Prosperity Returns To South Seas

What Rise in Copra Prices Means to Planters and Traders

nPHERE was jubilation in Pacific Islands planting- and trading circles during the month when news .was received from Lon don that the copra quotation had risen again, the London price, c.i.f., for what is known as “Hot-air Dried, Rabaul” grade being now well over £2O per ton. (See de tails on page 77). Both of the lower grades (South Sea Smoked and South Sea Sun- Dried) have risen in proportion.

Those planters who work on Australian and New Zealand currencies are enjoying also an exchange premium of 25 per cent.

Coconut planters must go back to the middle of 1930 to find quotations equal to those ruling to-day.

A New Guinea planter now in Sydney, who produces a high grade of Hot-air Dried copra, said that the latest prices, converted into Australian currency, meant that his copra was worth over £2O to him on the beach at his plantation near Madang. He said that to appreciate what this meant one need only remember that some three years ago he had been forced to accept £3/10/- per ton for the same copra at the same place—and he could not get his stores off the boat until he had delivered an equivalent value in copra.

Copra prices have been rising steadily month by month since the middle of 1935; but in the first week of October they began to jump in sensational fashion. Since Octo ber 2, the London quotation for Rabaul Hot-air Dried copra has risen from £l4/10/ per ton to £2l/5/- per ton on December 11—which, with exchange added, is equal to a rise of well over £8 per ton in Austra lian currency.

Students of the market are inclined to think that the rise over the past ten weeks has been too rapid to be permanent; yet they admit that some of the factors which have brought about the rapid change in the market are plainly in sight—such as a shortage of fats in America caused by drought: a marked reduction in world stocks of vegetable oils and fats; and especially a growing freedom in inter national trade brought about recently by the devaluation of French and Italian cur rency.

The London c.i.f. price for high grade copra in 1924-1925 was almost constant at

£3O per ton, c.i.f. For 1926 and until the middle of 1928 the price was in the vicinity of £2B per ton; but from that point it de dined until in April, 1934, it had reached the calamitous level of £8 per ton.

South Seas planting interests do not expect prices to return to the 1924-28 levels; but they appear to be well satis fied with the prospect of the present prices being held p Already,' as a result of the new level of copra prices, economic conditions in the South Seas have greatly improved and there have been a number of inquiries received from prospective purchasers of coconut plantations rcnasers Other South Seas products have similarly improved in value. The London onota tion for Plantation Smoked rubber was at 6|d per lb. a year ago is nowabound 9d per lb This has sn „ nomic outlook of Papua that it was an nounced last month by the Commonwealth Government that the 2d per lb bountv that had been paid to Papuan Vuhher growers for some years was now beimr event « “e Sn* ” ,h 6 A , , , * lauing again, , . & ° od deal o f coffee and cocoa is now Pdng" Produced in Papua and New Guinea, ?; n<l the prices of both those commodities aave , advanced considerably in recent ™ onths v Recent advices from Western Ghe P rin cipal cocoa producer in the ~f stated that cocoa was then worth £6O per ton on the beach in Apia, compared with less than £3O per ton a couple of years ago, and that Samoan P. tecs were seeking labour in every dire ction in order to harvest a particularly large crop of cocoabeans.

The effect of the depression in the South Seas was to wipe out a considerable num ber of non-economic plantations which were over-capitalised or inefficiently oper ated; and it is claimed to-day that as a result of this, combined with the present profitable level of prices, economi C Pcondi tions in all the territories in the South Pacific are better than they have been for two or three decades.