CHINESE FOR PAPEETE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1267, 24 October 1911, Page 2

CHINESE FOR PAPEETE.

"WHERE THEY DRIFT TO IS A PROBLEM." (Br Tolcsrach.-SDCcia! Correspondent.) Auckland, October 23. By the stcanwr Jlahono yesterday (hero arrived in Auckland n party of 47 Chinese on route to Tahiti. The Island boat now almost regularly carries lnr»o numbers of Chinese to Papeete each month, and the total for tli* past twelve months is considerable. Why they go and what they do wlun they get there is a qupslion fraught with n certain amount, of interest, and was the subject of an interview this morning with Mr. J. A. Pliillipps, a well-known resident of Tahiti, nt present on r vis-it (o Auckland. "\Vh?re do the ChiiKw gn to?" Raid Mr. Phillipps. "Well, (hat's not altogether easy of explanation. For years jwst tlioy have been a.iriving at Pnppel? in Urge numbers, but just whero tiny drift to is a problem. The party to leave Auckland by tho Navua on Wednesday will probably do as most previous partics have done. For a while, perhaps a fortnight, they will do casual work on tho plantations. They then will disappear. The Chinese in Tahiti as a typo arc fiboro the ordinary. Very few are coolies, and mostly they belong to the merchant class. At tho present time tho Chinese population totals well on p. thousand, and is fnst reaching tlio combined strength of the Kuropean population. Moreover, they bid fair to monopolise trade. At present the biggest business in Papeete is carried on as a branch concern by a well-known Auckland firm, but (ho principal French and German houses complain that tho Chinese aro gradually under-selling and monopolizing the whole of the native trade. They have established a name for integrity, and have .steadily increased their influence until it embraces all the islands in the group. The vanil.i trade is entirely in their hands, and their infhunce throughout the. group is extending all the while. Tho Chinese immigrant, however, docs not conic to swell ths long-establish'.d Celestial population of Papeete. Each group of now arrivals becomes 'swallowed up,' and presumably gees into different islands to complete ihe network by which most, of the native trade is drawn into the hands of tho Chinese merchants. The extraordinary thing is, however, that almost every month comes a i:ew batch cf Chines?, and just where they disappear to js something that evon tho Europeans resident in the group ennnot quite explain. Tho French Government imposes no substantial embargo upon their advent, and very few go out, while hundreds conic in."