Black Markets In

Tahiti

Prom Our Own Correspondent PAPEETE, April 2.

IF all we hear be true, Papeete has in deed become a den of thieves —pig stealing, pilfering of laundry, broach ing of cargo, and a black market that should make some of our United States thugs green with envy.

For example: Spools of cotton thread (stolen from the case of 750 dozen by our cargo broaching artists) have been sold by Chinese receivers of stolen goods at forty (40) francs a bobbin. The retail price per bobbin in the legitimate market is three francs.

Other scarce merchandise passes through the black market at equally exorbitant prices.

The trial of the thieves who got away with the case of 750 dozen bobbins, has not yet been called. The jail is full, and the authorities are tracing up other mem bers of the gang.

Here, as elsewhere, the black market is a difficult problem. When a woman has the material for a new dress and a fes tival approaches where she may display her finery, yet she searches in vain for a bobbin of thread wherewithal to sew her material together—what will that woman do when a smiling celestial offers a three-franc bobbin at forty or fifty francs?

And will not a Knight of the Brother hood fall into the snare of the fowlar when a bottle of smuggled Bourbon is dangled before his eyes at a price far above the official schedule for merchan dise that long ago vanished?

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men are not sufficient to guard the by paths available to the greedy buyer and seller.

The circumstances of scarcity and rationing afford the clerks and sales ladies of Messrs. Crimsonbeak & Gueule occasions to hold high carnival over humble petitioners for the few crumbs they deign to dispense. That, in itself, is sufficient to drive one to the black market; for the black market ghouls are, at least, polite.

A valued friend of mine—a gentleman of distinguished lineage—yesterday told me of his experience. He had forgotten his ration book on a day sugar was dis pensed. The haughty clerk ordered him to produce this document before a certain hour; which my friend accomplished by the costly aid of a taxi-cab. Whereupon this Prince of the Blood informed him that he was tired of dispensing sugar for that day.

Later, my friend was compelled to wait in line at the back door of this regal emporium, for three hours, before his sugar was doled out to him. Such are the fortunes of war.

Needless to add that the Prince of the Blood is a European. No Tahitian or Euronesian Would be guilty of such bad manners and discourtesy to even the most humble. Nor would any French man.

I have given so much space to these things because they are chief subjects for conservation whenever two or three people gather together.

Discourtesy is a new element in our island life; as is disregard for the peace and tranquility of one’s neighbors. In happier times one could leave one’s house without locks or bars, confident that his chattels would be respected. Through the years, it has been our boast that what ever disabilities might afflict our people, discourtesy was not one of them.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Our correspondent is in error in supposing that salesman

insolence is peculiar to Tahiti. Among all our wartime woes in this great city of Sydney there is nothing harder to endure than the laziness, indifference and impudence of the small retailers and the people they employ. The whip of com petition has been removed; and where, in normal times, the quality of the live lihood such folk earned was governed by the quality of the service they gave,.they now are temporarily in complete charge of distribution, and are arrogant accord ingly. “The customer is always wrong— and a damned nuisance into the bargain” might be their wartime slogan.