Helping Out The Islands’ Planter,

Letter to the Editor.

We have read your interesting leading article in the July issue of your journal under the heading, “Copra—All Eggs in the One Basket,”

We cannot refrain from challenging the statement therein which reads, “There seems to be no person, authority or institution, ready or competent to establish and find a firm and reliable market for island produce.”

After over 21 years’ experience in the island trade, both in buying and selling, we have yet to learn that a market can not be found in Australia for the pro ducts of the Pacific Islands. We have al ways found the Australian manufacturer most sympathetic and anxious to develop reciprocal trade by purchasing the raw products of the island planter, who, in return, generally spends the proceeds of same by buying Australian manufac tured goods for shipment to the islands.

Naturally, there are certain qualifica tions to our statement —i.e., the planter must be prepared to offer goods of mer chantable quality, and at a price com petitive with similar goods offering on the market, besides being prepared to guarantee continuity of delivery. With a compliance of these conditions, there should be no bar to the successful mar keting of any saleable product in Aus tralia.

We feel confident that there are quite a number of island agents here who would be delighted to help in the further development of the island trade, and we would also mention the members of the Mercantile Brokers’ Association of N.S.W., who earn their living by buying and selling and who are constantly en gaged in the finding of fresh avenues to dispose of the lines placed in their hands for sale.

Our only reason for writing you is that we feel that sufficient enquiry was not made by your officers before the article referred to was written, and your com ments might be treated in some quarters as a reflection on capable organisations that are ready and willing to lend a

helping- hand in the important work of the promotion and expansion of island trade with Australia.

I am, etc.,

F. C. Tracy,

Managing Director, F. C. Tracy

& Co., Ltd.

Sydney, Aug. 2, 1933.

EDITORIAL NOTE. —Of course, we had no in tention of easting an unflattering criticism upon the various Australian agents of Pacific interests, many of whom have done splendid work in pioneering new avenues of trade. Mr. Tracy writes from the viewpoint of one firm, in its individual relationship with a certain number of Islands producers. We were writing as one who tried to visualise the problem as it affects the whole of the tropical Pacific. Our point was that, as the bottom has fallen out of the copra industry—and seems likely to stay out for quite an indefinite period—every planter in the Islands is looking for something which he can grow quickly, and throw in the path of the ever-menacing bailiff.

For instance, he wants to know about the prospects of such things as tung oil, and kapok, and coffee, and castor oil seed, and various other crops; he does not so much want a quotation for a shipment to be sent to Sydney next month —which most of the Islands’ agents will go to much trouble to procure—as reliable data about the probable future condition of the world market for such things.

What are they wanted for? Whence comes the demand? Whence come present supplies? How are world tariffs arranged in relation to these commodities? What are the prospects of future demand and supply? Obviously, until he gets some such information, a business-like planter is not going to alter his production organisation to handle some new commodity. Just as ob viously, there is no one firm in Sydney capable of supplying the information. It looks like a job for a combination of Administrations, planters’ unions, and associations of merchants.

If it were a matter, as Mr. Tracy says, “of the promotion and expansion of Island trade with Australia,’’ most of us would be well content to leave it to private enterprise and the Aus tralian merchants. But it is a much bigger and more vital thing. It is a question of helping out the planter, until such time as the copra market can escape from the grip of the world depression and the world combine. If it ever does !