Banana trade
Date Published
Bananas and the Chinese Merchant Networks
Bananas and the banana trade were a major factor in the growth of some of the international businesses run by Chinese merchants. Banana growing was first established in Queensland, and the Chinese community took an active part despite discrimination from the Queensland government, which even introduced its own “dictation test” — a local version designed to discourage non-white participation in industries such as sugar and bananas.
The real threat to the Queensland banana industry, however, came not from policy but from disease. As crops failed, Fiji began to dominate as Australia’s main source of bananas. Some Chinese businesses, particularly those based in Sydney, seized this opportunity. They purchased plantations in Fiji, sent their own people to manage them, and began importing bananas directly into Sydney.
From this trade, major banana merchant houses emerged in Sydney, forming an important commercial foundation for later ventures such as Wing Sang, whose owners became the founders of the “big four” department stores.
The Queensland growers did not go down without a fight.
“CHINAMEN AND BANANAS. The Chinamen arc practical at Geraldton: they use their joss house for public meetings, and last week the locum tenens for Confucius were gorgeously arrayed in yellow silk, ten feet peacocks' feathers, and a sardonic smile, gazed down on excited celestials, deploring the selfishness of Victoria in subsidising banana ships from Fiji (remarks a northern paper). The local representatives of the three shipping companies were also present. The whole question was fully discussed, and the opinion of that meeting was that unless some assistance was forthcoming, the banana industry in Queensland would be killed out right. It was decided to write to the three shipping companies trading at Geraldton, and ask that some concession be made by way of reduction in the charges on bananas. Also that a petition be presented to the Government asking that the industry should be protected and assisted. The growers promised if that were done they would plough up and manure a lot of the old banana lands, and see if they could not be made reproductive."
