NEW HEBRIDES TRADE

Evening Star, Issue 22329, 4 May 1936, Page 8

NEW HEBRIDES TRADE

CAPTURE BY JAPANESE UNDERCUTTING BRITISH AND FRENCH [Pr. 1 : United Press Association.] WELLINGTON. March 4. According to Mr John Fletcher, formerly of the Survey Department, Wellington, and now boundary commissioner in the New Hebridean survey service, who is at present in Wellington with his wife, the Japanese have captured bv far the largest part of the native trade. Japanese, goods, he said, had been undercutting all others, particularly in the very considerable trade in cheaper commodities with the natives.

Competliion bad not stopped there, however, and many of the French and British owners’ requirements were being supplied by Japanese factories. Plantation owners complained that British goods were too expensive to import. The trade in French goods, formerly very considerable, was transferred to the East because of the cost of the French Mid franc. At one time Britain controlled by far the largest part of the trade, and owned considerable plantation areas, but France made efforts to establish a colonial footing apart from that held by her missionaries, and since the islands were placed under the joint authority of the British and French condomiuion she had taken a material interest in the islands. The cause of the decline of the British plantations was that they had to depend on the labour of natives, who were not essentially interested in planting, whereas the French imported Tonkinese labour in considerable quantity from French Indo-China. The British_ had power to bring over British Chinese from Hohgkong, but the idea was never exploited. There were now four times as many French owners at British, though the latter were generally in a more sound financial position. The acute labour problem as affecting British interests had been investigated by a commission in 1927, but no report was made, and the matter wat lost sight of when the depression reduced the demand for copra. Now the question was likely to become one of importance. Although there was a friendly rivalry between British and French planters, both nations were friendly to each other.