Exasperating Condition Of

The Copra Market

What Government Control and Ineptitude Are Doing to a Great Pacific Industry

DURING the month, the London (fixed) price of copra fell by 7/6 per ton, to £l2/17/6 sterling per ton, and quotations in the various Islands centres declined accordingly.

At several centres, the local price was reduced by 10/- per ton, and planters generally were very bitter about it.

It appears that there is much that needs explaining to the copra-producers —two things, in particular. One is the difference between the London price, and the price received by the planter; and the other is the extent to which the Margarine Trust (in other words, the Unilever Combine) is able to influence the Anglo-French authorities in fixing the London price.

A London price of £l3 per ton, c.i.f.

London, is equal to £l4/12/6 Fijian and £l6/5/- Australian. Yet the Pacific Islands copra producers receive less than half of this amount, as shown by figures published elsewhere. The big trading firms themselves are not enjoy ing rosy conditions; but, in their own interests, they should publish statements showing how freights, insurance and other extraordinary costs bite into that London price, and thus meet the criti cism being increasingly directed against them.

Then there is the London price itself.

It clearly is too low, in relation to most other commodity values. The suspicion is widely held that the Unilever Com bine has been able to keep the price down, so that the Margarine Trust (Unilever) may get the biggest possible profit out of this extraordinary war time boom in margarine.

On top of this, there is the shortage of shipping, for the transport of copra.

Ships are being provided for Australian and New Zealand products, but not in nearly sufficient numbers, for the pro ducts of Australian and New Zealand Pacific territories. Copra is piling up in the sheds, all over the Pacific.

Very strong personal representations have been made to Australian Minis ters, concerning the copra-shipment posi tion, but they seem incapable of doing anything. They say that all shipping organisation now is directed from Lon don. It is inconceivable that London would fail to take notice of firm re quests from Australia and New Zealand, whose war effort is vital to the Empire.

One exasperating feature is that, while the Pacific planters cry vainly for ships, a number of Norwegian and Danish freighters, eager and willing to carry goods to Europe, are lying idly in our ports. Politicians argue and babble —yet one stroke of their pens would direct those idle ships to the growing piles of copra.

The worst hold-up undoubtedly is in London, where the direction of our great Empire’s war effort is in the uncertain, palsied hands of futile old men. Even as this is written, the British Parlia ment is assailing the feeble administra tion of Chamberlain and Co. We can only hope that whatever good comes of it will be reflected in better shipping conditions in the Pacific.

The Grip Of Unilever

A CORRESPONDENT of the “Rabaul Times” is outspoken on the subject of international monopolies: “At the present time we, in the Islands, are struggling in the grip of one of the world’s greatest monopolies—Unilever and the International Margarine Union.

When British shipyards were idle (and trained shipwrights are vital to Britain’s success in any war) the Unilever interests were ordering tens of thousands of tons of shipping in the booming shipyards of Germany.

In view of the wide international rami fications of Unilever (Eliot Janeway, a noted authority, claims that they were responsible for the pre-war armaments loan to Turkey, merely to give them a bargaining point for the release of cer tain of their frozen credits in Nazi Ger many) it would be gratifying to people in the Islands to be assured that Uni lever and its associates are not still try ing to pull some cf their chestnuts out of the Hitler fire.

The whole position regarding the huge vegetable oil monopoly and its activities should at the present time be made the subject of the closest investiga tion. For years, Pacific planters have been turned into serfs, in order to swell the huge profits of internationalised money hogs.”

Where Does £B/5/- Per Ton

Go To?

It was stated by a writer in the “Fiji Times”, in April, that the London price of copra, in March, was about £l3 (sterling) per ton, and yet the Suva buyers were paying only £6/5/- (Fiji) per ton for copra in bags (bags included), ex-local boat slings. In other words, the return, after deducting the cost of bags and freight to Suva, would be approxi mately £4 10 - per ton on the plantation.

Thirteen pounds (sterling) is equal to £l4/10/- (Fijian), and it is not surprising that growers in Fiji are asking what on earth becomes of the £B/5/- per ton, which is the difference between the fixed price in London and the amount paid to the grower ex-ship slings, Suva.

Price In Rabaul

IT is difficult to get firm. quotations for copra anywhere, and copra pro ducers frequently ask for something to indicate the value of their product.

The “Rabaul Times”, on April 19, an nounced that the Rabaul price for hot air copra, in store Rabaul, was as fol lows; —Burns, Philo & Co., £7 13/6 per ton; W. R. Carpenter & Co., £7/14 6 per ton; and Colyer Watson, £7/17/3.

Price Of French Copra

The Noumea radio, in March, announced that the price of copra fixed at the end of November, 1939, for a period of one year for French territories, at 2,260 francs per ton, in France, had been altered by the Government to 2,540 francs, doubtless because of the freight rate of 50%, which affects the production of the archipelago.

The French newspaper in the New Hebrides says that French planters

there are grateful for the Government’s gesture. Planters will be able to aug ment their production, according to the desire of the Mother Country.

At the present rate of exchange, 2,260 francs are equal to £l6 Australian, and 2,540 francs to just under £IBA.

Case Of Average Planter

HERE is a letter written privately to the editor of the “Pacific Islands Monthly” by a planter in the Aus tralian Pacific Islands. It is typical of many communications: “I know that freight has gone up con siderably, but still I cannot reconcile the price which the big firms pay to me with the price that is paid in London.

“It cost me £lB,OOO to bring my place into bearing, and the present price of copra will not pay me. Therefore, the only thing I can do is to let my planta tion go bush.

“I run my plantation as cheaply as any in New Guinea. I recruit my own labour. They cost only about 8/- per boy, including repatriation. I feed my labour cheaply. I buy yams locally at £1 per ton.

Every night, two of my boys go out at 7 p.m. to do line fishing, and they usually return at midnight with from two to three hundredweight of fish. I can buy pigs very cheaply. Yet with all these economies, I cannot make my plantation pay with copra at its present price.

“There is something queer about the prices paid for copra in Eastern Papua.

I know of one plantation that gets £1 per ton above the price ruling in Samarai, and I know of another, 240 miles from Samarai, which gets £2 per ton above the ruling price. What is the explanation?”

Demand For Margarine

IT was reported from London in April that the increase in the butter ration had not resulted in the expected rise in consumption. Britain’s cold stores carry the greatest accumulation of butter in the history of the country; but butter remains at 1/7 per lb., while the ex cellence of the best grade of vitamised margarine, at Bd. per lb., has attracted the attention of the great majority of housewives.

The consumption of margarine appears to have increased enormously, and one can presume safely that there has been a corresponding increase in the demand for coconut oil. But the market remains quite silent on the subject—it is obvious that the Unilever combine, which the Government is permitting to handle the margarine market, is reaping the benefit.