ENEMY TRADE.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 October 1915, Page 7

ENEMY TRADE.

IN THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. . WHAT JAPAN HAS DONE. WITH THE GERMANS AT ANGAUR. In marked contrast to the attitude of the British authorities with regard to German trade in Samoa and Tonga is the action of the Japanese Government in relation to German property in the island of Angaur, the southernmost of the Pelew Group. Angaur possesses a pliosphate deposit, which is not only one of the largest island deposits in the world, but also probably the purest. The value of this island was not underrated by the Japanese, whose imports of fertiliser materials reach an enormous sum annually, For five years—from 1009—the •' German Southsea Phosphate Company of Bremen continued to spend enormous sums to put the industry on a paying basis. They succeeded in their efforts a year before the outbreak of war, when, for the year 1913, a dividend of 11 per cent, was declared. Now the Japanese are in complete possession. The Germans employed on the island were all taken prisoner aud deported, and hundreds of workmen were straightway introduced from Japan, and are now reaping for their country the profits which ordinarily would have found their way into the pockets of German shareholder* at Bremen.

Prior to the German company being formed in 190S a survey of the island was made, and this disclosed the existence of a deposit of tri-calcium phosphate, "which first tests proved to measure into millions of tons. An analysis showed it to possess a purity of 90 per cent. When the Japanese took possession the output was approximately 100,000 tons, and 800 workmen were employed. Many big difficulties had to be overcome. Angaur Island is without an anchorage. It is swept by typhoons, and even in windless weather landing is difficult because of the rush of the current. First of all, largo cantilever cranes were erected, but even with this the loading process was too slow, and ultimately loading piers, automatic in their working, were constructed at each end of the island. These enable!! tiie dried phosphate to be run from the storehouses upon belt conveyors out over the sea to the vessel,, into whose holds it was poured through telescopic steel tubes. After years of heavy expenditure of German capital, the first shipment was made on Christmas Eve, 1909, coincident with the opening of the German wireless station at Yap, so that the stockholders were advised on Christinas morning that their mine was in the list of shippers. The last shipi ment was made in July of last year. ! In October the Japanese descended upon the island. As the island was taken by the Japanese navy, and as no prize I mouey could accrue as in the case of a captured ship, the commercially disposed among the naval men evolved a scheme whereby the island was to be declared a naval property and leased to a Japanese company which would pay an export duty on every ton of phosphate removed, this tax to go into the coffers of the navy as a war fund. This mode of disposing of a private property did not meet with the approval of the German manager of the company's works, but his protest that this was private property and not at all engaged in the production of contraband of war was unheeded, and at last advices the navy's plan was in full operation.

The latest estimate of the amount of available phosphate on the island fixed it at 4,000,000' tons, and as this was worth on the outbreak of the war some sixty shillings a ton, the island has a potential value of £12,000,000. It was the expectation of the company that nearly double its dividend could'be declared fn 1914, and future returns be at a higher rate, so that the value of this asset as spoils of war is sufficient to warrant its inclusion in the list of trophies to which the enterprising Japanese claims to have acquired title, temporary at least, through his investment of Tsingtau. As to the present disposition of Angaur Island, adds the Far Eastern Review, it would appear that the Australian forces who destroyed the wireless station were entitled to some share in the profit that is now going to the Japanese navy under the agreement with the company of its own nationality,