Seaplane Patrol Needed.

Trochus Poachers Grow More Daring.

DESPITE the publicity recently given to the movements of Japanese craft in Australian waters and near British territory in the Pacific, disturb ing stories continue to come from those parts. Japanese vessels, all of a peculiar type, have been reported from Thurs day Island, various parts of New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the Barrier Reef.

They have made many raids on trochus grounds among the islands north of the Mandated Territory and the latest report is that from Mr. S. C.

Thompson, who has been managing a plantation on the island of Awinn and who reached Sydney by last “Macdhui.”

Mr. Thompson declares he first saw the raiders in December, 1930, when a fast motor vessel encircled Awinn and the neighbouring island of Laboh, sending a boat ashore with Chinese and Japanese rowers. Avoiding all his attempts to speak to them, they left two hours later. On February 9 last at 9 p.m. he was on Laboh when a boy called his attention to a vessel approaching under power, whereupon he flashed a torch at the ship, thinking it was the district officer from Manus. The ship’s lights were doused and it turned sea

ward. He is of the opinion that the raiders come from the Carolines.

During the visit of the Minister for Territories (Major the Hon. C. W. C.

Marr) to the Mandated Territory last month, persistent stories of trochus poaching by mysterious vessels were heard by his party at all ports in the Territory. The party were in the Ter ritory just after the particularly daring daylight raid on a reef at Tiop Island near Bougainville, when all the best shell from a “reserved” reef was poached despite the protests of the village headmen.

The reports that a Japanese sub marine is in Australia’s northern waters or else in those of some adjacent territory is also strengthened by the statements of a party of holiday makers who recently returned from Hayman Island on the Barrier Reef.

Mr. F, A. McNeill and Mr. A. A. Liv ingstone, of the Australian Museum, who were members of the party, said that stories of mysterious Japanese vessels in those waters were rife among boatmen of the Whitsunday Passage and that these men even reported the presence of a submarine. Mr. McNeill, who is a frequent visitor to the Barrier Reef and knows parts of it well, con

siders it unwise to accept all the stories on their face value; but they are so persistent that they cannot be altogether disregarded. He said the smart bearing of the masters and mates of the Japanese pearling luggers was frequently commented on, and it was suggested that in reality they were naval officers.

A correspondent in Tulagi, B.S.I., in a letter to the editor, gives the sequel to the wreck of the Japanese vessel on the Roncador reef. Quoting from his letter: There seems to have been two, if not three of them. Two were seen on the same day and at the same time, one at St. Christo val and the other on the north side of Malaita. One of them visited Meringi, on this island (Ysabel), and had six boats out working the reefs for beche-de-mer and trochus. She put to sea on the approach of a boat, as is their habit. This was in all probability the same one that planted herself on the Roncador Reef, half way from Ysabel to Lord Howe. The crew of 31 made their way to Ysabel in their six boats, came down to the Government Station, and the D.O. packed them off to Tulagi on his boat, just in time for them to be put aboard the “Mataram,” except one who was said to be somewhat mental and who was missing, but turned up afterwards.

District Officer Miller told me they spun him a yarn that they were on their way to Noumea when an oil tank burst, and, as they had not sufficient fuel to get there, they put back towards somewhere or other; but a local man is said to have collected three 400gallon tanks and about forty 44-gallon drums of oil (presumably from the wreck). My own cutter picked up a 44-gallon drum float ing on the Ysabel coast. The man who picked up the oil told me he also got some trochus shell and other stuff, but there was not much generally known about it in Tulagi.

At present administrations, customs officers and district officers are power less to stop these raids, as there is not in these waters any vessel with anything like the speed the raiders are credited with. No Australian warship is available and it is hoped to obtain a sloop from the China squadron to patrol these waters. The most effi cient method of putting a sudden stop to the raids would be to station sea planes in, say, Rabaul, Thursday Island and Samarai, and it is hoped to secure seaplanes to inaugurate a seaplane service in New Guinea. This will enable the Administration to keep a close watch on poachers, as a ’plane can search more territory in a day than a ship can cover in a month. Tenders are being called for a service to be maintained by one large and one small seaplane.

The main purpose of the service will be to provide rapid transport for officials, particularly for magistrates who will be enabled to hold courts at distant centres, thus meeting com plaints of the expense of taking cases, especially native labour cases, to Rabaul. At the same time the ’planes can keep a watch on poachers. Another proposal to speed up communication in the Mandated Territory is that patrol officers should be equipped with port able wireless telephones similar to those used by the Australian Inland Mission.

Until some strong measures are taken to protect the marine produce industry from these raids the raiders will grow bolder. So far, only one of them has been caught. This was the “Dai Koku Manx,” the skipper of which was fined at Thursday Island for breaking some comparatively trifling regulation.