IMPRESSIONS ON JAVA

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10645, 19 July 1920, Page 3

IMPRESSIONS ON JAVA

FORTUNES MADE IN A YEAR MR BYRON BROWN ABROAD: ECONOMIC PROBLEMS. Mr Byron Brown (Otaki) now in Sydney, but who has been on a business visit to Java, writes as follows to a friend in Wellington:— "Been hero for the last three weeks waiting for my boat to leave for England. There was no chance of getting -to London from Java, not even by bribing the captain. Even t'hat avenue has been shut ou,t by too many people offering tho bribes. About fifty commercial men were held up, and wo all had to get back to Australia to get to England. Some of us managed it; trie majority are, as far as I know, still looking for a boat to bring them. I am to leave here by tho Port Melbourne, a big cargo boat, on tho 15th of this month. She may bo further delayed, and not get away until tho end of July, and so land me in Blighty at tho wano of the summer, with the prospect of all winter to do my business. After the boiling tropics, 1 would rather not lose the good effects of that apprenticeship that has fitted me to endure the reward of my many sine in a prospective hereafter. My recording angel has nob been -working overtime lately. I'vo been too busy. Work is a fine occupation to keep a man from over-sinning. FULL OF SIN. "Tho Dutch East Indies are all too full of sin for a New Zealander to teach them anything. Humanity is all too sordid and unlovely in these islands, where every prospect pleases and only man is vile. Even tihe Dutch boast of little beauty, and their women are coarse, hefty, loud-voiced, and mannerless. Tho "men have., contaminated their wKrte blood with tho Malays, and tho produced half-caste is an abomination on the fair surface of their beautiful islands. These pied humans are the lowest-down stamp of humanity I have ever seen, and some day 1 they are going to give their white Erogenitors a heap of trouble. Tho •utch can see it coming, and are doing what they can to save the situation. There are sixty thousand Europeans in Java, forty million Malays, and about eighty thousand half-castes. There is a standing armv of about 100,000 Malays officered by Dutchmen. Nothing easier than for this army to take charge of the whole country, and they will, if indications that I saw count for anything. BRITISH SUPERIORITY. "Liko all Britishers, I have taken it for granted that we are the salt of the earth, but I never realised how superior we were until I saw the Easterns, as represented by all kinds of them in Java, Borneo, Sumatra, and tho Celebes Islands. With all our faults, we are as far above these peoples as the sun is above the earth. Kipling's 'Lesser breeds -without the law' is a line of inspired and intellectual truth, that only those who have seen can appreciate. If these sons of Ham ever get to Heaven, the Britishers who have won to Glory -will be justified in petitioning for an Act'of Segregation. I'm offering this suggestion to you because your chances of the Heavenly Kingdom are fairly good, and you might take the hint and for the sake of sanitation, lead the revolt. ■ There am bound to he a few other choice souls up there who will help you. FILTH AND WEALTH. "I saw dirt enough in Java to pollute the ocean. As a matter of fact, the harbours are foul with filth. Tho canals that run , through the towns carry on their tides nameless things that are being added to by the natives at every turn. In all this and filth there is a welter of wealth going on among tho Europeans. Fortunes are being piled up at the rate of millions a year. Sugar can be produced at a cost of Id per lb. It is [sold retail for lOd. One sugar company, with a capital of one million guilders, paid last year six millions in dividends. All thin, and more, has boon going on during and since tho war, but there are now, indications of tho turn of the tide. There is a decided slackening of the industrial and commercial boom. Before I left Java, Japan was in the throes of it. I read of 800 factories in Japan closing down in one week. We know that the United States is at the end of the boom, and now wo hear from our own Old Land of the fall in prices and the rising of the interest rate. Tho New South AVales Premier told us last week that the next loan will cost 8 per cent. One just raised was 6J per cent., and a local loan from the people of two millions has just been subscribed at 5i per cent, free of income tax. This is as good as 8 per cent. to the man with over £2OOO a year. INCONSISTENCY. |

The Labour members in New Zealand complain of tho advantage' our 4J .per cent, local Joans is to rich men, and havo condemned tho loan as class legislation, yet it is a Labour Government in New South Wales that offers 6| per cent, to tho same rich men, and then tells tho country thatpoor people have subscribed it. I have discussed this bursting of boom with you, and predicted that it must como noonor or later. Tho commercial record of providus wars shows an era of high prices during the war, a period of even higher prices after the war. and then a slump, sometimes into a slough of the severent depression. Wars are not only wasteful in themselves because they destroy wealth and kill vast numbers of people, but they also cause "waste by affecting the habits of the people. The high wages and profits of war time stimulate the spending proclivities of the recipients, and 1 that extravagance does not stop with tho cessation of" hostilities; it has a momentum of its own which helps to keap prices up for some time. Real recovery after a war is difficult; whole nations havo been beaten into a condition of industrial inefficiency, and oven thoi victors havo been seiiously injured by their own losses,

and bj the injury done to their preI'r.r markets. 11-.I 1 -. is an economic fact thiit Gern.any was in a worse plight while she was receiving the French indemnity than France was while she was paying it. Bismarck did not undi'i£tai:<l commercial economics when he conspired for the ruin of France by his two hundred nillion indemnity. Wo arc trying the same thing with Gumany to-day, but Germany is go--1113 to recover from 'the economic effects of the war just as fast as most of the nations who were on the winning side. A CRISIS PREDICTED. Since the war high prices have obscured the issue, but now we have to reconcile a 'period of lower prices, diminished profits, and impaired taxation with tile immense burden of the national debts of the great Powers, and our southern colonies. Here we are face tb faoe with it ail, and it is going to be a world-wide commercial crisis. It is going to do good, but it will be a period of stress and tu'nnoil until the economic and commercial readjustment arrives. Britain is ready. Her statesmen are paying off debts before their due dates.; her industries are being stimulated; and London, is again going to bo the financial capital of the world. The figures 'ihat have been cabled to us recently of Britain's expansion of trade, her increased revenue, and her leduced indebtedness, rend like a fairy tale of finance, and must be a source of gratification to those of us w-ho can see the world commercial crisis looming in the near distance. Here in Sydney merchants have already taken scare, and prices are falling rapidly. Three months ago Sydney merchants wcro only buying, to-day they are all engaged in a mad rush to sell. The profiteer is a cowardly rascal when ho thinks thw rot has set in, and he makes things worse for himself by his mad rush to unload.

"Cheer up. The coming crisis is going to do a heap of good. Working men will have to work. A lot of men who don't work now will have to turn to. Production will bo stimulated, and this will enable us, to pay our debts. Natural economic conditions will return and find a happier people, enjoying a better condition of justice to all than ever thia old world has seen. New Zealand is going to suffer less than Australia. Our finances are much sounder, and our wealth per head of population is double, and our excess of exports over imports will compare with the best in the world."