TRADING WITH TRIPOLI.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1522, 19 August 1912, Page 8

TRADING WITH TRIPOLI.

TUKCO-ITALUN WAR MAY OONTINUE FOR YEARS.. < The "Vossischo Zciturig" publishes ft dispatch from a Tunis resident:, who states ho has been studying on the spot the organisation for supplying the Turks with food and war material. Ho says that the organisation is working so successfully that the war may continue for years, oven if Turkey formally signs a peace. The Frouoh Government declared that it could not prevent the supplying of tha Hinterland of Tripoli with food from tho Hinterland of Tunisia, os the Tripolitan tribes were always fed in that my. This trade since tho war has increased largely; and tho surplus is going to (ho Turks and Arab combatants. Tho trada has grown so great that once unknown settlements near the frontier liovo grown into flourishing trading towns. In particular that Is true of Ben Gardan end Meninin. This trade •is not conceited. Tho trade in arms and ammunition is an open secret. Evcryono knows tho dealers, their business, and when they, start. Sometimes arms are dispatched'in automobiles from the town of Tunis itself; sometimes from Sfax, Gabcs, and ether coast places. Tho amunition and arms caravans sometimes number 4000 camels. Small Tunisian coast towns, whero it was formerly not worth while for steamers i to call, 'have now constant traffic. • One lino iof stpamors running from Tunis to 151 i Biban, near tho frontier, has hogun to ! make a profit for tho first time. In addition, the Turks are hegiwring to set supplies direct from the Tripoli coast. Since the operations in .the Aegean, tho coast.has been laxly watched. Recently several gnus were landed, thus meetine one of the greatest needs of the Turks, who arc saving their artillery for tb?. decisive' battle they espect when the Italians are weakened.

Tho smuggling from Tunis is dueto tho unfriendliness of the Tunisian population and officials to Italians, '""ho oro l-egardrd. as cheap competitors. The Italian. CsorcrnraiMit is well aware of the smuggliac and accepts it as a painful feet, knowinj that no" instructions from Faris would put an end to it.