TRADE WITH JAVA.

Otaki Mail, 15 March 1922, Page 4

TRADE WITH JAVA.

POSSIBLE MARKET FOR NEW ZEALAND GOODS. Comment lias been made by Mr Byron Brown, of Derbyshire’s (N.Z.), Ltd., upon a cable message published in The Rost as to trade between Australia and Java, and he has expressed the opinion that the Dutch East Indies offer a very profitable market for New Zealand goods,, providing satisfactory communications ciin be established.

The Dutch East Indies, comprising lava, .Sumatra, Celebes Isles, Borneo, and a. thousand other islands, forming giant stepping-stones across the Indian Ocean between Australia and Asia, lie sitid, are more or less thickly populated by Malays, with Europeans directing industries and commerce. There arc 40,00(1.000 people in Java alone, but onlv 00,000 are whites, mostly- Dutch ami English. The Burns, Philip and the Dutch K.P.M. Lines run regular steamship services, two or three times a mouth, from Australia to Dutch East Indies, with many ports of call, Batavia, being the final port. The boats carry full cargoes of Australian flour, oatmeal, pollard, preserved milk, cheese, canned butter, and other milk product*.

During his visit to Java, about twenty- months ago, said Mr Brown, he had found that those goods were of poor quality, and he had heard expressions of dissatisfaction from the Dutch and English merchants, who, having heard of the high quality of New Zealand produce, were inquiring for it. The Dutch had been, and were now, importing dairy- stock from New Zealand, but tlio industry was confined to the mountains, and, as yet, was only in its experimental «tege, An enormous trade, in his opinion, could be done by New Zealand with the Dutch East Indies, and tho Dutch and English would welcome trial shipments. Only once had a Java-owned Dutch vessel traded to this country, the K.P.M. Roggerveen, which brought a full cargo of Java sugar, tea, eoffo, cocoa, spices, kapoc, rattan ware, and many native home-industrial product of artistic value. Java tea was excellent for blending purposes. The full flavour of Java tea, however, was an acquired taste, which would have to be cultivated by New Zealand palates.

At present transhipment tit Sydney was the bar to economic trading with Java, mid direct trading was the onlyremedy-.

When in Java he told the merchants I that New Zealand dairy produce was 1 bringing such high prices >that fresh \ markets would not be a temptation, I but. the day would come when the Do- ] minion would be glad to open up trade. I “That day- lias come,” said Mr Brown, “and it behoves New Zealand to exploit this great market of more than fifty- million consumers. Shipping is looking for freights, and trial shipment by enterprising merchants, without seeking any Government help, would be a profitable experiment, and would lead to constant trade at good t prices for the Dominion’s at present languishing products.' ’