BRITISH TRADE PROSPECTS 
he calls ‘‘a good time,” returning with empty pockets 
to begin his labour over again. I believe the Govern- 
ment is now making a road to the Yodda Fields, and 
when this is completed, the longer route will be aban- 
doned, and provisions on the fields will be cheaper. 
As regards imports for commerce with the natives, 
the chief desiderata are the articles technically known 
as ‘‘trade,” with which the labour to be used for de- 
veloping the exports is remunerated. The native 
generally desires to receive from the white man 
knives, axes, tobacco, Jews’ harps, beads, dogs’ 
teeth, and red calico; but it is to the exports that 
the enterprising trader has to look in the future. 
The finest field for enterprise in New Guinea— 
and one which I have therefore left to the last 
to be dealt with—is tobacco. The district of Mekeo 
produces a magnificent leaf, of which the seed 
has been imported from Cuba. The syndicate that 
imported the leaf applied to the Government for 
100,000 acres of land in the central division of British 
New Guinea, but this request was opposed by the 
New South Wales Government, without reason vouch- 
safed to the Government of the possession, whose 
officials in a recent report described this action as ‘“‘a 
very serious blow to the immediate development of 
the country by Australian capitalists of high standing.” 
The same report, while deploring this misfortune, 
remarks that the tobacco should do very well if the 
leaf is properly treated for the market, as the soil 
appears to be very rich. Very different was the action 
of the German authorities in the Kaiser's New 
Guinea possessions. With their usual indefatig- 
341 
