PEARL BUTTONS

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 110, 11 May 1934, Page 8

PEARL BUTTONS

BED MEANS TROCHTJS

THE JAP INDUSTRY

The Japanese are accused of poaching the trochus ("trocas") beds of North Australia. These beds are said to supply the greater part of the world's troehus. All the shell collected in Queensland waters is taken to Thursday Island, and there sold by auotivK i^.e buyers being mostly foreign or Thursday Island representatives of foreign iirms. The importance of this fishery, to Queensland at least, will be realised when the production there for the year ended June, 1932, was 518 tons lewt, valued at £33,168. The price for trochus shell for that year varied from £41 to £85. A small amount of shell, valued at £260, was also collected during that year'in North-West Australia.

It is stated by Joyce Allen in the "Sydney Morning Herald" that tho shells when bought are packed and sent overseas, chiefly to Japan, where they are made into buttons and exported Touiid tho world, the cheap labour conditions there enabling the Japanese to practically monopolise the market for the smaller pearl buttons. Trochus buttons are the ones commonly used on shirts, and are easily recognised by the red mark on the back of the button. POACHERS TAKE ALL, PAY NONE.

The Australian licensed fishermen are subject to many restrictions; the poacher to none. To prevent overfishing and consequent depletion of the beds, a proclamation came into force in January, 1932, prohibiting the picking of trochus-shell measuring less than 2J inches across the base. Mr. F. W. Moorhouse, M.Sc, who had done considerable work on the life-history of this economic shell, feels that the minimum should be three inches. But the poacher takes all sizes and pays nothing.

Messrs. Kramer and Burrows, of Manus, in the Mandated Territory of New Guinea, write: "If we want to go fishing, we must pay the local administration heavy dues for licences for ships, boats, and canoes, then there is personal buying and other dues, equip crews, and then pay" a royalty of £1 per ton on 'trocas' and snail, with a similar amount for duty. If we fish, buy, or sell 'trocas' under 2*in, we are liable to a fine of £5 for each shell. Yet these thieving poachers are fishing all the small baby shell, as well as the larger, paying no licences, having no right in these waters at all under seveTal ordinances, mixing, on occasions with the natives, and probably introducing disease, burning down copra dryers, and threatening others with throat-cutting. One small patrol boat, with .a speed of at least 18 miles an hour, and one small gun would keep them off. It is apparently because they know no action is being taken that they become so barefaced."

But the Japanese have a button industry in search of raw material. They also have a woollen industry in search of raw material. , They do not poach the wool. They pay for it.

Companies that legitimately operate this-fishing in Australia are whiteowned, but the men in charge of their boats are for the greater part Japanese, and the crew Japanese and Islanders. Licences for the fishing have to be obtained under the Pearl-shell and Beche-dc-mcr Fishery Amendment Act, and for the year ended June, 1932, ninetyone privately-owned boats and thirtyfive manned and operated by Tories Strait Islanders, including pearl-fishing as well, were licensed. JAPANESE IN LICENSED TRADE. Of the "in charge" licences, 57.2 per cent, were issued to Japanese. The fishing is usually carried on with beche-de-mer fishing as both animals arc found in the same shallow water, and not only the shell but the animal itself is utilised. Dried and smoked, the latter is sold as trocas meat, fetching as much as £60 or more a ton, and is considered a great delicacy, especially by the Chinese, who use it as a base for stews and soups.

Cutters and luggers with dinghies attached are employed throughout the year, except during the- monsoonal months of January and February, and alien poachers, aware that the boats are then disengaged, probably make this the time for excessive activities. The boats settle near reefs, the dinghies are let off, and these travel slowly over likely ground until the fishers see signs of trochus, when they dive overboard, and, by swimming about, collect as much as possible by hand. When sufficient is collected the dinghies return to the boat : and the shells are placed in a boiler to remove the animals.