NAURU ISLAND.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 18141, 5 July 1919, Page 6

NAURU ISLAND.

Thbee are quite a number of points regarding the cabled account of the terms of the Nauru Island mandate, which we publish this morning, that "call for explanation. In the first placo there is the refusal of tho Commonwealth Prime Minister to sign the Convention on bohalf of Australia. If Mr Hughes's objection is well founded, and the Pacific Phosphate Company is demanding compensation at a rate based on war prices "of phosphate, his action was entirely justified. Neither Australia nor New Zealand took part in the great war in order to afford speculators in phosphate an opportunity for profiteering, and it is difficult to see on what just basis these nations can be asked to pay profits created out of the war of which they themselves helped to foot the cost, in blood and treasure. "The company," wo aro told, " charged £2 a ton for phosphate during tho war, and expects to maintain the price." How the company can expect to have anything to do with the price after it is bought out is not explained, but it is obvious that if these concessionaires aro to be allowed to fix their own rate of compensation, charging the nations that waged the war tho price created by the war, the rates for phosphate to the Australian and New Zealand.farmers may very well be expected to be " maintained " at an uncomfortably high figure. We aro told that tho price of the company's interests is £3,000,000, and a little later in the same message, that "the company holds little which tho war did n'ot invalidate." The company bought out the "German interests" during the war for £575,000, but what right had the company to trade with the enemy? Perhaps this transaction is one of those that were invalidated, in which event one may well speculate concerning the original value of interests which even in an invalidated tor mostly invalidated condition are estimated to be worth three millions sterling. But the questions arising out of the Nauru Convention do not end here. It is stated tbat the percentage of cost to be paid by each 'of the three joint mandatories is to be based on the share of phosphate they take. Britain and Australia tako 42 per cent each and New Zealand 1G per cent. As a matter of simple arithmetic it might bo supposed that Britain and Australia would pay £1,200,000 each, on a basis of £3,000,000, and New Zealand £480,000. But no! New Zealand's share is to be "about £000,000" and Australia's £1,000,000, leaving the Mother Land to pay "£1,400,000, which seems distinctly unjust both to Britain and New Zealand. If the Convention is as lop-sided and unsound as the cabled summary of it would have us believe, Mr Massey will have an uncomfortable time in explaining to 3iis farmer friends why ho signed it. The one ray of hope in the business as it now presents itself is that Mr Hughes has not signed, and that the Convention i 9 therefore not yet a valid instrument. There is therefore opportunity for a revision of its terms, which appear to be almost everything they should not be.