Too Good to be

True Millions for Papua Imperial Sugar Go.’s Great Plan

IF there is any truth in a report which is agitating financial Sydney to day (September 15) Papua should give three hearty British cheers, for it may mean the dawning of an era of, at least, free expenditure of money in the Territory.

It appears that there is in Sydney a gentleman named Mr. Philip J. Mond, who is planning commercial and finan cial operations of extraordinary mag nitude. He has: (1) Registered the Britannia Insurance Corporation in Sydney, with a capital of £12,000,000; (2) registered the Britannia Bank, in Sydney, with a capital of £100,000,000; (3) taken over Papuan Rural Products Ltd. from the promoters, with a view to reorganising it as Imperial Sugar Industries Ltd., with a capital of £500,000 and an ultimate bond issue of £15,000,000.

Mr. Mond sounds too good to be true; and Sydney is still gasping under the magnitude of his figures and plans. But the various important people who have met him declare that his credentials are quite satisfactory: and Smith’s Weekly—which is certainly no respecter of persons after an “investigation,” acknowledges that the worst it can find out about Mr. Mond is that he appar ently is not related to Lord Melchett (formerly Sir Alfred Mond, a London public man and millionaire). It is not proved that Mr. P. J. Mond ever claimed to be Lord Melchett’s relation —it was assumed that he was because of his unusual name and his association with millions.

Meanwhile, while everyone is trying to find out whether Mr. Mond and his millions are real or simply a madden ing dream, we may give some parti culars of the scheme that interests Papua.

Papuan Rural Products Ltd. was formed some little time ago and has been described as “one of the flotations of W. J. Beckett”—a gentleman well known, for a time, in the Sydney news paper industry. His name dees not appear on the directorate in the orig inal prospectus, however. The com pany had a nominal capital of £25,000 and was offering to the public 40,000 bonds at £30 each. It described itself as “a company formed to exploit the natural advantages of Papua for grow ing sugar cane and the manufacturing of sugar and its various by-products.”

The company on the assumption tlhat a sufficient quantity of bonds would be sold to justify a start—“sel ected” 20.000 acres of sugar-land, four miles inland from Wanteela, south of Keppel Point, Collingwood Bay, in the North-east Division of Papua.

Nothing much was heard of the bond selling proposition, between the time the company was formed, in Anril. and August, when Imperial Sugar Industries Ltd. came into being. It was then announced that the new company was to be of the financial dimensions stated above and that the acreage for sugar planting was to be 250,000 acres! Some idea of the size of the project may be gained when it is stated that the Col onial Sugar Refining Co.’s plantations, in Fiji, have a total acreage of 80,000.

In the booklet issued by the new company it is stated that the first bond issue is to be 130,000 bonds of £30 each (£3,900,000), of which 65 000 bonds, re presenting £1,950,000. have been sub scribed by British investors, leaving 65,000 to be offered to Australian in vestors. It is announced that 6 per cent, interest is to be advanced annually on all paid-up bonds, until the first sugar harvest is sold, and that “a 100 per cent, guarantee is to be given for seven years from September 1, 1931, against loss of capital on paid up bonds.”

The board of directors of this new company comprises: P. J. Mond, gentleman, London (chairman).

W. Cunningham, company director, Mosman, Sydney (managing director).

Seymour H. Warner, sugar mill direc tor, Cairns, Queensland.

Dr. D. Guthrie Hunter, Eastwood, Sydney.

Leslie J. Thompson, M. B., Auckland, N.Z.

P. Warford-Mein, gentleman, Too rak, Melbourne.

Smiths Weekly says, of the board: “It is a collection of respectable names in Australia and New Zealand; and all those gentlemen must have satisfied themselves concerning the London end of the huge undertaking.”

We have not attempted to traverse the new company’s highly optimistic prospectus. It points out, with the flamboyancy usual in prospectuses, that Britain imports 1,700,000 tons of sugar yearly, of which over 1,000,000 tons is not Empire grown; that Britain grants from £3/5/- to £4/5/- per ton preference for Empire grown sugar; that Papua is one of the most suitable countries in the world for sugar growing and is destined to be the future ‘British Cuba.’

The fact that there is huge over-pro duction of sugar in the world to-day does not dampen the company’s enthusiasm.

There is the story. The Papuan scheme is part of Mr. Mond’s magnifi

cent plan; and concerning that, even the perspicacious “Smiths” confesses itself baffled and awed. So far, Mr Mond has not been faulted. There is money about somewhere—one does not register hundred million pounds com panies in Sydney for 6½d. But it DOES look too good to be true.

Anyway, if only a tithe of it comes to pass our friends up in Papua may turn their money cheerily in their pockets and go out and do obeisance to the new moon.—R.W.R.