Set-up

Caledonia's Economic Set-up Due for Reform

Prom Our Own Correspondent

Noumea, Apr. 12.

ACCORDING to General de Gaulle, Indo-China will receive, when liber ated, long overdue customs and economic reforms.

These reforms should apply equally to New Caledonia, which has struggled along under the so-called “Pacte Coloniale” since 1892.

The “Pacte Coloniale” has always been a bone of contention between the local Caledonian population and the French administration. For generations Cale donians have pointed out that to try and impose the metropolitan customs tariff on New Caledonia, which is 45 days from France and only four from Australia, is to fight against economic geography. The wreck on the way out of even one French ship loaded with merchandise would cause a serious shortage in Noumea, which might last for months, resulting in a rise in the cost of living already higher than in other Pacific islands.

Actually, in a period of 20 years, this preferential tariff has increased annual French imports to New Caledonia by an average of only Vi million francs, while foreign imports decreased by one million.

New Caledonia is a natural tributary of the Australian market for a large number of needs which France cannot fill at reasonable cost or for which cost of transport is prohibitive.

The President-General of the Metho dist Church, the Rev. J. W. Burton, MA, left for America late in August on a lecture tour of the States. Mr. Burton, through his literary work, is well known in the USA, and many expressions of appreciation have come to hand from that country since his retirement from the General Secretaryship was announced.