Sea-Borne

Supercargoes

Trail-Blazers

Of Yesterday

By One Of Them

A Supercargo, according to the dictionary, is a “ship’s officer or other official agent who takes care of the ship’s cargo”. But, for the South Pacific variety, duties extended farther than that —as explained in this article.

It is a term not much heard these days, away from the by ways of commerce, and conjures up memories of an era now gone, when the Flag followed Trade.

There are still supercargoes, of course, particularly in the inter island fleets of New Guinea and New Hebrides. Now, as in the past, there is no better business training than a spell as super cargo, who is the spearhead of the seaborne invasion of the world of Islands trading.

I SUPPOSE the origin of the word “Supercargo” is lost in antiquity.

Wherever new trade routes were opened up—whether in India, the West Indies, the Spice Islands, the East Indies or the Pacific—we read of the supercargoes.

They were the agents of the Ship ping or Trading Companies charged with the duty of selling or bartering their cargo for the products of the country to which they travelled or traded.

The real supercargo very often carried with him a Power of Attorney, which enabled him to speak for his Company when negotiating with Governments.

In the years before and after the turn of the century, in the Marshall Islands and the Gilbert & Ellice Islands, Burns Philp & Co.’s super cargoes were the only ones who had that power entrusted to them. Those v/ere the Groups where BP had no branches.

The vessels trading to those two Groups were fitted out like universal providers. We carried every conceiv able kind of hardware, groceries, softgoods, drugs, etc.

BP Took on Germany, China

When BP entered the Gilberts trade, practically every trader already was bound, either to the pany, or Hamburg, or to On Chong & Co., of Sydney. .

The traders there consisted of Chinese, Danes, Norwegians, one Russian, one Finn, Germans, one American, and three British.

But in many of the Islandsthere were no traders, and we dealt with the natives direct. .

I had the good fortune to be sent

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from the Island Department as assistant to D. O’N. Flood, who had been a supercargo, with Henderson Macfarlane and, later, with the Pacific Islands Company—a man who knew the business of a super cargo from A to Z.

When he was sent to open the Marshall Islands trade, I was again very fortunate in having as a “boss”

Arthur F. Hayes, who was probably the best supercargo that BP ever had.

At the end of 1905, I was again lucky, because Flood came to an arrangement with Burns Philp to take over the station of a trader (H. Miller) who had died at Butaritari. Hayes was transferred to the Marshalls and I, who had just turned 21, was promoted to super cargo of the Gilbert & Ellice Service, where I remained until June, 1914.

In those far-away Islands, where the visits of vessels were few and far between, most of the white traders had been castaway sailors.

The Chinese were mostly those who had been running country stores in New South Wales and could not pay their accounts to On Chong; and so they were dumped by On Chong in the Gilberts till they had made good the loss.

A supercargo’s life was a very hard but a most interesting one, because of the rivalry between us and the German and Chinese companies.

A lot of the older generation will remember Billy Harden, who was supercargo on the Mambare and Tambo; also Etheridge.

Mr. James Burns (the present Chairman of the Company) was at one time a supercargo in the New Hebrides Service.

Many will remember Mr. Walter H. Lucas, for many years manager of the Island Department, a super cargo in the early days of Burns Philp opening up in the Pacific.

The ships of the 1880 : 1914 period were the vehicles which carried Australia’s new trade thrust into the Southwest Pacific Islands; but it was the hardworking supercargoes who provided the spear-head. One is reminded of those famous lines of last century: Merchandise, merchandise!

England’s fame was made By her ships, and her men, And her overseas trade.