BRITISH TRADE PROSPECTS 
able enterprise, the Teutons have financed a large 
tobacco undertaking, and are exporting the leaf in 
great quantities. Their syndicate has so far intro- 
duced methods of civilised trade that they have struck 
and issued their own coinage (which bears the image 
of a bird of paradise), and their five-mark, two-mark, 
and one-mark pieces are accepted by the natives 
instead of trade. These pieces are, of course, spent 
by the natives in the German stores. Not without 
reason did the Prince of Wales advise Great Britain to 
wake up. 
With all these extraordinary opportunities, it is a 
curious fact that, as regards shipping, the island is in 
a worse position for trade than it was twenty years 
ago. Even as recently as 1902, the Moresby was 
calling every five weeks at Port Moresby, but now her 
route has been changed, and she sails from Sydney to 
Singapore, calling at Port Moresby only once every 
two and a half months. In the interval goods and 
mails are carried in an erratic manner by a little 
steamer called the Parua, by the Merrie England (a 
Government survey boat), or by the Sét. Andrew, the 
Sacred Heart Mission boat. Two small sailing vessels, 
it is true, sail between Cook Town and Samarai, but 
this does not improve the communication with Port 
Moresby, the seat of Government, as these vessels 
make no call there. It is almost incredible that the 
second largest island in the world—the “ Pearl of the 
Kast,” probably the richest region in proportion to its 
size that Great Britain has the option of developing— 
is thus left hermit-like in the midst of the eastern 
seas. It is the more surprising when it is remembered 
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