Australia

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIII, Issue 24, 27 September 1915, Page 5

Australia

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS. Unitbo Press Association. (Received 8.15 a.m.) I Sydney, September 27. A meeting of the Metropolitan branches of the Political Labour League resolved to ask the Federal and State Governments that all enemy subjects be immediately removed from Federal and State municipal services and that their property b e confiscated and utilised for upkeep of the dependents of those killed or disabled; also, that enemy subjects'^ ; .politically! disfranchised forthwith. The \ League & I .petition*; ingi the Government to intern 'all* ene'my subjects' ! naturalised or unnatWalised, '■s&&' to' p%nibit the holding! cn ii %r6wtr £r positi6iis| :i 'or* allowing trade under titles concealing identity. J :, ! m Bffibatfe 3 /'September' ; 27. f ' * Tho Patriotic Day Fund totalled '■ ~ :\'"\ ii in !% :' GERMANS TRADE AS USUAL. OBJECTION BY THE BRITISH. Auckland, September 24.' According to .the Nukualofa correspondent of the "Western Pacific Herald/' there dissatisfaction among in the Tongan group over the latitude allowed by the .authorities to Germans 'resident in the j Islands. The!; .correspondent points altholi||Uhe German schooner Elfriede, whfahj!ised 'to trade in-the group , and was taken as a prize, another vessel, flying the British flag, has taken her place. There is some mystery, he adds, regarding her ownership, and implies that German traders are in some way concerned wan her. The correspondent also states that the Deutsche Handelsund and Plantagen-Gesells-chaft, usually known as "the German firm" an organisation with headquar-. ters in Apia, has a large part of the trade of the group in its hands. The profits of this firm, he declares, eventually reach Hamburg. Some of the British traders in the group are, it is believed, financed by German firms. A gentleman who has recently been in the Tongan group, and has a wide knowledge of Island affairs, told an Auckland Star reporter that the suspicions of the newspaper correspondent were well founded. Tonga wag an independent State under British suzerainty, and consequently was not neutral. Unfortunately, there was no censorship of lettersj and German traders, especially the D.H. and P.G., were quite free to communicate with Germany through neutral channels. It was commonly said that many of them carried on an extensive correspondence with Sweden and Switzerland. The French in Tahiti had lost no time in suppressing the Societe Commercial de l'Oceanic, which was a Gor-' man firm of merchants trading under a French name, and it was contended that a similar course should have been taken lorig ago with the D.H. and P.G.—a German firm whose profits were almost certainly going home to Germany.