How Ng Planter Is

Robbed

Australian Government is Still Taking All Copra

THERE has been no change in the copra market, so far as it affects Papua- New Guinea.

The planter is still being forced to sell his product to the Australian Government at a sum very much under world parity (allowing for the costs of transport from New Guinea ports to Australia). £AB per ton is still being taken from him arbi trarily by the Australian Government for what is called a “stabilisation fund” —a mysterious fund of which no one outside of bureaucracy knows anything.

The Government, through PCB, pays the planter just over £A4O per ton. PCB pays freight and charges, and sells in Sydney at about £A6O per ton. Various copra interests, including W. R. Carpenter & Co. Ltd., have indicated their readiness to pay from £A7O to £ABO per ton for this NG copra. The fixed price in Fiji (on a guaranteed 9-years’ basis), is £49 10 6—equal to about £55 Australian.

The planter, helpless and voiceless, is surely getting a raw deal from the Aus tralian Socialists.

While no official announcement has been made from Canberra, it seems cer tain that the Production Control Board (the Government body which takes over copra) will continue to function in New Guinea for at least another three or four months. The Government agency pro posed to supersede the PCB appears to be no further advanced than it was three months ago.

Meanwhile the Australian Cabinet, with other national matters on its hands, is not treating as urgent the need for a de cision concerning the British Govern ment’s offer of a guaranteed price for Australian Territories’ copra over a period of nine years, such as has been brought into operation in Fiji. It is understood that the price suggested by the UK Minis try of Food for the first year’s purchases is £45 sterling per ton (equivalent to £56/5/- Aust.).

In the meantime, as stated, New Guinea copra is still being shipped to Australia through the PCB, to be sold by PCB at the official figure of £6IA per ton for hot-air dried. Out of this, the planter gets a little more than £4O per ton.

The bulk of copra sold to Australian crushers is the better grade hot-air dried —smoke-dried copra is usually shipped overseas at the official price in Sydney of £6OA per ton. However, a shipment of smoke-dried copra from New Guinea was purchased in mid-January by Lever Bros.

Sydney, at £SSA per ton. It is not ex pected, though, that smoke-dried copra will be in much demand in Australia for some considerable time.

Captain de Frogier has retired from active service in the French Pacific Navy.

He has built a handsome villa in the dis trict of Punaavia, Tahiti, where he in tends to reside.

The New Marist School.