ENEMY FIRMS IN TONGA.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 April 1916, Page 2

ENEMY FIRMS IN TONGA.

STOPPING EXPORT OF SUPPLIES. In a letter to a friend in Wellington, a resident of Nukualofa, Tonga, writing on March 4, says:—"The recent decision of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce to make application to the Imperial authorities, through the Federal Government, to put a stopper on the export of gup-' plies to the enemy firms in the Tongan Group makes me sit up and take a little nourishment. Some figures about the Hun hereabouts: Throughout the kingdom there are sixty-five German-owned or controlled stores, as against fortynine conducted by Britishers; which reads rather rotten at this stage, The big boss feller is the Deutsch Handel mid Plantagen Gesellshaft du Hamburg, or the D.H.P.G. for short. Time was when the managers of this firm's branch were looked up to as 'it,' and the lustre they shed about them still sticks in the shape of continued business and profits accruing to Hamburg. This 'profit' does not necessarily mean 'cash,' but records of money on hand in the firm'B branches find their way to Germany, and so enhances 'credit,' which is all the Hun wants. Tim Tongan Islands can only absorb a limited quantity of imports in direct ratio to the amount of exports, as there is no country to open up or industries to establish. Profitable crops mean increased spending power, but the medium of distribution will neither decrease nor increase. If the German firms were forced to put up the shutters the U.S.S. Company's bottoms that carry the tins of beef and razors would not suffer the loss of freights. The spending power of the people being unaffected, direct benefit to Australian and New Zealand merchant firms would result, as, with Britishers at the helm of trade, a largo business would be diverted to them in place of tl)i= German and American houses." It will be remembered that while in Auckland the other day the Prime Minister stated that, with the approval of the Imperial authorities, the New Zealand Government intended to liquidate the "D.H. and P.G."