Fewer Asiatic

Ey Industry

Fewer Asiatic Miners in NC

From Our Noumea Correspondent INCE 1946 the number of mining I workers in New Caledonia has almost doubled, and at the me time the proportion of Javan e and Indo-Chinese workers has eatly decreased.

At the end of 1954 the number of irsons employed in the industry *s 2,461, comprising 1,584 Euro ans, 356 indigenous workers, 221 tvanese and 300 Indo-Chinese.

In the last eight years some jiatics (mostly Javanese) have en repatriated and Indo-Chinese ive been released from labour ntracts.

This liberation has permitted the ido-Chinese, like the Indians in ji many years ago, to enter other ades or to become shopkeepers id traders.

Mechanisation has played an im ►rtant part in bringing about langes in mining personnel. This jplies both to the extraction of e ore (in the case of nickel it is I open-cut), and to transport and mdling.

In 1954 about 200 Italians were re itriated, this accounting largely r a drop in the total number of arkers compared with the previous iar’s total.

VF the 350,000,000 francs paid in f wages in 1954, about 270,000,000 went to Europeans, 33,000,000 native workers and about ,000,000 to the Javanese and Indo ainese combined.

Carrying contractors transporting •e from certain mines to ports re

ceived francs (35,000,000 in 1953).

Decreased chrome exports cost about 580 workers their jobs, but most of them were absorbed by the nickel side of the industry.

European workers at the Noumea nickel smelters increased from 565 in 1953 to 759 in 1954. This was due to the installation of another furnace at the smelters.

The smelters consumed 400,000 tons of ore (350,000 in 1953), and refined nickel production rose by 22 per cent, to 8,500 tons (7,000 in 1953) .

In 1954 the smelters imported 172,000 tons of coal and 74,000 tons of coke. This meant a fuel bill of 258,000,000 Pacific francs.