JAPANESE PEARLERS IN AUSTRALIAN GROUNDS.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 12 May 1938, Page 7

JAPANESE PEARLERS IN AUSTRALIAN GROUNDS.

BIG INVASION EXPECTED SYDNEY, April 14. Private intelligence received at Darwin from a reliable quarter is that one of the largest. Japanese pearling fleets operating nom Palao, in the Carolines, proposes to concentrate next season on the North-west Australian tiolds, which extend from Broome to Onslow. This will complete the Japanese invasion of the Australian pearling grounds, it is intended to use at leas?* 200 vessels, including largo luggers and modern mother ships, on all the Australian fields. About 50 vessels will probably work the Broome fields, another 50 northwest of Bathurst Island, and north of Wyndham, -a large number, the Central Arnhem Land Coast, and the remainder east of the Wessel Islands and the Gulf of Carpentaria. To combat the serious drop in the price of shell, likely to result from these operations, a conference of owners will meet shortly at Palao to consider the erection there of a factory for the production of buttons and other articles from the shell. These activities will call for greater vigilance and perhaps the employment of more vessels, by the Australian patrol services. At least one large new vessel is under construction at Sydney for the patrol, and another for the Customs Department, but it would not cause surprise if the second also joined the patrol service. It is expected that Captain Haultain and the crew of the Larrakia will go south early next year, pick up the new patrol boat and take her to Darwin. Then the Larrakia may return to her original task of " crash » boat for aeroplanes meeting with' trouble on the Timor Sea crossing. Larger than the Larrakia, but not

as fast, the new boat will have a much greater cruising range and her engines should stand wear and tear.