Trepang or bêche-de-mer, otherwise known as sea cucumbers and sea slugs, are an important food luxury amongst the Chinese and other Eastern people. They are used in the gelatinous soups which form an important article of food in China. They are prepared for export by being lightly boiled, then sun-dried, and finally smoked over a fire. A small English company is engaged in the industry of trepang fishing.
While timber of great variety and excellent quality exists in inexhaustible quantities, and although there are small saw-mills in Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, only small quantities of timber for cabinet purposes have been exported.
Traces of valuable minerals have been discovered. In 1890 gold was located by prospectors from Queensland, but the gold veins discovered have not proved as valuable as had been hoped.
Oil has also been prospected in New Guinea, but its exploitation was reserved by the German Government. The analysis showed a high percentage of heavy oil.
The imports, amounting in 1912 to £750,000, consist chiefly of food-stuffs, liquid and tinned, machinery and iron ware, building materials, clothing, leathern goods, and sundries.
The wants of the natives are few, however, and little trade is done with them in textiles, the clothing of men and women alike being usually composed of strips of cloth with plaited grass girdles and a profusion of shell ornaments.
On 15th August, 1914, the advanced detachment of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, which was ordered to seize Samoa, left Wellington at dawn and was met at sea by three of His Britannic Majesty's cruisers in New Zealand waters—the Psyche, the Pyramus, and the Philomel.
As it was known that the German armoured cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were at large in the Pacific, it was decided not to go direct to Samoa, but to shape a course for New Caledonia (French).
Cruising off New Caledonia the British ships were joined by the French cruiser Montcalm and by the Australian cruisers Australia and Melbourne.
The contingent received a wonderfully enthusiastic reception from the French in New Caledonia, and under the command of Admiral Sir G. E. Patey the allied fleet steamed for Samoa.