“Crisis” Year

Prospects for Coconut Planters

THE managing agents of the Coconut Planters’ Union Ltd., of Fiji (Messrs.

Brown and Joske) wrote as follows on December 24; “We wrote last year: ‘We shall all be glad to say good-bye to the year 1933.’

We think all coconut planters will speak of 1934 in very much stronger terms!

“During the year we have seen the price of copra fall to an incredibly low level, and although there has been some re covery from the worst, the value of copra is still at a disastrous figure. The Copra Committee estimated that £1,000,000 has been sunk by Europeans in coconut culti vation, and if we see a continuance of present prices, the word ‘sunk’ is indeed appropriate. However, other primary commodities have been in a similar state, and copra is not alone in a cold hard world. Even a casual glance at inter national affairs reveals the impossibili ties of any general recovery of commodity prices when the door to international trade is almost banged, barred and bolted by tariffs.

“We imagine that 1935 will be the ‘crisis’ year, and that a year hence we shall either have better news to write — or nothing left to write of!”