Australian Socialists

And New Guinea Copra Price

DESPITE the stimulus of the highest average price in the history of the coconut planting industry, the pro duction of copra in New Guinea and Papua this year is not expected to exceed 40,000 tons.

The best production recorded in one year in New Guinea before the war was 86,000 tons, while Papua usually could be depended on for 10,000 or 12,000 tons— say, 100,000 tons per annum, altogether.

The difference between then and now is directly attributable to Socialistic in terference by the Australian Government in the economy of the two Territories.

The native labour set-up has been torn to pieces by Mr. Ward, making labour in adequate and undependable: all sea trans port is Government-controlled, so that it also is inadequate and undependable; while the Government-controlled Produc tion Control Board, which buys all copra at a fixed price, contributes nothing to the industry in the way of efficiency, encouragement or direct help.

Although the prices being paid by the Socialists to the New Guinea planters are much below world parity, it is reported that the latest official plan is to make a difference of £3 per ton between hot-air and sun-dried copra—not by raising the price of the hot-air product, but by ie ducing the rates for sun-dried.

Yet all the sun-dried that New Guinea can produce can be sold immediately on the world market to-day for anything from £lO to £2O per ton more than the Australian Government is now reluctantly paying for hot-air-dried.

Rev. Father Jullien Droneau, MSC, is in Sydney, receiving medical attention, after 37 years’ continuous service on the atoll of Maiana, in the Gilbert Islands. He suffered privations and great loneliness during the Jap occupation, but the Jap anese did not harm him—which he ascribes to his age and his large, white beard. He is eager to return to Maiana, but he probably will be sent home to France to recuperate.