Islands Shell Industry Disorganised

Why Producers Get Such Poor Returns

First Of Two Articles By Jps

E South Pacific shell industry to-day is an extremely valu able dollar-earner for the sh and French territories con ;d. ese two articles seek to sum se the problems and prospects he two distinct branches of shell industry trochus and ier-of-pearl—and to offer a suggestions based on informa gathered from buyers, brokers producers, as far apart as New ea and New York city, late destination of most of the this article, a distinction is ; between Torres Strait trochus Pacific Islands trochus. ry little trochus is being fished le Eastern or Central Pacific, le Western Pacific, the quality ■ochus varies almost as much le locations from which it is d —and the “marketed” quality tions are even more marked, far as natural quality is con ;d, the Torres Strait area—no t due to favourable constitu in the water, favourable tides other subtle factors—grows a ius much superior to the New

Hebrides-Solomons-New Guinea pro duct. Thus the same price cannot be expected for shell from the different areas.

Whether the extremely wide difference in price between Torres Strait and other trochus can be justified is another mater. Strait trochus is readily saleable at good

prices while other trochus lies in Sydney stores unable to raise bids from world consumers.

The Torres Strait industry appears to have little to worry about. The other areas could scarcely be said to have a trochus industry at all.

WHATEVER effect the Aus tralian brokers and buyers may have —and it cannot be denied that it could be to their in terest to discredit the non-Torres Strait shell, buy it at a discount, and resell overseas at a price well

above the nominal £AI40 —by far the biggest factor in the poor state of the Islands shell industry is its complete disorganisation.

Whereas in Torres Strait the fishermen are in the game for a living and are anxious to maintain the prestige of their product on the

world market by rigid cleaning, grading and packing, in the Islands 90 per cent, or more of the trochus is fished as a sideline to a coconut plantation or some other industry.

Before World War II many plantation operators took a serious interest in trochus, and shipped as

good a product as the location mitted. To-day, this appears far from the case. Planta which formerly had a good ] with the old established S 5 brokers and buyers, now sei very inferior, uncleaned, ungi product.

Previously, when these ph tions advised that they were 1 to ship a parcel of trochus, Sydney firms knew from exper exactly what would be coming ward. On this knowledge, were able to arrange a sale < seas without ever seeing the 1 in complete confidence that overseas’ buyer would be sati with the parcel.

To-day. with very rare ei tions, this cannot be done—c the Sydney firms declare. All e to clean and grade seems to been cast aside under the stin of the rising market of a year which peaked at about £A3OO.

THAT rise was occasioned 1 battle which developed tween certain New buyers who control the gn part of the world market, marked the commencement of complete downfall of the Is! trochus market. The indica are that every man jack in Islands started to gather troci even from the cemeteries and ga paths—and send it off to Sydi Undoubtedly, a large numbe

»e people honestly did not have lue as to what constituted good lity trochus. Others were not pared to waste time in grading cleaning, but preferred to let Sydney firms quote “as is.”

I others tried to work in a per iage of useless shell with the i, to be “in on” the high price, he result was that Islands shell ime completely discredited on Sydney and overseas market, he Sydney firms emphasise that lay they no longer have the lities or labour to clean or ie shell. They cannot consider ;els of “as is” shell; and, they they can no longer even trust ipers who write down guaran ng a parcel of shell to be “good lity.” To-day, they will only :e an offer for Islands trochus r it arrives in Sydney and is lected. ) the serious trochus fisherman in the Islands such conditions naturally intolerable. There is reason to suppose that Sydney iers or buyers are any more est than Islands shippers. Thus an very well be that, despite the itest care on the part of the )per, a parcel of shell can be iared of low quality on arrival Sydney, and the shipper is :ed to accept whatever he is red. here is reason to believe that has happened—though ad tedly most of the shell coming vard is not in this class to-day. he solution surely must be for Island producers, be they station owners, operators of ie stores, or full-time fishermen, make up their minds whether y want a trochus industry; and, >o, to make some serious move ards its organisation. Under sent circumstances, they can er hope to obtain the true :ket value of their produce, he Torres Strait trochus pro ers are able to sell direct to v York to-day solely because V have organised a thorough ding system and established ir product. A New York buyer manufacturer knows exactly it is meant by Torres Strait ;hus, or Thursday Is. MOP. here is no reason why, in the ie way, Guadalcanal or Manus II should not have an iblished place on the market, if local producers would get to ler and have their trochus dly graded—just as their copra o-day rigidly graded for export, he solution might lie in a co rative system, whereby the local ducers would band together to )loy a conscientious grader to de all their trochus, at the port shipment, so that the shell Id be offered as one lot, under ertificate.

There is no reason to suppose that the shell fished throughout, say, the Solomons area, would vary more in quality than shell fished in the area, say, from Cooktown to the Gulf. Buyers will always pre fer to deal with a large organisa tion or co-operative, rather than with a hundred unknown in dividuals.

IT may be thought that such a system of grading already exists. This is not the case, The official inspectors to-day are interested only in seeing that the law is complied with as regards minimum sizes fished. It is not their present duty to inspect or grade shell for its general condi

tion —nor are most of them quali fied to do so. The average person certainly would not differentiate overcooked or dead shell from good shell, unless first shown that difference.

The organisation of an efficient grading system in each Islands

itory would be to the im ate advantage of all concerned. must obviously be the ultimate tion of the producers to raise standard of their product to a ; where the overseas buyers will s ready to deal directly with i (or their co-operatives) as are to-day in dealing with the es Strait producers. stralian agents, who are to-day mly people prepared to handle ids trochus, are almost without Dtion not representing overseas ifacturers directly. They ly buy and resell or sell on nission— to overseas manu irers’ representatives. They are ly an essential link between acer and manufacturer only use of the disorganised state he Islands trochus industry, e would be no. trochus sales at o-day without them. turally, the Australian dealers ot be expected to favour the of producers doing FOB tele hic business with New York, indications are, however, that a day is a long way off and improvement in the grading of ius must therefore be to their Bdiate benefit, inasmuch as commissions will benefit from higher prices realised. xt month, the MOP situation be discussed.