Aust. Trade Mission Will Attempt

Timber For Coal

Aust. Trade Mission Will Attempt To Iron Out Difficulties With N. Caledonia

BECAUSE France is ham-strung by wild politicians who keep her gov ernment continually in turmoil, Australia has at present a unique trade opportunity in New Caledonia and New Hebrides—although this, of course, de pends to a large degree upon Australia’s own domestic set-up and whether or not her trade unionists can be persuaded to produce sufficient to have a surplus for export.

Before 1939 metropolitan France was keen to hold every economic advantage she had in her Pacific colonies. How ever, from the time France fell to the Nazis in 1940, until 1945, these Colonies were forced to turn more and more to wards Australia, the United States and

New Zealand for essential goods, and since the end of hostilities frequent poli tical disturbances in France plus lack of transport, have resulted in a continua tion of this policy.

It is interesting to note that, in the first nine months of 1947, New Caledonia imported from Australia 160,000,000 francs worth of goods, and from USA a similar amount, and from France only 74,000,000 francs worth. New Caledonia’s balance of trade is very much against her, however, and in the same period the Colony sold to Australia only 13,000,000 francs worth of woods. Australia’s main purchase from New Caledonia is nickel.

AGROWING demand for self-deter mination in Colony affairs over re cent years has made New Cale donians, as a whole, anxious to get closer to Australia in the economic field. In many respects the French colonials of New Hebrides and New Caledonia feel more closely akin to Australasia, now

than they do to Europe. They therefore will probably welcome the Australian banking and trade mission which left for the French Colonies in January.

The idea of the mission is to iron out difficulties and discuss reciprocal trade between Australia and New Caledonia and the New Hebrides.

Australia already has large land in terests in the New Hebrides which could under an expansionist government, be utilised in several ways. The present Australian Government, however, cannot be called expansionist and it is unlikely that much will be done with that land at present unless it is utilised for timber development.

Timber is probably Australia’s greatest need at present and there are hopes that the mission will at least be able to make some arrangements in that direction.

Australia would be willing to take £1,000,000 worth of timber per year from New Caledonia alone, if that colony would make it available.

NEW CALEDONIAN authorities are expected to press, in return, for in creased coal shipments from Aus tralia, upon which Caledonian smelters are dependent. That, however, is quite another matter, and one dependent upon the good-will of the capricious New South Wales coal miners.

Australian industrv itself is in a state of slow starvation because of the con tinually diminishing margin between coal production and coal consumption in the Commonwealth. Scarcely one month passes in New South Wales when either gas, electricity, train service or industry (or all of them) is not interrupted be cause of hold-ups and failing production on the New South Wales coal-fields. In dustry and services in Victoria and South Australia, which also are largelv depen dent on NSW coal, fare even worse If Australia’s chances of securing tim ber from New Caledonia are dependent upon increased shipments of coal to that Colony, the Australian mission will not only have to do some fast thinking but also some very smart work in inducing the NSW coalminers to work more fre quently and much harder. To date, neither coal tribunals, coal commissions, conciliation commissioners, union leaders, mine owners nor State and Federal poli ticians have been able to achieve this.

Recently, the Broken Hill Proprietary Ltd., decided not to exploit New Cale donia’s vast iron ore deposits, which it had been investigating. The reason given by BHP was that nickel and chrome were present in the ore; but a contribu tary factor may have been the lack of a firm guarantee from the Colony that ex port tax on iron ore would not be im posed.

It is obvious that at present Australia has a good opportunity of finding a handy market for her coal, foodstuffs and manufactured goods, by assisting in developing, if their Governments permit it, New Caledonia’s and New Hebrides’ mineral and timber resources. But it should be remembered that Australia has vast mineral and timber resources in New Guinea and Papua, also. There has been absolutely no attempts by the Aus tralian Government to develop these, even though they are in her own Terri tories.

Devaluation of the Franc

SINCE the Australian mission left for the French colonies, metropolitan France has created a specially de valued Export Franc, with a view to stimulating her exports. This, naturally, has caused devaluation of the Metropoli tan Franc. There has, as yet, been no devaluation of the Pacific Franc, although some uneasiness has been felt in New Caledonia in recent months that some thing of the sort may be attempted.

To date, it seems that trade agreements

between the United Kingdom and France will prevent undue upsets in the balance of trade at least for the present.

What affect this devaluation will have in Pacific trade particulars between Australasia and the French Pacific Colo nies is, unpredictable, at the present time.