Dutch Consulate for Noumea Will Care

Noumea Will Care for 7,000 Javanese

Prom Our Own Correspondent

Noumea, Jan. 24.

THE Netherlands Government has decided to establish a consulate at Noumea. The Consul will be a re gular member of the consular service and replace the vice-consular represen tative who has hitherto been a local businessman—in recent years Mr. Carlo Leoni.

The Japanese consulate has, of course, disappeared, but since the war, New Caledonia has acquired Mr. Henry Day, a United State Consul, and an Australian Commonwealth representative, Mr. R.

Ballard. Noumea’s present strategic position and importance as an Allied base, and its post-war possibilities for trans-Pacific air and shipping are the reasons for this.

But the Dutch have a more intimate and compelling reason for appointing a Consul; there are some 7,000 Javanese indentured workers in the Colony, in addition to about 1,000 Javanese “resi dents libres,” or time-expired engagees who are free to choose their employ ment, own and conduct businesses, and who have the right to apply for French citizenship. The latter generally settle down into contented and useful Pacific citizens.

New Caledonian mining and agricul tural industries could hardly get on without their ten or twelve thousand Javanese and Tonkinese labourers, whose over-populated homelands supplied all the volunteers required in times of peace; New Caledonia, of course, is experiencing a serious shortage of labour at present owing to the diversion of many to war work.

The new Consul is expected shortly; and it also seems likely that the Dutch Consul-General in Australia will soon pay Noumea a visit.

Under their agreement with the French, the Dutch have periodically sent inspectors to the island to investigate Javanese living and labour conditions.

Javanese first came to the island about 1910; and it was about the same time that New Caledonian settlers began to grow Robusta, a hardy, pest-resisting Javanese coffee, a highly productive plant, but one with a less delicate flavour than the Mocha or Arabica bean—also largely grown here.

Mr. W. V. C. Baker, acting Adminis trative Officer, G. & E. Islands Colony, has been transferred to the same posi tion, plus that of Customs Officer and Sanitary Inspector, on Fanning Island.