N. Guinea Cocoa

Growers Still Asking For "A Fair Deal”

WE continue to receive complaints from cocoa growers in New Guinea that they are not receiving a fair deal from Australian manufacturers.

One grower in the Bainings district has sent to us the original of correspondence which he has had with a firm in Hong Kong. The latter praises the quality of the New Guinea cocoa beans and says it is prepared to arrange for regular pur chases from him at prices which will make it worth his while to sell to Hong Kong rather than to Australia.

The planter, in writing to us, remarks that it will not be difficult to beat the Australian price. The Australian buyers —“evidently with the idea of decrying the New Guinea beans and keeping down the New Guinea price”—still refuse to give the N.G. growers the price they think they are entitled to.

“It surely seems reasonable,” says our correspondent, “seeing that the Common wealth Government is prepared to pay a bonus for New Guinea beans to help the establishment of the cocoa industry here, that the Government should carry the matter a step further and put some sort of an import duty on cocoa beans grown in places other than New Guinea,”

Our correspondent says that although there appears to be a market for N.G. cocoa beans in the East, the position is that that market cannot be taken ad vantage of, because the operation of the new shipping law in New Guinea will de prive N.G. planters of the means of effect ing direct shipping from their plantations to Hong Kong.