"Glorious" Trade

French H-Base Brings Protests And "Glorious" Trade

The Government of Western Samoa has protested to France against the French Government’s decision to establish a nuclear testing site at Mururoa in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French

Polynesia, about 1,920 miles

:;rom Western Samoa.

THE protest was lodged in Paris in June through the New Zealand Ambassador. It followed a protest by the New Zealand Government m May.

Commenting on the protest, Western Samoa’s Prime Minister Mataafa said that the people of his country were most apprehensive about the possible effects of nuclear testing in the Pacific.

He added: “The Government was impressed by the strong body of ex pert opinion which holds that there are no known precautions which can be quite certain of eliminating the danger to human life and health which results from the contamination of the atmosphere, the earth and the sea by these nuclear experiments.

This was pointed out to the French authorities in the Government’s note.

About three weeks before Western Samoa’s protest was lodged, two New Zealanders were in Tahiti investigat ing the prospects of increasing NZ trade with French Polynesia—and prospects looked good BECAUSE OF the nuclear testing project.

“Glorious Opportunity"

One of the New Zealanders, Mr L.

R. Harland, said on his return to NZ that Tahiti presented NZ with a “glorious opportunity” for placing its primary products as 4 ’ o^ o . were to be brought to Tahiti from France for the nuclear project.

“Papeete is building homes for them, Papeete harbour is being re modelled and enlarged, and millions of francs are being spent on water front works,” he said.

“The plans are revolutionary, and they want New Zealand foodstuffs.

Mr Harland said NZs chief diffi culty in capturing this trade was lack of regular shipping, but he said NZ s Trade Commissioner for the Pacmc, Mr K W. Davies, had arrived m Papeete while he was there to in vestigate this.