“Cash Only" In

Wau

Credit Control Scheme Starts Co-operative Movement

From Our Own Correspondent.

WAU, May 1.

ALL the principal firms trading on the Morobe Goldfield, having become weary of giving excessive credit and making many bad debts, have joined in a credit control bureau. They have pooled their clients, and have prepared a “C” list (“cash only”) to which they all are adhering. There is an under standing that the people on the list must clear themselves with all the firms, and not with one of them, before they can get credit again.

This drastic step has caused an extra ordinary paralysis of trading, and busi ness, for the moment, is dead. Yet the firms cannot be blamed. The amount of credit given in the past was amazing.

Many people in Wau, Edie Creek, Salamaua and some of the smaller places, have greeted the credit control bureau most resentfully, and a move ment is afoot to strike back by forming a co-operative society, for the trans port and distribution of goods. Two meetings have been held, and there is much activity.

I hear there was some wild talk at the meetings—someone even advanced a plan to advertise for a powerful con cern to start here against the estab lished firms, and to be guaranteed the trade of a certain section of the popula tion. Others claimed that Morobe prices generally are ridiculously high, and it was impossible, in consequence, to keep out of debt.

Out of it all, however, there may come a co-operative society to run its own store and aeroplanes. I hear that at least one man has gone to Sydney with authority to act in certain directions.

Some very “solid” men have associated themselves with the movement; but I am personally doubtful whether there are enough of them to put over a prac tical scheme.

The big firms certainly have done very well out of the Morobe people dur ing the last seven or eight years; but it is a fact that too many people were loafing on the easy credit available, and the firms cannot be blamed for trying to reduce their book debts.