Copra.

Market Still Lifeless and Depressed.

NOT for fifty years has the copra mar ket been in so depressed a condition.

An examination of the figures, pub lished week by week, on page 45, is enough to drive the usually optimistic planter and trader to despair.

Many people have been commenting on the copra market, and offering vari ous explanations for its lifelessness — which is the more remarkable, in view of the fact that most other commodities are rising steadily—but none of these is very convincing. The real fact seems to be that copra is suffering under a num ber of things: It is still feeling the competition of such rivals as soya bean oil, peanut oil, whale oil, and various other oils which have had their harsh and unpleasant qualities removed by new processes of purification and deodorisation and which consequently may now be used in place of coconut oil.

There has been an enormous over production of whale oil; and, although this is now being reduced by a deter mined international move to prevent the extinction of Antarctic whales, there is still a huge surplus of whale oil to be got rid of.

Copra is now at the mercy of Unilever Ltd., a huge international combine, which is so powerful that it can almost write its own ticket in the European copra market.

So the outlook is not cheerful. Most of the planters who are getting the bene fit of the Australian and New Zealand exchange are just able to carry on and make a living; but planters elsewhere — particularly those adhering to the gold standard —are in a hopeless condition.

There is a general feeling that the copra market will improve in September or October and some planters and copra buyers are ordering their affairs accord ingly. We have not been able to discover any fact to justify this belief —but it is there, all the same, and should not be ignored.

The world’s present economic outlook is obscure. Commodity prices are rising, but no man seems able to say whether this is artificial, following upon America’s tremendous experiment in in flating her dollar currency, or whether it definitely marks the end of the depres sion. America, in the ultimate analysis, caused the world depression by an eco nomic sin—that is, by compelling the world to make excessive payments to

her in gold; and it would be a very queer thing if she dispelled the world depression by committing another economic sin—that is, by enormously depreciating her exchange white sbe is still able to provide a complete gold backing for her currency.

In the circumstances, it is not sur prising that the world, while awaiting the result of this epoch-marking experi ment by Dictator Roosevelt, is jumpy and nervous, and desperately afraid of what is around the corner Another three months should tell the tale. There will be either a great im provement in commerce, in which copra should benefit: or the world will split into three sections (the gold block, the sterling block, and U.S.A.) and try to resume international trade on that basis; or there will be economic chaos of the most serious kind.