New Carpenter Copra Mill

In Canada

How Treatment of 40,000 Tons Annually Affects South Pacific Industry

new copra-crushing mill of W. R. Carpenter (Canada) Ltd. commenced full-time operations, on its site on the Vancouver waterfront, western Canada, on May 27, 1941, and already is treatina copra at the rate of 40,000 tons per annum.

THIS is the first copra-crushing mill in Canada—hitherto, all the coconut oil needed by that great Dominion of 12,000,000 people has been imported.

All the oil from the new plant is being sold in Canada, and all the copra being treated is being brought from the South Pacific (mostly New Guinea and Fiji) by Carpenter ships.

The new industry is the creation of Sir Walter Carpenter, founder of the well-known and now powerful group of Carpenter comnanies, operating mostly in the Pacific. When the war broke out, and the European copra market dis appeared, and the great South Seas

industry looked like being wiped out Sir Walter refused to sit and wail, and began to seek a way out.

He sought a new market for copra. * He was laughed at. “Europe is closed by war, North America by tariffs, and Mexico is over-supplied,” he was told.

There simply is no other market”

He said nothing; but, early in 1940, he took ship for North America. A couple of years earlier, passing that way he had noticed a remarkable thing—namely, that there was not one crushing mill in all the big Dominion of Canada. He went back, to have another look.

He found that the same agency that cut off the British and other copra mar kets from the South Seas planter— shortage of shipping—was preventing Canada getting her usual imports of coconut oil. He investigated. There was another market for Pacific copra—if the copra could be milled in Canada itself.

Sir Walter worked fast, and silently.

Rumours reached Australia; but, by the time Australia learned what the tireless and ingenious “W.R.” was at, the erec tion of the crushing mills at Vancouver was under way. He was given encour agement by all the American interests concerned: but he had a real financial headache on his hands.

THE Carpenter companies had plenty of funds in Australia, wherewith to give Carpenter interests a sufficient voice in the new Canadian enterprise but, by this time (late 1940) the Austra lian overseas exchange position was bad, and it was practically impossible to provide Australian credit abroad, except for urgent war purposes.

Sir Walter wanted Australian money to ensure that the Canadian mill should run on Australian territories’ copra, and further money to buy something that would float, in which South Sea copra could be carried to Vancouver. (The three Carpenter ships, “Suva”, “Rabaul” and “Salamaua” were taken early in 1940, by the British Government, for Atlantic service, and the “Rabaul” has since been sunk.) The embarrassed Australian Govern ment was not very helpful. It seemed to think that there were more urgent calls for Australian overseas exchange than that of providing a market for Australian territories’ copra. Which is natural enough. The copra producers have no vote in the Australian Parliament.

Sir Walter solved the problem—but, even yet, no one outside the Carpenter firm knows how.

All that is known is that W. R. Car penter (Canada) Ltd. has been formed and registered in Canada; that it imme diately erected a crushing mill on the Vancouver waterfront, at a cost of $300,000; that that mill commenced operations on May 27, 1941; that the plant has been since increased by $150,000; that its capacity is already over 40,000 tons per annum; and that it is finding a ready and profitable market in

North America for the whole of its products.

The new mill wants first-class copra; and it is prepared to take all the first grade that New Guinea can produce at a price considerably in advance of the £4/10/- per ton, on plantation, to be pro vided by the Australian Government.

CARPENTER & Co. have announced their readiness to take at least 5,000 tons per annum from Fiji, at £1 per ton in advance of current prices, pro vided the copra is high-grade. This sug gests that there is something in the report that the far-sighted Governor of Fiji helped Sir Walter Carpenter to get North American exchange. Sir Harry Luke probably could do that, where Aus tralia was helpless; and if, in assisting the Carpenter enterprise, the Fiji Gov ernor secured a guarantee for part of Fiji’s copra production, the deal defi nitely was good for Fiji.

There has been something of a howl among some Fiji copra growers because it is reported that the Fiji Copra Grad ing Bill (introduced and then withdrawn, last year) is to be revived. Official assurances are that there will be no compulsory grading. Carpenter & Co. probably will insist that, if they are to take care of part of Fiji’s copra produc tion, there must be some guarantee of quality.

It was reported, in some quarters, last month, that one of the two old freighters, with which Carpenter & Co. now are carrying copra from the South Pacific to Vancouver, had been taken over by the British Government. That is not so.

The two freighters are now engaged in carrying copra between New Guinea, Fiji and North America.

The board of the new company com prises Sir Walter Carpenter, Mr. E. E.

Bucherfield and Mr. E. F. Riddle. The manager is Mr. R. C. Milroy.

Sir Walter Carpenter, having spent a couple of months in Sydney, returned to Vancouver at the end of July.

Fiji Hopes For 10 000 Tons p.o.

From Our Own Correspondent SUVA,. July 20.

OIR Walter Carpenter would appear to O have done more for the depressed copra industry of the Pacific Islands than all the governments represented at the Sydney conference. Their conclusions resulted in talk; his policy has given us a quite large copra mill at Vancouver, which will buy a considerable quantity of our copra—the amount talked of as being possible from Fiji, for instance, is 10,000 tons per annum.

The old question of the quality of South Seas copra has cropped up, because the Vancouver mill hopes to produce edible oils, and a fairly high-grade coconut oil is desirable.

Carpenter and Co. are buying, in Fiji, for the mill, only “plantation” grade; and, to avoid awkward questions or pro tests, they have secured the aid of the Government Department of Agriculture, as arbiter of quality. Such a development has strengthened the hands of the local Director of Agriculture, whose dearest wish appears to be the compulsory grad ing of copra in Fiji.

Th ere are many local opponents of the idea of compulsory grading, but the present system is purely voluntary, and disposes of most of their objections.

Since the premium payable by local copra buyers, once the Government cer tificate of plantation quality has been secured, is as much as £1 over the pre vailing price of £3/10/- per ton, the producer has a definite incentive, wherever conditions permit, to take the care necessary for the turning out of better quality copra.