[?]Bilising The Copra

[?]ear Left

Industry After 1957

The Papua-New Guinea Copra Stabilisation Fund now unts to £2,500,000 sufficient to pay a subsidy of £5 per on 90,000 tons of copra for five years, or £1 per ton for ears—should the need ever arise.

4.RD to administer this fund or when selling price falls >w cost of production—was announced. Producers’ rep iives are in the majority and s are:

Fatives Of The Copra Producers

Of New Guinea

B. Bailey, managing director of Coco cts, Limited.

R. Wilson, vice-president of the Association of New Guinea.

Fatives Of The Copra Producers

Of Papua

E. Fairfax-Ross, president of the Association of Papua.

Other Members

H. Reeve, Treasurer and Director of -NG.

E. P. Dwyer, Director of Agriculture, Fisheries, P-NG. tion of a fund for price tion of the copra industry n the Wardist regime in under National Security ions, and initially it was a £1 per ton, but this was in in great leaps and by 1948 vas being compulsorily de from the planter in respect ton of copra sold. >articular phase came to an i the defeat of the Labour lent at the end of 1949. collected up to January 1, ounted to £780,000 and were the Commonwealth. Be muary 1, 1950, and October a somewhat different set ited and the funds collected o—were also held by the iwealth. From November 1, der a Customs Tariff Ex iinance, a deduction of £2 was levied and the funds llected have been held in itory of P-NG. id result of all these three is that there is now a total hing like £2 l million avail the Board to cushion the over any period of de irices. nd (or funds) were initially imed by planters, who took (particularly in the period Eddie Ward was Minister ories), that it was another tax from which they would nefit. 9, the British Ministry of itered into a nine-years it with British copra pro :ountries in the S. Pacific

and in the years immediately after wards, planters in these territories found themselves in the position of selling copra to the UK at about half the world “free” price.

In the 1950-51 period there was much discontent in P-NG over the MOF price and over the stabilisation fund deduction. In regard to the latter, planters held that, in view of the MOF contract, no stabilisa tion fund was necessary and that moreover, it had been for years col lected illegally. At one period, NG planters contemplated taking their case for a return of the collections to the Australian High Court.

,^ us t ra lian Government man aged, by one means or another, to retain the money collected and as a result the new Board now has tz 2 millions at its disposal Per haps the planters of P-NG will in time, come to believe that this is a good thing. 9 But the planters cannot be said to have lost their battle over the Fund: The fund is at the disposal of a Board set up in the Territory and composed of Territorians, which is quite a different thing to seeing it become part of consolidated revenue—and that, judging by past experience, could quite easily have happened.

Last Year of the MOF

Contract

IN the normal course of events — and events at this writing, November 6, cannot be called that—negotiations should shortly begin between South Pacific govern ments and the UK Ministry of Food over the copra price for 1957. These (Continued Next Page)

negotiations, if they follow the pattern of recent years, will be pro tracted. It was not until the end of March that the price for 1956 was officially announced.

The average free market price of Straits copra in London over the past 12 months has been £Stg.6s and there has been little fluctuation throughout—peak price being in May. A survey over the past year shows;

The MOF price for 1956 was based on £Stg.sB/10/-, f.o.b. main Islands ports. Allowing £Stg.ls for freight, insurance, shrinkage, etc., between islands ports and London, the MOF has been paying £Stg.73 for its •copra which could have been bought on the free market for an average of £Stg.6s. It thus lost £Stg.B per ton.

As in the early years of the con tract, the MOF was making four or five times that per ton on the deal, it will still emerge at the end of 1957 on the right side of the ledger.

No doubt the MOF will again press for a reduction of 10 per cent, and if conditions are normal when final negotiations are made it will have a strong case in favour of some reduction, if not the full 10 per cent, permissible under the agreement. However, the confusion in the international situation is such, at this writing, as to make any reliable guess as to what will be the final 1957 copra price com pletely impossible.

In the first week of November free copra showed a rising tend ency but this could not be attributed definitely to the Middle Eastern situation.

Copra is, of course, normally in strong demand during a war, but Pacific producers will remember that in the early years of World War 11, before Japan had come into the conflict, they suffered an acute de pression in the industry simply be cause there was insufficient shipping to lift it from the Pacific area.

Opinions Differ in Fiji

DURING the month the end of Agreement was exercising the minds of copra interests in Fiji, but there the degree of unity be tween individuals is much less than in the Territory of New Guinea, which has a strong planters’ organ isation. In Fiji, a large proportion of the copra is produced by Fijians. (Continued on Page 141)

Stg. per ton December 2, 1955 65.15 January 9, 1956 65.10 February 2 65 March 1 64.10 April 10 66 10 May 8 71.15 June 8 66 15 July 11 63 August 8 63.10 September 13 64 October 9 63 10 November 6 66.5

Fiji opinion is divided be hether it would be better, j Agreements ends, to sell crushers or to export the irgue that for convenience, the sake of the local it is better to sell to the shers. Others, that as the Island Industries Ltd., is a y of W. R. Carpenter and zh amalgamated last year irris Hedstrom Ltd., this nly Burns Philp and Co. v Chinese merchants avail >uy copra when buying re private interests, people say that these re buyers will offer little re to the competition of the and that if the crushers t of the copra, it is unlikely ra ships will call for the ount of copra that is left, hat happens, they ask, if, i copra export trade were le crushing mills caught were burnt out? Or for ison the crushers decided could take no more copra, yer, one market and no on would lead to strangu the planters.” ent Fiji exports about 4,000 copra per annum; about 30,000 tons go to local leeting in October the Fiji a Board discussed claims by the United Kingdom of Food on account of ents of copra from Fiji ere below the recognised of FMS and, in a few mtation grade, tv quality was in evidence signments of copra from was lengthy discussion at ng because of the concern nembers that claims might >e because of low quality oil, since the copra from hitherto exported as is now coming into Suva ing, and was not liable to )r inspection at Savusavu. ims have so far been re account of low-grade oil. probably because even he copra is of low-grade, ieterioration is arrested by ishing. If the copra is as copra, it continues to ;e in storage and during overseas.

Dard briefly discussed the i to grading proposals, as . by correspondence in the ss and reports from meet state producers. The Board lanimously recommended legislation to Government aers were still firmly of the it grading is necessary.

Chairman informed the

Board that he had discussed with the Colonial Secretary the likely future of the Board itself after the

end of the Ministry of Food agree ment and he had informed the Colonial Secretary of the views of

Hickling-

Johnson

Wedding

The wedding took place at the Presby terian Church, Otahuhu, NZ, on August 11 of Miss Wendy Judith Hickling to Mr. Peter Stanford Johnson, of Tauranga.

The bride is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Hickling, Mangere East, and formerly well - known residents of the Cook Islands. The brides maid was Miss Janice Fraser and Mr. Norrie Stone was bestman. A reception followed the wedding and later guests were entertained at the home of the bride.

Guests included: Mr. and Mrs. W. Tailby, Mr. and Mrs. Wes.

Graham, Mr. and Mrs.

George Robinson, Mrs.

Sam Bennett and Miss Dorothy Bennett (all ex-residents of the Cook Islands); and Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Ambler (ex residents of Fiji and Gilbert & Ellice Islands).

some producing interests tl marketing organisation shorn set up to carry on the work..

Government had come to the. elusion that it was not withij scope of the present Board t cide on such a matter as the i had been set up only for the pose of carrying out the tern the agreement with the MOE the Government had cided to offer to discuss 1 arrangements with represent; to be appointed by producers..