Planters’ Debts
p. 10 · Read in the full issue
New Plan In New Guinea
THE new method, under which pur chasers of expropriated plantations in New Guinea are to resume payments to the Commonwealth Government, was an nounced on April 7.
From July 1, 1936, payments will be recommenced on a sliding scale based on the Rabaul f.o.b. price of copra, and this price will be determined in the manner now used by the Administration for fixing the price of copra for export duty.
No payment will be required of planters until copra reaches £lO a ton. When copra is between £lO and £ll a ton, re turned soldier planters will be required to pay each quarter £ 5 in respect of each £lOOO of principal invested, plus interest calculated at the rate of 1 per cent, per annum. The quarterly payments of prin cipal will be increased by approximately £1 for every £1 increase in the price of copra up to £25 a ton. There will be a graduated increase in the rate of interest until the maximum rate of 4 per cent, per annum will be payable when the price of copra is £lB a ton.
A similar basis for payments by other than returned soldiers has also been adopted, but in that case the commencing rate of interest is 1| per cent, per annum, and the maximum rate of interest is 5 per cent, per annum.
Periods of contract will be extended to 20 years in the case of returned soldier purchasers, and up to 10 years for other purchasers, from July 1, 1936, in each case.
Burns, Philp and Co., Ltd., and W. R.
Carpenter and Co., Ltd., which have con siderable interests in plantations in New Guinea, have advised the Commonwealth Government that they are agreeable to reduce to 2 per cent, the interest payable to them on the deposit (equal to 10 per cent, of the purchase price), which was advanced by those companies to planters, to enable them to purchase their proper ties. The interest is to be payable when the price of hot-air-dried copra in Rabaul is £lO per ton, and the rate of interest is to be increased by i per cent for each £1 above £lO per ton, until the maximum rate is reached. The reduced scale of payments is to apply only where the in terest is actually paid, and not where it is added to the companies’ debts.
The companies are unable to give a definite undertaking to apply similar re ductions in regard to trade debts due to them, but they have promised that unless other circumstances arise, the planters will receive the same sympathetic treat ment in regard to interest as they did in the past, should copra prices go below a payable figure.
Mr. J. Fletcher, Joint Court Surveyor of the New Hebrides, recently arrived in Sydney from Vila on furlough. He was later joined by his wife, who arrived from New Zealand, and early in April they were spending several weeks in Mel bourne.
Mrs. Bowen Jones, wife of the manager of Guinea Airways Ltd., at Wau, New Guinea, arrived in Sydney on six months’ holiday by the Neptuna on March 27.
Captain A. H. Prosser, formerly master of the Waimarino, will command the new motor ship Matua which has been built by the Union S.S. Co. Ltd., for the Central Pacific fruit trade.