Bureaucrats Sound
p. 25 · Read in the full issue
Asleep
While Isolated French Colonies Beg For New Trade Machinery
ALTHOUGH the French Colonies 01 New Caledonia and New Hebrides now are wholly dependant, in an economic sense, upon Australia, and all their very considerable trade has b°en diverted by war conditions from France to Australia, it is not yet appar ent that any special step has been taken by the Commonwealth* Government to organise and develop this trade, and secure a full economic advantage from it.
The principal products of New Cale donia are metals and copra, and of the New Hebrides, copra, cocoa and coffee.
There is no market in the world now for copra, and only a limited market in Australia for metals. But there is a con siderable market in Australia for cocoa, coffee and several other smaller products of the two French colonies; and, as Aus tralia procures most of these commodities from non-British countries, it surely would be a reasonable thing to make arrangements to purchase as much as possible of the products of the two French Colonies, in return for the very substan tial purchases of Australian foodstuffs and 'manufactures, which the French colonists have to make in Australia.
But a formal inquiry made by a Sydney firm, from the Department of Trade and Customs, Canberra, in mid-September, brought the information that the duty on coffee and cocoa beans, ex New Hebrides, is still in force; that nothing has been done to remove the duty on coffee beans, haricot beans, trochus shell,
timber, etc., produced in New Caledonia; and that the Department was prepared to consider “on its merits” any applica tion that might be made for a licence to import goods from New Caledonia or the New Hebrides.
Is it any wonder that the common citizens of the business world sometimes feel that life would not have been lived in vain if only they could have the opportunity of kicking to death a few politicians and bureaucrats!
Why is it that the methods of the busi ness world cannot be applied to the ad ministration of a country. Surely, it is a most reasonable thing that, in the special circumstances created by the war relating to the French Colonies in the Pacific, Australia at this time should im mediately take every possible step to develop a new avenue of trade —instead of hanging on to the old systems and blandly quoting regulations that are long out of date!