Levers £12,000,000
p. 28 · Read in the full issue
Profit
These Excessive Figures Come When Copra Market is Low
THE £12,000,000 profit announced re cently by the Lever Combine (which dominates the copra market) has aroused much bitter comment among Pacific coconut planters.
The following contribution comes from a resident of Raiatea, French Oceania: Did it ever occur to you, or to H. M.
Faure and other produce merchants who seem to hold a more confident view of the future, that this control by the Lever group is the real reason of the disastrous price of copra? It is simplv a matter of depressing the price still more, and there
is no reason why the profit of Unilever will not be doubled.
It is very disturbing to the coconut planters to see the connection between the huge profits and the wretched reward for their produce. The bigger the profit, the lower the price paid for copra.
“Profit is that part of wages that the worker doesn’t get.”
In the depth of the depression of 1934, I drew your attention to a report in the financial column of “The Times”, show ing Levers profit to be £5,000,000. The editor commented that, curiously enough, when the bottom fell out of the copra market, Levers made such a good profit.
Now, we have £12,000,000!
Seriously, what can be said of the pro duce merchants and their market reports?
Do they intentionally deceive us and pull the wool over our eyes, with their “politi cal situations” and “war scares”.
Here are a few facts and figures, ap proximate. Two tons of copra, at point of production, 2,400 francs. This contains one ton of oil and one ton of cake. Mar garine retails, in local stores, at 10 frs. a pound. It would cost, per ton, £2,400.
There remains also one ton of cake, which must be of considerable value. Taking the margarine alone, there would be a difference of 20,000 francs between the raw material and the processed product in the retail stores.
Do you see the connection between the unemployment, that still afflicts the manufacturing countries, and the star vation fDrice of copra that restricts the purchasing capacity of the tropical belt, where native people by the million, slaves of the coconut, toil long hours for a mere pittance a day? And what of the white man, attracted to the tropics when the value of copra was £2O to £5O a ton?