Copra

£37A Per Ton For

New Ceylon Contract Promises Temporary Stability and Pros perity for Industry

IT is reported in Sydney, on what ap pears to be good authority, that the British Government has concluded an agreement with the Government of Ceylon, under which Britain will pur chase all the Ceylon copra, for five years, at a price equal to £37 (Australian) per ton, f.0.b., for the present year.

There has been a good deal of argu ment as to the price which the Australian authorities should allow to the New Guinea coconut planter. This new Cey lon price should settle the matter, and provide a clear basis for copra trans actions, for the present.

MANY people have been expressing doubt about the future of the copra industry, “the economic backbone of the Pacific Islands.” It is recognised that the world is desperately short of all the products of the coconut tree; but it is also realised that, when the Netherlands Indies and the Philip pines—the world’s two most important coconut growing areas —get back into production again, the copra market is bound to react, and return to the con ditions which governed it before 1940/ Naturally, everyone wants to know how long the period of high prices will be.

Some have expressed the opinion that from four to six years will elapse before the coconut growing industry (a) can be reorganised for maximum production, and (b) can overtake the world-wide shortage of all substances made from vegetable and animal oils. The Ceylon agreement seems to bear that out.

Planters with coconuts in bearing or coming into bearing should do very well indeed in the next few years, at least.

After that, if there is to be no world wide control of production, coconut-grow ing will again be a gamble.

All of which, of course, does nothing at all to solve the problem of the Islands landowner who is trying to decide whether or not to plant up new areas in coconuts.