Where Are Copra

Pool Funds?

SOME New Guinea planters are com plaining that they have received • from the “New Guinea Copra Pool” (brought into operation in 1941, and put out of business by the Japanese invasion early in 1942) no payment for their copra beyond the £4 per ton originally allowed to them.

It will be remembered that the Man dated Territory planters were forced into the Pool by the Federal authority, but the Papuan planters were not. The Federal authority has paid at least £B/10/- per ton to all Papuan planters from whom copra was taken over in that 1941-42 period; but the New Guinea planters, although definitely promised some further payment (which they anticipated would at least bring the total up to £8 or £9 per ton) have received nothing.

Immediately prior to Pearl Harbour, copra was a drug in the market; but, from the moment the Pacific war broke out, copra became exceedingly valuable.

It is known that the copra in that Aus tralian-New Guinea Pool in December, 1941, and afterwards, was sold at high prices; but neither the interested plant ers nor their representatives have been able to get any statement of accounts, although more than two years have passed. It appears to be the usual story of a Government Department engaged in commerce: dilatoriness, and the utmost reluctance to distribute moneys.

One Australian firm says that it sold to the Pool copra from its own planta tions at £4 per ton, and later bought copra from the Pool, in Australia, at a price more than twice that figure; but it never has had any further dividend from the Pool. Probably, like most Gov ernment-controlled funds, all the balance has been eaten up in expenses.