SOUTH PACIFIC TRADE

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 146, 18 December 1919, Page 4

SOUTH PACIFIC TRADE

SCOPE FOR BRITISH ENERGY

COMMERCIAL PROGRESS.

(FROM OtR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, 16th October. Giving his impressions of the South Pacific Islands before the Royal Photographic Society, Mr. T. J. M'Mahon, F.R.G.S., said the British settlers there are 'at present clamouring for more Imperial recognition; they want'to be assured that these South -Pacific Islands are considered useful and valuable to the British Empire. "The enterprises and energies of the settlers have surely given a value to these British possessions, and they naturally want to see British influence remain paramount in the South Pacific." A FIELD. FOR ENTERPRISE. Popular fallacy, remarked the lecturer, persists in throwing the glamour of romance over the South Pacific Islands. They are considered more beautiful than useful, the haunts of primitive savages, not civilised and Christianised peoples. They are certainly rich and vivid with tropic plant life, they are gems of fertility under the bluest of skies, but every acre has its use in the bounteous production of some tropical plant product useful to man in his food and industries. To-day they are being developed by British brains, money, and energy, and within the next decade they must be a commercial assets of the Empire, and an outstanding factor in its commercial progress. At present this fact, that cannot be challenged, is not receiving*.the atten- j tion it merits. He mentioned the very promising phosphate of lime industries of Ocean and Nauru Islands as probably ranking one day in the forefront of British enterprise.

Despite the interruption to progress caused by the war, and its baneful effects upon British trade, the South Pacific Islands trade is now worth £10,000,000 a year, and with wiss ana progressive administration British trade might easily be. in another decade worth £50,000,000 a year. To the young and energetio man, the investor with small capital, there is no more attractive field than the British South Pacific possessions.

The insistence of the Japanese on • a mandate for the Carolines and Ma-rahalls, and the demand of the Germans before the signing of Peace for their former South Sea possessions, pointed to their great commercial possibilities. German New Guinea, which had an area, of 100,000 square miles, was particularly fertile. GREAT RESPONSIBILITIES. British _ enterprise in the islands is worth millions, so British responsibilities are greater than most people think. Investigation will show that British enterprise has turned these islands from wastes of unproductiveness, from the haunts of aggressive savages, to prosperous lands and Christianised peoples. Facts prove what a valuable commercial asset the South Pacific-is to the Empire, and how British efforts, encouraged by sympathy and snpport, will thrive to the distinct advantage of the British Empire. British enterprise, such as that of the British New Guinea Developing Company in Papua (British New Guinea), is remarkable. This enterprise has opened up thousands of the most fertile acres of that large territory. It has in a flourishing condition plantations of coconuts- and rubber, cultivations of sisal hemp and tobacco. . It.is experimenting in the cultivation of cotton. It has trading stores, a tobacco factory; it employs hundreds of white men and thousands of natives. . '

These islands are .in the greatest solitude of the Central Pacific, 'and they are two centres of a wonderful industrial activity, having every convenience and comfort of civilised life. The enterprise controls over 100 miles of railways, and it has for the crushing and drying of the phosphate rock some of the finest machinery in the world. The thousand employees, white and black, Japanese and Chinese, live in conditions unsurpassed in the tropic world. The commercial progress of the islands and the enterprises—all British—throw a strong light on the value of British interests.