SYDNEY’S ISLAND TRADE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18321, 11 August 1921, Page 6

SYDNEY’S ISLAND TRADE

COMMERCIAL MEN ANXIOUS: (Feom Oob Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, August 2. Considerable attention is being devoted by the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, which is now in the midst of its annual sessions, to the safe-guarding of the island trade. Mr William Reed, one of the delegates, declared thal the loss of the island trade was a serious matter to Sydney, and concerned everyone of them. A deputation from the Island Trade Sectional Committee of the Chamber had interviewed the Sydney Harbour Trust Commissioners on four occasions, and had asked for the removal of the wartime restrictions placed upon the handling of copra, but they had been unsuccessful. The copra was not allowed to be taken into the sheds in the process of discharge, and there was, consequently, no protection against the rain, while it had to be removed forthwith from the wharves. They desired permission to put the copra in the sheds during discharging and unloading. The copra was going to other countries, and Sydney was losing the trade. Copra was the island currency. They had no money there. They sent the copra to pay for the goods which were sent to the islands. In one shipment from Sydney to the islands there had been £SOOO worth of goods which had been paid for with copra. It had been proved that copra fires in the past had been due to incendiarism, the act of enemy agents. Mr C. Boxshall. a member of the Samnrn Chamber of Commerce, Papua, remarked that there were island interests to be considered as well as those of Sydney. Were they justified in asking the islands to send goods half-way round the world again to the place of manufacture, in order to allow' the noople of Sydney to collect dues and exchange the goods for goods of their own ? The president (Mr J. Maitland Faxton) stated that it was quite true that the regulations of the Sydney Harbour Trust had practically driven the ropra trade out of Sydney. What was happening was causing serious disquiet, in certain official quarters, and the matter was under review there.