IN JAVA

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2125, 17 May 1922, Page 4

IN JAVA

BUSINESS MAN'S DEPRESSIONS. Smells and wealth, it would seem, according to Mr. F. Byron Brown's interesting address to a Palmerston North Lunch Club yesterday, are the outstanding features of Java. Mr. Brown was there in 1920 on a business mission, and was much impressed wltli the abounding fertility of the soil, and also with the potentialities of an export trade with that country from New Zealand. All the primary products would find there, he said, a readv market, which was now appeased- if not satisfied, by Australian exports not comparable in quality with what New Zealand produced. The Javanese importers were well aware of this, but Australia had the advantage of direct communication by the Burns Philp and other lines of steamers, plying regularly. From New Zealand there was none, and transhipment charges in Sydney, as well as the inevitable losses by pillage that would occur, were prohibitive. The Dutch authorities, he understood, contemplated sending a vessel to New Zealand with samples of Javanese produce, and the Consul for the Island was also coming. It behoved Chambers of Commerce to put the case for New Zealand in an endeavour to evolve a mutually profitable system of exchange. No bigger than the North Island of New Zealand, the country had a teeming native population of 40,000,000. There were 60,000 whites, representative of every Continental country. Trade generally was in the hands of the Chinese. Japanese. British and Dutch, while the Coolies worked for 1/fi a day. The system of government under a Lieutenant-Governor from Holland was ' inadequate, and local government was unknown. The whites came only for the money and returned t> Europe to spend it. So 11 was that sanitation In the towns was unheard of, and the streets of Batavia, like the sins of Claudius, "smell unto Heaven." "There is filth everywhere, said Mr. Brown. Unmentionable refuse flowed down the canals, and lepers begged for alms on the pavement. Only In the best hotels was their cleanliness, but it had to be paid for at £3 a day. Amongst the filth and teeming natives, there was «. welter of wealth. American buyers were abroad in scores at that time, before the slump, and were prepared always to give a higher price than the other The evidences of wealth among the merchants wore unmlstakible. Mr. Brown paid a tribute to the honesty and courtesy that characterised the Chinese merchants' dealings. These mandarins when Approach ed by a buyer, he said, never, by any chance, were first to mention business. In fact, they actually turned the subject aside and talked of any other matter in the world until tea had been served —and very daintiiy too. "Then," said Mr. Brown. "I believe that if you talked for all eternity on other subjects, they woul<J first to. mwuicm, business,'*