Pacific Trade With

the East

Mr. Robert Gillespie's Impressions

AFTER four months in the East, Mr. Robert Gillespie, managing director of Robert Gillespie Pty. Ltd. and Robert Gillespie (New Guinea) Ltd., has returned to Sydney convinced of the immense economic possibilities of New Guinea.

I He said that NG probably offered

more scope for Successful de velopment than any country in the world. The Ihings it needed most at the moment were capital develop ment and over seas publicity. |lt had been proved, he said, that practically all tropical jplants could be grown success fully in NG. Any country with buch a great agricultural po-

tential must have a bright future, provided it was opened up by capital investment. f NG also had tourist attractions which, if properly developed and publicised, could play a big part in Its progress.

I Mr. Gillespie travelled from Sydney on the Eastern Star, of the fcustralia-China Line, for which his NG company are agents. He pisited Manila, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Saigon and Bangkok, and returned on the Eastern Star, balling en route at Rabaul and Lae.

I He said that Japan and Hong Kong were looking to Australia and the Pacific for outlets for their manufactured goods. Japan in particular had an unlimited range )f trade lines, such as cotton prints, which she was anxious to place.

While in Hong Kong Mr. Gillespie saw the manufacture of buttons From shell procured all over the world, including Pacific trochus.

He said that if Islands shell were more carefully graded, greater advantage could be taken of the iiigh prices offering for first grade.

Button manufacturers, at least in Hong Kong, were not greatly in terested in the lower grades.

At the same time, he said, the trochus price had climbed too high Jompared with the cost of synthetic materials which were rivalling the shell in the manufacture of buttons.

Mr. Gillespie said there was a Dig market in Japan and Hong Kong for raw rubber and—if it :ould be supplied—copra. It also

Mr. Gillespie

appeared that there was a wide open Japanese market for oranges.

Those that were available were selling for 250 yen (6/3 Australian) each! They were being bought mainly in Tokio by Europeans and the many American tourists.

Mr. Gillespie said the odd situation in Formosa typified the strained re lati<pns existing in the East. Aus tralians were admitted freely to Formosa because of their official re cognition of the Nationalist Govern ment, but the British were pro hibited because of their recognition of Red China. An Australian travelling on the Eastern Star with an English wife was admitted, but his wife was barred.