NEAR EAST MARKET

Evening Star, Issue 19328, 14 August 1926, Page 11

NEAR EAST MARKET

NEGLECTED OPPORTUNITIES MR JOHN FULLER’S VIEW. Mr John Fuller, of the theatrical firm of Sir Benjamin and John Fuller, who. returned to Australia on the R.M.S. Comorin last month, after a holiday in Java and Malaya, comes back with,tho same story of wonderful trade' possibilities awaiting Australia in those lands (says tho Perth ‘Daily News’), but ho has also the same report to make, that the prestige of A') 8 * tralia’s goods has been depreciated by the 'careless packing and inferior qualities. _ Western Australia _ especially, Mr Fuller contends, has in the Dutch Islands and Malaya a wonderful trade asset, the development of which would justify tho appointment of a trade commissioner. Java is at our front door, and her 25,000,000 million people' are now learning to cat meat and Horn, and are gradually approaching tho standard of European civilisation, which has created a demand for many manufactured commodities not previously thought of by thom._ The same complaint against Australian goods, that insufficient care is exercised in the grading and no attempt made at putting our wares in attractive packages, is heard also in Bankok (Siam), where Australian tinned fruits have an excellent market offering, but the people have been put, off them by the superior attractiveness of the American article, though the hotter quality of the Australian product is undoubted.

Discussing tho Near East generally, Mr Puller said that previously to his present visit ho had been opposed to the project of the Singapore Naval Base; but one could not visit Singapore without being convinced that.it would bo a serious thing for the British Empire were tho adequate defence of Malaya neglected by not, constituting Singapore the naval headquarters of the Far East.

Mr Fuller visited Ceylon twenty years ago, and the wonderful advance made' in fostering tho industry of the people, their more comfortable housing, attention to sanitation, and the education of the natives in the English language, are a tribute to British colonisation, and in striking contrast to tho conditions met with in Java.

During bis visit lo Singapore Mr Fuller opened up negotiations with Gilmore’s, the leading theatrical entrepreneurs, under which an Indian circuit has been established. The Ward Co., on finishing in Sydney, will go direct to Singapore, and do the Indian circuit en route to England. Mr Fuller added that Gilmore’s have arranged a Far Eastern tour under their management of Mr Oscar Ascho, the Australian actor, and Miss Marie Lehr.

Mr Fuller has come hack firmly convinced that the policy of a white Australia must ho maintained, those who talk of the necessity for colored labor to develop Northern Australia notwithstanding. One good Australian worker, with modern machinery, he contends, is the equivalent of 100 natives, and even without machinery it takes six natives to do what one Australian can do. The talk of the teeming millions of Asia invading Australia was all “ bosh.”