Cacao Control

British Government's Purchase

,„. . (The following, from the “Australasian Con fectioner”, will be of interest to planters in Samoa, New Hebrides and New Guinea.) AS a war emergency measure, the British Government has purchased the whole of the 1939-40 cacao crop of British West Africa. Prices to growers have been fixed for the year at 9 - per load for Gold Coast (“Accra”) good fer mented (equal to 22/6 per cwt. at port) “d tie/iO/- V* Xt ment with lower grades cheaper. The rron will be handled by the European, Afr?rnn and other shippers already estab u£ed £ the teade T wTact as agents for the Government, on the basis nf thpir nurchases over the past three seasons 1 PUrChaS6S ° V P A moratorium on cacao sales and pur chases has been declared in the Gold Coast and Nigeria, in order to enable the Colonial Administrations to make the me C n e fpSchaTes gementS G ° Vem ' rv>ocf ncron ohinmpnts last vear , g° ld tom valued at £4 540899 to tiM Thil export was twtee as large al that of Brazil nearly three times that of Nigeria and almost four times that of the Ivory Coast. It is estimated that the Gold" Coast crop this season will be 250,000 tons and that of Nigeria 100.000

‘r-?hT S£

shouldering the responsibility (or maybe

it is an advantage!) of marketing some 250,000 tons of cacao to other countries, from its West African purchases alone— and it has also undertaken to purchase maximum quantities of cacao produced in Trinidad, Windward Islands and Ceylon, these quantities to be based on normal shipments to the U.K. in past seasons and prices to be agreed upon on the basis of the West African rates.

The scheme has had a rather frigid reception in Mincing Lane, London. The London Cocoa Association had been asked to set up a committee to draw up a marketing schenfe to present to the Min istry of Food and did so, but it was feared, when latest journals left London, that this would be “by-passed” by the shippers acting as Government agents.

Doubts are felt as to the willingness of the natives to accept 9/- per load if they see a rise in prices at the distributing centres. They may “strike” again as they did recently—though the 9/- is well above the 7/3 per 60 lb. load that the natives were getting up to the end of September.

Still, they were entitled to reflect that 29/6 was being paid ex wharf London and 29/- ex store Liverpool for good fer mented Accras in November.

The Big Thirteen SOME thirteen European concerns are said to account for 98 per cent, of the normal trade in Accras —Bartholomew and Co.. Busi and Stephenson, Cad bury Bros., Compagnie Francaise de I’Afrique Occidentale, English and Scot tish Joint Co-op. Wholesale Society, John Holt and Co. (Liverpool), J. Lyons and Co., G. B. Ollivant, Paterson Zochonis, Societe Commerciale de L’Oeust Africain.

Swiss Africa Trading Co., Union Trading Co. and United Africa Co. The bulk of

the trade in Nigerian cacao is in the hands of a similar group.

“While the trade is thus sure of sup piies 0 f cacao,” says one English journal, “the prospect of Government control is viewed with some misapprehension in some quarters”—not to mention the prob able feelings of the U.S.A. on the subject! 6 , The extension of the moratorium on dealing in West African cacao from Nov ember 23 to December 4 tended to in crease demands for cocoa butter in Eng land by Continental firms, Cocoa Butter IAPFFRFNrK to the nosition brought bv the Dutch GoverZents

ofexnortf Sf cocoabutt^was

IfcUK Cope, at the annual meeting of the Lon don Cocoa Association late in October He said the British Government was fully alive to the fact that this ban involved both dealers and manufacturers m Bnt ain m heavy loss and was negotiating with the Dutch Government for an im mediate release, meanwhile, to ease the situation, the British Government had prohibited the export of English cocoa butter. = Sergeant-Major Vouza, of the Solomon Islands Armed Constabulary, was recently awarded the Colonial Police and Fire Brigade Medal “for long and meritorious service in the Protectorate ’.

Mr< F B aker, European Overseer at Suva Gaol> arrive d in Sydney from Fiji j January on six months’ leave.

Mr . H . J. S. Allen, Assistant Comp troller of Customs in Fiji, returned to abroad’* 1 Ja ” Uary