Future Of Islands

Trade

Return to Normal May Take Years

ONE of the most experienced South

Sea Islands merchants in Sydney recently made the following sum

mary of the trading and transport

position, as he sees it.

IT may be months before things settle down in the Solomons and conditions there be sufficiently encouraging for civilians to return and make a start on the steep-grade job of even partial re habilitation.

The Solomons people certainly have had a very bad spin. They had to get out and abandon everything.

There is no war insurance; and, unless there is some Government assistance, substantial new capital will be needed.

The Solomons people have not enjoyed any benefit of trading resulting from wartime expenditure, and from the good prices ruling for copra and other Islands products.

One has yet to learn what the Govern ment policy is to be; the future costs, particularly of production; market pros pects, and just how far it is worth-while to risk new capital to make any start in a modest way, build up from scratch and re-condition plantations.

It is quite evident, I think, that it is likely to be many years before Islands conditions will get back to anything like normal. Islands trading is much the same as all other successful industries. It needs the best of commercial experience and organisation to run it successfully.

There was lots of money lost in the Islands trade in the earlier years, and many big firms went under in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.

The successful management, combined with the keen and active interest of the principals of the few big firms operating in later years, was the best asset the Islands ever had. However, it is hopeless now to try and convince* people that that interest went deeper than their own pockets—although most of the money that attended their success was re invested in the Islands for further deve lopment, and for assistance to planters, traders and other settlers.