LATE GERMAN COLONIES

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 114, 11 November 1919, Page 8

LATE GERMAN COLONIES

AUSTRALIANS SEEK OPPORTUNI , / TIES.

(FROM OCR OWN CORREBPONDINT.)

SYDNEY, 'sth November.

There has lately been a marked exodus of young Australians to the late .German islands, and to other groups where German interests are being displaced. In the year before the war, about 90 per cent, of the trade of German New Guinea and t°he islands administered from Rabaul went direct to Germany, and perhaps 5 per cent, came to Australia. Australia is out to reverse the

•process. The Government has not given details of the system of administration, it is proposed to adopt under the mandate, ■but the assurance has been made that Australian enterprise will be encouraged in every possible way. It has been decided, for instance, to proclaim the Australian Navigation Act so far as these territories are concerned. This means •that no steamer -will be allowed to trade with these territories unless, it complies with Australian conditions in regard to the payment and condition of its crew.. This will shut out the Dutch and Japanese liners, whose routes lio practically right through this region, and who were preparing to carry off a lao.-ge proportion of the trade to Japan and the Dutch East Indies.

German New Guinea offers splendid opportunities to those who would grow ■coconuts;, 'rubber, and similar things, and as soon as the form of administration is decided upon, the Government 'will seek to encourage settlement there by every possible means. Its policy, so far as the present German settlers there are concerned, is still unknown. A commission of experts who went north and made a hurried examination of these I lands which are the subject of the mandate has just returned, and is preparing a report. A. hundred problems of ■administration will probably be settled according to the recommendations thus received. Every ship which now goes north is already crowded with young men eager to be the first to get what pickings are available.

Many 'Australians are going off to German East Africa and the- M^lay States, where discharged soldiers are getting all the opportunity they can ask ■for. In East Africa, particularly, the greatest possible encouragement is being given to those who wish to trade or 'plant, and it is said that there are in this region abundant chances of acquiring rapid wealth.