tralian history lies in the fact

that it was the country’s first ex

periment in foreign commerce;

the enterprise in which her first ships and her first crews were tested, and through which an enormous store of expertise on the Pacific Islands and their peoples came to be built up.

The long and arduous run of over 7000 miles from Port Jackson to Matavai Bay and back in the little brigs and schooners of the early I9th cen tury provided a practical lesson in seamanship which enabled Australia to acquire at the start a supremacy in the Pacific Islands trade, and an interest, by no means merely economic, in the area, which she has never lost.’

By the middle of the century, Australia was at long last able to feed its own population and was even beginning to produce an exportable surplus. In the now French protectorate of Tahiti, on the other hand, the native population had dwindled to fewer than 10 000 (due to the widespread abuses of liquor and firearms, and the numerous diseases introduced

by the trading and whaling

ships), and the little trade that still persisted found thence forth its best outlets in the new White settlements in New Zealand and California.

Simultaneously, first Val paraiso and then San Francisco

and Panama replaced Sydney

as the regular transit port for the trade between Tahiti and

Europe.

Not until the 1920 s had Aus

tralia laboriously regained a

fair share of the Tahitian mar ket. By 1934, she rated fourth among the colony’s suppliers of

foreign products, after the

United States, France and New Zealand. The value of her exports was not less than 2.1 million francs. Australian

imports from Tahiti comprised

copra, vanilla and mother-of pearl shells to the value of 1.3 million francs. Then, after Pearl Harbour, the bottom fell out of this market, and in the postwar years, Australian export trade was very slow to regain its former markets.

There was also a determined

effort on the part of the French Government to monopolise the trade with her Pacific pos sessions. By 1958, for instance, France had replaced Australia as the sole supplier of both sugar and wheat.

To tell the truth, the Tahitian market was in those days hardly worth fighting for, since the Islanders still clung to their traditional subsistence econ omy and the number of free

spending European residents

was limited to a few hundred.

The Chinese importers who ruled supreme also had a pref erence for doing business with the Chinese-American firms established in San Francisco.

The situation did not change drastically until well into the 1960 s when de Gaulle’s de cision to use Moruroa as a test ing ground for nuclear weapons made the economy mushroom as fast and high as the atomic blasts. For every year that passed since then, the

imports have increased by

about a billion Pacific francs, reaching finally, in 1978, the

quite impressive figure of 33

billion. Exports have not in creased at the same rate, far from it. Their value last year was only 3 billion. The trade gap is, however, in reality much smaller than it appears, since such invisible exports as income derived from tourism is not included in the latter fig ure. Much of the imported goods are moreover consumed by the government and army segments of the population.

There is, however, not only a difference in volume but also in the overall trade pattern. Be cause of the lower customs duties on goods imported from France and the other Common Market countries the latter

have quite naturally little by

little increased their share of the imports. France thus sup plied us last year with 50% of our total needs, while another 12% of the imports came from other Common Market coun tries. Of the Pacific rim coun tries, only the US has managed to resist this trend, for its share is still a respectable 17%, cor responding to an annual figure of 5500 million Pacific francs.

Japan was before the war num ber one importer, taking most of the phosphate from Maka tea. Today she is an exporter of cars and electronic gear.

The great losers are New Zealand and Australia which have to compete not only with France but also with such food producing Common Market countries as Denmark and Hol land. Total value of their exports to French Polynesia in 1978 were; Australia 947 million Pacific francs and New Zealand 1281 million.

Considering that the type and quality of the products which New Zealand and Aus tralia sell to French Polynesia are similar, a comparison be tween the sales record in 1978 of the main categories of goods produced by these two Pacific

countries is quite interesting.

How it looks is shown in the

accompanying table.

The most spectacular in crease in the Australian share is in fresh meat exports, which in 1977 were only 173 tonnes to the value of 27.5 million francs.

They rose to almost 10 times this figure in 1978. Paradox ically enough, this excellent re sult can chiefly be attributed to the New Zealand Hellaby company which at the begin ning of 1978 went into part nership (35%) with several Tahitian businessmen, mostly Chinese, to produce this famous brand of corned beef locally. To do so, increased quantities of fresh meat must be imported, and it so happens that present prices are con siderably lower in Australia than in New Zealand. The pro duction figure of this new company, called COPA, is run ning at 125 000 cans a month.

Suddenly aware of the new potential of the local market, Australian diplomats respon

sible for the French Pacific ter ritories recently took the initiative to stage a small and very amateurish trade fair, held of course, in the only local Aus sie hotel, the Beachcomber (ex- Travelodge). Additional pro motion will certainly push the Australian export figure even higher not necessarily to the detriment of New Zealand exports. On the contrary, it is definitely in the common interest of these two Pacific

neighbours to organise future

joint promotional ventures. At

any rate, the ones who have most to leant are the Aussies, who have so far completely neglected to develop as the Kiwis have done I comprehensive cultural, edu cational and sporting exchanges with Tahiti.

The surprising thing is that the annual number of Aus tralian tourists visiting French Polynesia is three times higher than the New Zealand figure 9000 against 3000. In stark con trast to the Kiwis, however,

they practically all herd

together in the happy-go-lucky

Club Med tourist ghetto on Moorea, which evidently cuts them off from all beneficial contacts with the locals.

Product Australia mill. Pac. tons francs New Zealand mill. Pac. tons francs Fresh meat 1 609 218 2 883 635 Canned meat 73 22 100 28

Dairy products

1 446 116 1 248 174 Cereals 3 258 136 37 1.9

Vegetables and

fruits 599 32 24 2.8

Paper

919 26 491 36 Iron and steel 122 13 595 71