Over
p. 15 · Read in the full issue
British Trickery
The Mof Contract
IN the House of Commons on February 26 Mr. H. Hind (Labour, Accrington) asked the Minister for Food the world price of copra; why the price paid to Fiji is £53/15/- per ton whilst the local buying price is £55/5/-; why a lower price of £4B/10/- per ton is being paid to New Guinea by the Ministry of Food; and to what extent prices below the world price are being paid to other colonies.
The Minister for Food (Mr. M. Webb) replied: “The world price of copra has recently risen sharply, and is now between £l2O and £135 a ton, FOB.
“The prices we are paying to the Colonies and Mandated Territories, from which we buy copra under long-term agreements, are considerably lower than this, because the annual price variations under those agreements is limited to 10 per cent. This provision was designed to avoid short-term price fluctuations and, while we are getting the benefit at present, it gives the producer security against a slump in the market during the nine years for which the agreements run.
“The prices for Fiji and New Guinea are different, because the yearly periods for which they are negotiated do not coincide; but the price will be the same after March 1, “My hon. friend will recognise that these long-term agreements will be value less if they do not insulate both parties from these large fluctuations in the world prices.”
Planters’ Protest Against
British Socialist Trickery
fTIHE foregoing is typical of the com- X mercial morality of the British Socialist Government.
The Minister blandly ignores the chief cause of the huge difference between the world price of copra and the MOF price— namely, the Socialists’ trickery in de valuing the British £ Sterling after the nine-years MOF contract had been made.
When the MOF contract was made late in 1948, the price was fixed in the vicinity of £5O Sterling per ton; and this bore a certain definite relationship to the world (or gold) value of copra and, in the cir cumstances (chiefly, the nine-years’ guarantee) was regarded as fair.
Within a few months of its coming into operation, the British Government de valued the £ Sterling, in relation to gold and the US dollar, by over 30 per cent.
But it could not devalue the copra—copra held its value in terms of gold and dollars.
Nonetheless, the Socialists continued to pay for the copra in £’s Sterling, just as if the £ Sterling had the same value as heretofore.
Early in 1949, the Pacific planter, having sold 20 tons of copra, and received £l,OOO Sterling, could go and buy goods in the world market worth £l,OOO Sterling. But at the end of 1949, the planter, with the same £l,OOO Sterling, could buy in the Wor m market only goods worth (in terms of the £ as it was when the contract was made) £650.
The planters are not protesting against the operation of the MOP contract, in terms of the contract—in regard to that, they were ready to take the bad with the good. But they are, and with reason, protesting against the barefaced political trickery under which the British Govern ment, having bargained with them in £’s Sterling, and got them into a contract, deliberately reduced the international value of the £ Sterling.