NEW CALEDONIAN DISPUTE

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 January 1941, Page 5

NEW CALEDONIAN DISPUTE

COMPANY ILLEGALLY TAXED NOUMEA, January 4. A case of interest to New Zealand has just been settled by a decision of the newly-constituted Administrative Council of New Caledonia, by which the colony agrees to pay to the Austral Guano Company (in liquidation), which for many years worked deposits on Walpole and Surprise Islands, the sum of 453,171 francs (about £3237).

The amount is reimbursement for taxes illegally exacted against the company by the colony, plus interest and costs. . It is likely that the whole sum will be distributed among creditors in New Caledonia. The case goes back to 1912. The company started with Australian capital, but in the year mentioned the office was in Christchurch. The dispute arose because the Mining Department of the period placed the guano exported by Austral Guano not under the heading of guano, but of phosphate, the difference being

that, whereas guano could be sent from the island dependency duty free, phosphate was taxed as a mineral ore. The company’s viewpoint about the justice of this taxation was upheld by engineers, by local legal opinion, and even by the Customs Department in Paris. Nevertheless, the company was forced to pay under protest 196,000 francs duty. For a score of years the colony persisted in its attitude, and the case went from the Civil Court to the 'Court of Appeal, the Court of Cassation, and finally before the Juge de Paix in Noumea, who condemned the colony to repay the money, plus interest and 100,000 francs costs. The colony then took the case to the Supreme Court in Paris, which in 1934 confirmed the judgment that the.company was in the right. Nevertheless, until now all sorts of difficulties have been raised.