Pacific Phosphate—Australasia's

Vital Need

How Soon Will Nauru and Ocean Island be Restored?

rERE are high hopes in British Phos phate Company circles that ship ments of phosphate from Nauru and Ocean Island may be resumed in the near future.

As far as we know, those two islands* are still occupied by the Japanese; but United Kingdom representative of the company, Sir Arthur Gaye, while recently in Auckland, NZ, hinted in a newspaper interview that the stay of the Sons of Heaven in those valuable islands will now probably be swiftly terminated.

“The time when we can resume ship ments may come sooner than some of my friends expect,” ,Sir Arthur said, “but we do not know what we shall find when we do get back. One thing is certain — that there will be an immense amount of preliminary work to be done. If, in the first year, we ship 100,000 tons, one tenth of Australia’s and New Zealand’s requirements, we shall do very well. It will be four years, in my opinion, before we can hope to bring the islands back to pre-war production.”

With a view of minimising delay in re starting operations after the way is clear, a tremendous amount of equipment has already been accumulated in Australia.

This will be sufficient to get the islands

working again-

Before the war, Australia and New Zealand received well over one million tons of phosphate from Nauru , and Ocean Island. During the past three years, the BPC has scoured the world to supply these phosphate needs —but has succeeded in procuring barely half. The result of this has been seen clearly of late, in the diminished food production of both countries. This is not only a matter of supreme importance to New Zealand and Australia; but, to-day, with food a munition of war, it concerns all the United Nations.

NAURU and Ocean Island are two of the three phosphate islands of the Pacific—the third being Makatea, in French Oceania, which is at present

going full blast. All three islands are relatively of the same type: there is little shelter for shipping, and the shores shelve steeply into deep water and pre sent great loading difficulties. The same procedure was followed on all islands — the phosphate was quarried in the interior, brought to the shore on rail ways and carried out over the water direct to the holds of the ships by car rier belts on giant cantilevers.

Nauru was the first Pacific Island to have a taste of war. In December, 1940, five ships were sunk off shore by two German raiders, and the survivors trans ported to Emirau Island, near Kavieng, New Ireland. One of the raiders later returned and shelled the cantilever load ing gear and other installations. The damage, however, was not extensive.

Work was soon resumed, and was car ried on until Pearl Harbour. On Decem ber 9, 1941, and thereafter at intervals, Japanese planes, probably based on the Marshalls, bombed Nauru. Most* of the European residents were evacuated in the following months and about the middle of 1942, the island was occupied by the Japanese- To an increasing degree throughout 1943, American naval and air forces raided Nauru. Since the US capture of the Gilberts in November, 1943, and the Marshalls in February, 1944, these raids have been intensified.

Ocean Island, 180 miles eastward of Nauru, and former headquarters of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands’ administra tion, was also bombed frequently by the Japanese after Pearl Harbour and occu pied by them about May, 1942. During 1943, Ocean Island did not receive the same attention from the US air and sea forces as did Nauru. As stated in the December issue of “PIM,” this could be either because the Japs had installed air fields on the latter, rather than on humped-back Ocean Island (which is minus coastal strips suitable for the pur pose and is composed mainly of broken rock); or because the demolition work, which we know was effectively carried out on Ocean Island before the evacua tion of the G. and E. administration, was not carried out to the same extent .on Nauru.

ONE of Japan’s most desperate needs is phosphate. Before the war she seldom imported less than one mil lion tons per annum —from Makatea, and anywhere else she could get it. The Pacific war dried up her regular sources of supply and it might well be that the Japs have been feverishly working phos phate on Nauru. To deprive them of this vital raw material of agriculture prob ably appeared to the Allied commanders in the South Pacific as a supremely important job and so Nauru was put on the regular Allied bombing and shell ing schedule for 1943.

It is even more important that these phosphate islands should now be won back to us, so that they can make then natural contribution to our sorely taxed wartime agriculture.

The effect of insufficient phosphate on the fertility of the land is cumulative, and, after three years on half-rations, the loss of production in Australasia is seri ous—serious not only for Australasia but for the Allied nations as a whole.