TRADE IN FIJI

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 40, 15 August 1918, Page 7

TRADE IN FIJI

MR. R. W. DAI/TON'S VISIT TO THE

ISLANDS.

(BI TELEGRAPH.—PRBSS ASSOCIATION.)

AUCKLAND, This Day. Mr. R. W. Dalton, British Trade Commissioner for New Zealand, returned from Suva yesterday. He said he found that the exports of sugar were by far the moat important item of trade in Fiji. Copra cultivation was increasing; . the crop in the present year would probably be a record one. At present practically all the copra was going to the United States directly or through Auckland and Sydney merchants. There had been considerable development in the use of copra in America, but it was very doubtful whether the trade would remain in American hands to any very appreciable extent after the war. So far as general trade in Fiji was concerned, by far the greatest part of the import trade prior to the war was in British goods. Germany held a certain amount of trade in cheap goods, but this was small in relation to the total. Since the war, America had taken greater interest in trade in the islands. Japan had become very much more active, largely in the direction of replacing goods formerly obtained from Germany.

Mr. Dalton expressed the opinion that British merchants would be able to recover fairly easily this lost tr«de, and would obtain trade they did not have prior to the war. There was strong sympathy on the part of merchants in favour of buying from British sources. He believed Australia now had the bulk of the trade in flour and biscuits, but New Zealand still held the greater part of the trade in tinned meats, and there was a possibility of tho establishment of a very important cattle industry in Fiji.