Poor Old Planter?

What About The

From Our Own Correspondent.

London, May 1.

I NOTICE that firms, here and else where, who deal in tropical produce, have been submitting their customary bal ance sheets to annual meetings of share holders, and that dividends have been paid and that shareholders have given their usual evidence of belief that the businesses have been efficiently and pro fitably conducted.

This is excellent —but what about the poor old planter?

Somehow, to me, it does not seem fair that those who have invested their capi tal in these companies should, in spite of the disastrously low prices of produce, continue to receive their dividends, while the planter, who has invested his capital in a plantation, and who frequently has had to put in the best years of his life in hard work, gets nothing, and sometimes loses all.

Surely, if there is to be a substantial loss in this business of production and distribution, the loss should be borne equally between the distributor and the producer. It is not fair that when world conditions, over which neither party ha? any control, bring about serious losses in an industry, the actual sacrifice should be borne by only one of the parties, namely, the investor-producer. Why should the investor-distributor escape?

The answer may be made that in the good years the producer gets the lion’s share of the benefit; but that certainly is not the case in the tropical industries to

which I am referring. In the good years, these various firms benefit quite as much, if not more, than the producers.

The condition I am referring to is one that is receiving much consideration throughout the whole world at the present time. It all boils down to the threadbare question of why so much of the power should lie with the financial interests at the expense of the producing interests. I suppose the solution will be found pre sently—but a lot of people are becoming very impatient.

I should not be surprised to see an effort made before very long to organise great bodies of tropical producers, such as copra growers, so that they may promote some system of co-operative marketing. There has been effective organisation of the rubber industry. Here ai’e the headings in to-day’s issue of the London “Daily Telegraph”; “World pact to control rubber output— Assuring constant supply at an economic price—Hope of dividends at last for Brit ish investors —Comprehensive scheme to restore prosperity to industry.”

I think the time is coming when some such scheme should be applied to copra and cocoa, at least.