Pearl-Shellers
pp. 31-32 · Read in the full issue
Assistance from Australian Government
\ USTRALIAN pearl shell interests are to receive assistance from the Com monwealth Government in the shape of a provision in the tariff that “articles for use in the pearling industry” will be ad mitted into Australia free of duty if they are of British manufacture, and subject to a duty of only 15 per cent, if they are of foreign manufacture.
The Australian Tariff Board and the Minister for Customs inquired closely into the conditions of the pearl shell industry and rejected a proposal that it should be assisted by the payment of a bounty on production. It was felt that a more effective and more permanent form of en couragement would be given in the shape of tariff concessions.
An early amendment in the Australian tariff schedule will give effect to the de cision.
Rev. John W. Burton, M.A., general secretary of the Methodist Missionary Society of Australasia, who is well known in the South Seas, left England on his re turn to Australia after furlough on Octo ber 14. He will visit the Methodist Mis sion stations in India en route to Sydney, where he is expected to arrive late in December.
Rev. G. S. Buckley sailed from Sydney for the New Hebrides to do missionary work for the Presbyterian Church at Malekula, by the Morinda on October 29.
He was previously stationed for 10 years at Imbai, in north-east Belgian Congo.