TASMAN HERE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 83, 8 April 1940, Page 6

TASMAN HERE.

DOWN FROM SAIGON. UNEVENTFUL VOYAGE. VISIT BY TEA PLANTER. After an uneventful voyage from Saigon, the .South Pacific Line passenger steamer arrived at Auckland this morning with 102 passengers, 33 of whom were for New Zealand ports and 10 were booked through for Australia and return ports. Tlicie were also 53 .Javanese returning to Batavia. There has been little alteration in the price of tea, according to Air. G. A. Walcsnii. plantation manager of Bandoeng. His place has 800 acres of tea under cultivation and 200 acres are devoted to quinine trees. The bark of these latter is removed and sent to the factory where the drug is extracted. "Most of our tea is sold in Australia, and wc have not found so far that the war lias made any difference, to prices," said Mr. Walcon. He add.'d that, only four Europeans were necessary to inn the gun! 'is and factory on the plantation, tli icavy work being performed by seve: '! hundred coolies. "There anno labour troubles over there," he said. He is paying his first visit to New Zealand, and will visit Kotorua and the South Island before going on to Australia on his way home. Former New Zealand Teacher. For the last three years senior inspector of schools in Singapore, Mr. M. R. Holgate was a through passenger for the United Kingdom, via Cauad.i. He commenced his teaching career at Morningside, Duncdin. and, after two years' war service, returned to the Dominion and joined the staff of the King Edward Technical College in Duncdin. From there he went to Malaya to join the Malayan Education Department. "I have liecome so used to the East now that it seems just like home." he -!.'..;. Me added that he had visited the Doiniir' •• on two or three occasions since g<.:: g in Malaya. "Just haxii:- a !<K>k around Australia and New Zealand in the interests of busine-s."' said Mr. Yukio Kottchi, a Japanese business investigator, when interviewed, lie explained that he was particularly concerned with cotton goods, for which there was a good market in Africa and Australia. Severe Japanese Winter. "As to when the war with China will end I can say nothing," he added. "That would be only guessing."' He said that the winter had been particularly severe

>■■■••■■•■■• eiSfMaaia ■■■■■■■■■■■ in Japan and was evidently a repetition <>f the experiences in Northern Knrope. In northern Japan snow had begun to fsi 11 in October and had continued intermittently until March. The opinion that the Bino-.lapanese war had reached the stage of stalemate, wa* expressed by Mr. V. C. Olive, director of Lacey and Caiman. Limited, Shanghai. His company represents the Kllerman Line shipping interests in the Chinese city. The Japaiics a were pressing hard, but the Chinese had determined, evidently, to resist to the end. The war had affected Chinese trade gneatly—particularly in the northern areas, and there had afeo been a drastic drop in imports, due to the fact of the depreciation of the Chinese dollar.