Plantations Do Not Pay
p. 117 · Read in the full issue
Significant Move in New Guinea
Rabaul, May 30.
THERE is an interesting sign of the times in the report that a good many occupiers of Expro plantations in and around New Ireland are taking steps to return the plantations to the Custodian.
The places no longer can be worked economically, on account of the difficulties of obtaining managers and labourers, the shortage of coastal shipping, and high prices generally. There are not the fortunes in copra at £5O per ton that so many imagine.
Many of the plantations in New Ireland are going off, and the yields now are low.
There has been no new planting for years.
Various owners have made application to the Custodian for some relief, in cases where yields have fallen away; but that official seems reluctant to admit that planters have any case at all for con sideration even where the owners are servicemen (or the widows of servicemen) who fought in two wars.