JAPANESE PEARL FISHERMEN

Evening Star, Issue 23326, 24 July 1939, Page 10

JAPANESE PEARL FISHERMEN

INCREASED ACTIVITY IM SOUTH SEAS Pearl fishing is one of the many lineq of marine products industry in the South Sea Islands engaged in by Japanese which has not been controlled satisfactorily, says the ‘ Japan .Times.’ This lack of definite-control has been proving to be much against the interest of those who engage in the industry and of those who are concerned with the sale of products both in Japan and abroad. Tho inception of pearl fishing on industrial scale by Japanese was mad® when the Seicho Mam sailed for. the southern waters in 1931, and in th® short period of eight years since Japan has become the largest pearl fishing country in the world. Keeping' pac® with the development of the industry, the number of fishing boats also increased . What were about 17 boatrf in 1934. increased to 30 in 1935, 80 in 1936, 125 in 1937, and 160 in 1938. According to approximate statistical issued in London recently, the total volume of pearl shell produced in 1937 i throughout the world is said to hay® been 5,750 kilotons, of which Japan’s share was 3,000 tons (actually Japan produced about 4,400 tons); Australia, 2,250 tons; the Dutch East.lndies and others 500 tons. Japan thus produced 70 per cent, of the total volum# for that.year. . , . ... The reason for the rapid advance of the Japanese in the: short period can be traced to the fact • that they early engaged in fishing as employees of Australian concerns and had arnpl® experience in pearl fishing. . Consequently it may not be amiss here t» record the work of the Japanese who early went to Australia and engaged in the industry. There is a story of a Japanese called Kojiro Nonanii. who landed at Thursday Island in 1878, where he was joined by another Japanese, Tamiji Nakagawa, four years later and two other Japanese the following year. . These men ar® generally believed to have been the Japanese pioneers in tho pearl-fishing industry. . , In 1883, 37 Japanese emigrated to the country with permission of- th® Foreign Ministry. They were the first Japanese who went to Australia under contract and engaged chiefly in fishing in the Strait of Torres. They wer® soon followed by others. Around 1897, of the 1,500 fishermen working on Thursday Island, 900 of them were Japanese. There wer® among this group some enterprising Japanese who possessed their own fishing boats. This in brief is the early history of pearl, fishing by Japanese. The phenomena! advance by the Japanese in this industry is traced almost entirely to the efforts of these ©any Japanese settlers.