Mr. John 1* letchei,. formerly of the Survey Department, Wellington, and now a boundary commissioner in the New Hebridean Suivey Service, who is at present in Wellington with his wife, the Japanese have captured by far the largest part of the native trade. Japanese goods have been under-cut-ting all others, particularly in the very considerable trade in cheaper commodities with the natives. Competition has not stopped there, however, and many of the French and British owners' requirements are being supplied by Japanese factories. Plantation owners complain that British goods are too expensive to import. The trade in French goods, which was formerly very considerable, has been transferred to the East, because of the cost of the 1' rench gold franc. At one time Britain controlled by far the largest part of trade and owned considerable plantation areas, but France made efforts to establish a colonial footing apart from that held by her missionaries, and since the islands had been placed under the joint authority of a British and French co-dominion she had taken a material interest in the islands. The cause of the decline of the British plantations was that they had to depend on the labour of natives, who were not essentially interested in planting, whereas the French imported Tonkinese labour in considerable quantity from French Indo-China. The British had the power to bring over British Chinese from Hongkong, but the idea had never been exploited. There were now four times as many French owners as British, though the latter generally were in a more sound financial position.

The acute labour problem, as affecting British interests, he said, had been investigated by a commission in 1927, but no report had been made, and the matter had been lost sight of when the depression had reduced the demand for copra. Now the question was likely to become one of importance. Although there was friendly rivalry between the British and French planters, both nations were friendly to each other.