Tropic Seas"

"Piracy On The

How Canberra Is Robbing NG Copra Producers

WE have it on very good authority that the crushers in Australia are to-day paving the Australian Government the following prices for New Guinea copra:— Hot-air and Sun-dried £4l/15/- per ton Smoked £4O/15/- per ton This is the copra for which the New Guinea planter is receiving about £26 per ton on his plantation. (The official price is £2B, but that is at port of shipment— and freight thereto from plantation, plus loss of weight due to infrequent pick-up at plantation, represents an average of £2 per ton.')

The buyer, of course, is the New Guinea Production Control Board, an Australian Government instrumentality more or less controlled by Mr. Ward.

Who eventually sells the copra to the Australian crushers, and who gets the difference between £26 and £4l, no man knows. Whenever newspaper men seek information, the bureaucrats shut them selves away coyly behind closed doors, and emulate Brer Rabbit.

The exceedingly raw deal being given New Guinea planters by the Australian Socialists has been the subject of insis tent inquiries in the Australian newspapers and Parlaiment, recently. But Ministers refuse any explanation of what one MP has called “this bare-faced piracy on the tropical seas.”

Latest advices show that the British Ministry of Food is paying £5B/8/0 Aus tralian for Ceylon copra, and America is buying Philippines copra in a free market in Manilla at a price equal to £7l per ton Australian.