Japan Declares

War

On Fiji’s New Button Industry

From Our Own Correspondent.

Suva, May 25.

Mr. A. F. Kulenkampff, Repre

sentative of a German firm manufacturing shell button making machinery, and large im porters of shell, was in Fiji in May, conferring with Mr. A. G. McCown, of Pacific Pearl Shell Products (Fiji), Levuka. The latter’s factory, about to commence production of trochus buttons, is equipped with the Kulenkampff machinery.

Mr. Kulenkampff was also in con ference with Mr. B. D. Lakshman, an Indian business man of Lautoka, who has also been recently granted a license to establish a trochus button factory.

Mr. Lakshman, a former member of the Fiji Legislative Council, hopes to have his factory ready for pro duction by early 1954. Mr. S. Pratap, of Suva, when recently in Australia, investigated the button market on behalf of Mr. Lakshman and re ported favourably on market out lets in that country, New Zealand, the US, and in Europe.

Mr. Kulenkampff indicated that the Japanese appear to be making

an all-out drive to capture the world shell-button trade. Although America, most important consumer, levies a 70% import duty on finished shell buttons from foreign sources, Japan can still land buttons cheaper than the American-produced pro duct, and cheaper, too, by far, than buttons produced in the Philippines,

which are not charged the 703 import duty.

Mr. McCown stated that he ha! lodged a strong protest with th( Australian Government agains what he regards as almost fre< Japanese access to the trochus ant MOP beds on continental-shel waters around northern Australii and New Guinea. A well-equippet

apanese shell-fishing expedition is [ready on its way south, l So far as is known, nothing has •;en published about recent secret ilks in Canberra, between Aus lalian and Japanese Government [;presentatives. Mr. McCown’s in carnation is that the Japanese will Dt be interfered with outside the jiree-miles’ limit, though well in ;de the 100-fathoms line.

It is also known, he says, that :ochus fishing is being combined iith ordinary line-fishing by such *ssels as that recently arrested in :ew Britain waters. 1 T the moment, representatives \of Japanese shell-buyers are keenly bidding in Fiji for ;ochus. Recent prices are reported be as high as £lBO or more per :n, and this is regarded as an at ck against the appearance of a itton industry in Fiji. It is con iently expected, however, that the ji Government will shortly place i export ban on all trochus except tat in excess of the local industry’s quirements.

Mr. McCown is confident that his inpany will be able to market its •oducts satisfactorily.

On the surface, it would appear tat the only answer to Japan’s leaper production methods is to my her the main sources of shell, I reserving them for the use of cal industry. Thus Australian icll might be processed into but ns, say, in Papua, under cheaper bour conditions—the industry be g largely financed by the big over as buying concerns in America id Europe. There is every indica m that these concerns are in rested in such propositions, ready, shell imported into America being exported to Puerto Rico for ocessing and then returned as ittons, manufactured with cheap bour, duty free.

Mr. Kulenkampff left Fiji for r dney where his company has a anch, and thence for the shell ntres— Thursday Island, Darwin id Broome.

Messrs. Hyne and Son Pty. Ltd., wmillers, of Maryborough, Qld., ported 50,000 super feet of timber Honiara, BSIP.