Ng Copra

Australian Racket Against Planters

ALTHOUGH many weeks have passed since the Australian Minister for External Territories, Mr. E. J. Ward, announced the abolition of the Produc tion Control Board of Papua-New Guinea, the Board was still functioning last week, and officials of the Department, interro gated by PIM, said they had no know ledge of when it would cease to function or what, if anything, would take its place.

Well-informed commercial opinion in Sydney was that the Board would cease to function on September 30, and that private trading in copra would be re sumed.

Mr. J. R. Halligan, Secretary of the De partment, left by air on September 6 for Port Moresby, on matters connected with Administration. It is assumed that the abolition of the Board will be one of the matters he will deal with.

In the meantime, the planters of New Guinea continue to get a raw deal.

The last official price announced for

copra taken over by the PCB was £4S per ton for hot-air-dried. But. within two days after that, it was disclosed that an increase in freights would be taken off the price allowed to the planters (in stead of being added to the selling price of copra) with the result that they are now getting £4O/14/6 per ton, Rabaul. At the same time the higher freight was added to all stores that the planter gets from Australia, so he is catching it both ways.

The latest announcement from New Guinea is that inter-island freights are being increased by 5/- per ton —which works out at about 50/- per ton for 200 miles.

Meanwhile, the Government is selling its PCB copra in Sydney at £6l per ton.

One report says that W. R. Carpenter & Co., Ltd., offered to buy all the copra available at £Bl per ton—for shipment overseas, presumably—which means that the Sydney price is at least £2O below world parity—equal to £BOO,OOO in one year on New Guinea’s last recorded annual production of 40,000 tons.

On top of all that, the Australian Gov ernment (through its Minister for Ex ternal Territories) is withholding from the planters £8 per ton for a so-called “stabilisation fund” —although the amount and ultimate purpose of this fund, and

the method of control thereof, ate matters of impenetrable mystery.

Another example of how the Australian Socialist Government treats the New Guinea planter is seen in the price charged by Australia for rice. Rice is the staple foodstuff of the New Guinea plantation labourers. In May last, Aus tralian-grown rice leaving Australia for New Guinea was raised from £35/12/6 to £49 per ton, plus freight and charges. In other words, although Canberra grabs New Guinea’s copra at something like £2O per ton under world parity, it In sists on treating the New Guinea rice consumers as foreigners, so that rice now costs the planter at Rabaul the colossal sum of £6B per ton.

The New Guinea planter pays no less than £42/10/- per ton (fob Sydney) for flour, 4/9 per pound for tea —and so on.

It would be less like bare-faced robbery if the planter could get anything like world parity for his copra.