Unilever Combine

Fall in Margarine Profits

THE following comment on Unilever’s activities during last year was circu lated early in June by Messrs. Brown and Joske Ltd., Suva, to members of the Coco nut Planters' Union of Fiji.

“The ‘Economist’ of May 5 surveys the annual reports of the various Unilever Companies. The impression left is that the Combine had done better from the manufacture of soap than margarine. The total sales of Lever Bros, amounted to 2,093,000 tons of soap, representing a turn over of £58½ millions.

“Unilever has suffered from Government interference in various countries, e.g., Germany, where the Government, to assist the farming population, decreed a reduc tion in the Company’s output, accompanied by a request that no factories should be closed or staff reduced. Raw material prices continued to fall and in the oil crushing industry the loss of earnings from this cause was equivalent to over 3 per cent, sterling on the ordinary capital of the two Unilever Companies.

“The greatest difficulty, however, arose from the extremely low prices of butter and lard. Between 1928- and 1933 butter consumption in the U.K. increased from 16.7 lbs. per head of the population to 23.3 lbs., but margarine fell from 13.2 lbs. to 8.4 lbs. The Chairman of one of the Group Companies is said to have attacked the Dominions’ powers of free entry of butter under the Ottawa Agreement and to have suggested that this should be terminated after October, 1935. None of the Chair man’s speeches contained any hint of speedy removal of last year’s difficulties.”

Whale Oil.

The whaling season, just finished, showed a production of 2,355,000 barrels of whale oil. as against 2,477,810 barrels in the previous season. About one million barrels were produced by companies which are wholly and entirely Norwegian. The whole production has not yet been sold.