PHOSPHATE COMMISSION.

Otago Witness, Issue 3773, 6 July 1926, Page 52

PHOSPHATE COMMISSION.

INTERNAL DISSENSION. COM Ml SSI Oil OF INQUIRY. TERMS OF REFERENCE. (From Oub Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, June 25. As a result of questions asked in the House of Representatives, the Commonwealth Government appointed 6ir Arthur Robinson, M.L.C, a well-known Victorian politician and former Alinister, to act as a commissioner to inquire into the operations of the British Phosphate Commission. The questions asked in the Representatives directed the attention of the Government to the recent decision of the commission to transfer its head office from Australia to New Zealand, but the dispute is two years old. To trace the history of the dispute one has to go through the history of the commission itself. The British Phospate Commission was first formed to control the rich phosphate deposits on Nauru and Ocean Islands. The partner countries w’ere great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. When the commission took the deposits from the Pacific Phosphate Company, which formerly controlled them, £3,500,000 W'as paid. Of that sum, the Commonwealth contributed £1,500,000. Air A. R. Dickinson, who was formerly managing director 1 of the Pacific Phosphate Company, was appointed commissioner for Great Britain, Air H. B. Pope (a former employee of the company) was made commissioner for Australia, and Air A. F. Ellis, the original discoverer .of the deposits, acted for New Zealand. The three partner countries drew up an agreement, dated July 2, 1919, to work the deposits, and, under the terms of that, it was agreed that the three partner Governments had sole rights to buy the phosphates, but that sales could be made to foreign countries with the unanimous consent of the three commissioners. Great Britain took no deposits for nearly five years, and several sales were made to Japan, with a few small lots to European countries. By 1924 Australia was buying practically the entire output, and it was the alleged action of the British commissioner (Air Dickinson) in desiring to continue foreign sales which was said to be the origin of the trouble. Air Dickinson’s plan apparently was to send phosphates from Alakatea, a French island, over which the original company had secured an option, to Australia and New Zealand, and sell the other phosphates at a profit, thus reducing the price to the three countries of the agreement. Mr Pope vetoed this suggestion, and, after subsequent differences of opinion, it is alleged, the commissioners were not on speaking terms. The latest development was a cable, dated Alay 26, from the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (Air Amery) to the Governor-General of the Commonwealth, contending that harmony was impossible in the commission as long as the present Australian commissioner remained in office. The terms of reference for Sir Arthur Robinson’s inquiry are as follow:—(1) To inquire into and report on the alleged inharmonious relations existing between the Australian commissioner, on the one hand, and the British and New Zealand commissioners, on the other hand, and between the Australian commissioner and the executive and staff of the commission; (2) to inquire into the manner in which such relations have arisen and the person or persons responsible for them; (3) to inquire into the extent to which such relations have affected the interests of the commission in general and of Australia in particular; (4) to inquire into the extent to which they contributed towards the decision of the commissioners to transfer the head office of the commission from Australia to New and (5) to report how far the investigations of the Royal Commission support the contention contained in the cablegram from Air Amery. Sir Arthur Robinson will probably begin taking evidence on Monday or Tuesday next. Alost of the evidence will be documentary, and as the Government of the Commonwealth is at present not anxious that the commission’s " dirty linen ” should be washed in public, an effort will be made to have the sittings in camera.