£4 Per Ton

Grudging Allowance To NG Copra Planters

WHEN it became known, at the end of July, that the Australian con sumers of copra were being charged by the Australian New Guinea Produc tion Control Board at the rate of £5l/5/0 per ton for first-grade (£5O/5 0 for smoked), an advance of approximately £3 per ton, Territories planters were jubi lant—they assumed, naturally, that they would get most of the benefit.

It was announced, in September, two months after the rise, that they were to get another £4 per ton!

Until the wholesale nrice was raised in July, the following was the position of copra produced in New Guinea and Papua:— Per Ton Allowed by Production Control Board (the Australian Gov ernment in another form) to planters, at ship’s slings or to Board’s store .. £3l 2 0 Sold by Board to manufac turers in Australia, about £42 0 0 Which meant that, after pay ing freight and handling charges, the Board was making a profit of say ... £7OO Sipes the July-September re-arrange ment, the position is as follows, as near as can be ascertained:— Per Ton Allowed by Board to planters £35 2 0 Sold by Board to Manufac turers in Australia, first grade £5l 5 0 Showing a net profit to Board of about £l2 0 0 We have assumed that it does not cost more than £4 per ton to carry and sell the copra in Australia. But even if it costs £6 per ton to carry and distribute, the Board is still hanging on to a profit that is not justified by circumstances— that amounts, in plain language, to bare faced robbery of the Territories planters.

The Australian Government is taking, in profit, out of a system of trading that it has forced upon planters, a larger amount per ton than the world market w r as paying altogether for copra in the years just prior to World War 11.

MR. WARD, and gentlemen of his poli tical kidney, probably will say that the Production Control Board is only grabbing a profit that, in the Bad Old Days, would have been taken by the Big Firms. That may have been so.

But, under the old system, the Big Firms did turn back a portion of their profits into the Territories for the bene fit of the Territories. We at least got efficient shipping services and reasonably cheap goods.

As shown elsewhere in this issue, the Australian Government is nouring two millions per annum of Australian public funds into the Territories—but not for the benefit of the non-official white resi dents.

The Territories planters are not being given a fair chance to build up reserves out of these rich copra rates; and when the crash comes—as come it surely will under these Socialistic muddlers—private enterprise will be left with insufficient protection It will be small consolation to Mr. John Planter, struggling to carry on the nlantation that represents his life work, to know that Fuzzy-Wuzzy is living in a more or less model house, learning to become a tea-planter, and sending his tmxqm daughters to a Government dress absurd’ scho °l—° r something equally REPLY-See Late News,