French Territories

Sharp Copra Slump

In The

IF Australia has any real interest in the New Hebrides—a subject concerning which there has been much speculation for some time, and on which officialdom is stub bornly silent—now is the time to prove it.

For some obscure reason, New Hebrides planters and traders can get only £5O Australian, or less, for their copra. Australia, if it wished, could buy all the NH copra for £5O-£6O per ton (as compared with the £BO-£9O it pays for New Guinea copra for local consumption) and gladden New Hebridean hearts.

But officialdom never will get around to a decision like that with out continuous prodding; and, by that time, the French growers’ market may have recovered.

New Hebrides smoke-dried copra is notoriously the lowest-quality copra in the Pacific: but that does not explain the sharp fall.

This extraordinary price of £4O - per ton, reported from New Hebrides and Tahiti, has no rela tion to the world market. Good quality copra is still worth £BO - in European ports, Singapore and Manila, though slow of sale.

Copra has world value, and should not be affected by the present de pressing events in France, Buying power in the French.

Territories has. been sharply re duced, and there has been a near panic in some quarters, probably,, the market has reacted to an un fortunate combination of circum stances, and should soon recover.

Mr. Francis Frederick Wheener, of Nirex Pty. Ltd., exporters, will leave Sydney by air late in March for New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tahiti, to make the acquaintance of his Papeete clients and to establish new contacts in Noumea and Suva.

Mr. Wheener, who is Nirex’s ex ecutive purchasing officer for all merchandise they ship to the Is lands speaks French fluently.