VALUABLE PLANT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 December 1940, Page 5

VALUABLE PLANT

FOR WORKING OF PHOSPHATE DEPOSITS FORMER GERMAN POSSESSION. OVER THREE THOUSAND PEOPLE ON ISLAND. Much valuable plant has been erected at Nauru Island since the commission began working the phosphate deposits at the end of the Great War. Formerly the island belonged to Germany, and between 1906 and 1919 the deposits were worked by the Anglo-German Pacific Phosphate Company, which also operated at Ocean Island and elsewhere. The company’s Nauru and Ocean Island interests were purchased by the British, Australian, and New Zealand Governments for £3,500,000 in 1919, and the phosphate commission, consisting of one representative of each Government, was set up that year. The construction of a great cantilever wharf at a cost of about £200,000, has been a major development carried out by the commission. The phosphate is carried out to the end of the cantilever by an endless chain of buckets, and is tipped automatically into the hold of the vessel moored below. The commission employs a white staff of about 90 on the island, many of the employees having their wives and families with them. The white population also includes an administration staff and a number of missionaries. There are also about 1400 Chinese coolies and about 100 Chinese artisans in the commission's employ, while the native Nauru Islanders total about 1700.