Copra Down-Grading Cost Milne Bay

Sr To The Editor:

Copra Down-Grading Cost Milne Bay £20,000, Claims Planter

main port for the tole of the Milne Bay District Papua, from Baibara on the Coast to Rossell Island in ist, and to Baniara on the least, had its usual serenity shattered in mid-July, arted with the arrival of a )pra Inspector, and continued s a crisis which transcended nternational matters as the of the Suez Canal, because mmediate effect on the whole irai depends for 90 per cent, income on the copra trade ie new inspector’s standards t he thought was merchant >pra were so high that over lort period rejections and tradings reached the start tal of 50 per cent, of copra ted. the long term, the figure little under 20 per cent., s figure did not give a true of the position as there sing much less copra sub towards the end of the in ’s stay with us. grower sent his rejected nt to Port Moresby, where examined and accepted. The given by the inspector was ae one used by the same in during litigation over re copra in Rabaul some time sly. He claimed that the had dried out during the from Samarai to Port y. ,rai’s case was taken up by trict Advisory Council, which i the seriousness of the posi md reported to Port y; as a consequence, some isited Samarai and examined pra. The result could be negative, so far as the pro were concerned, but pro a slight white-washing of ;pector by his fellow public s.

Fairfax Ross then took the up in the Legislative Coun- September and gave some which were interesting: /een June, 1955, and March, f 12 separate shipments of Tom Samarai in Bank line ily two earned the bare con rice and the others earned itary premium. A very large ion of Samarai copra is 1 to the Australian market 3re have been no complaints i from buyers there.” as answered by Mr. R. E. P.

Dwyer P-NG Director of Agricul ture, who has undoubtedly learned that words can be used to conceal the real issue as well as to ex plain it. Mr. Dwyer seemed to us to imply that Samarai growers wanted a lower standard than other centres.

This is so far from the truth that it is ridiculous. All Samarai producers wanted was the same

standard as that which operated in other centres.

Several more shipments were forwarded to Port Moresby after first being submitted and rejected by the Samarai inspector and all were accepted there immediately and one was upgraded from the grower’s grading. The grower had marked the shipment by what he knew of the Samarai standard.

All of this proved that the standard required by the inspector in Samarai was too high compared to other centres. But the inspector refused to alter his grading and the situation remained serious.

Various planters came into Samarai and interviewed the in

■ in order to try to under lis grading and the standards uired is been estimated that dur ds period the loss to the has been between £20,000 ),000. Local shipping has been mised, owing to having to le copra back to the planta- Samarai is so small that s no storage space available from what the local stores are in their own buildings, ere were no facilities for re oning copra. turnover in some local retail has dropped as much as 50 nt. Many native producers ;opped making copra and the Native Co-operative had so ejected copra that the share were quite bewildered, some of the rejections and rading were well warranted will deny But during the mentioned by Mr. Ross, when marai copra was shipped to ited Kingdom, rejections and rading averaged about 2 it., and there were no com about it. )wyer suggested that we have e to Law. But the Rabaul lentioned previously and in the same inspector was in showed that the only per » suffer would be producers. )eing granted leave in Aus

tralia, the Rabaul inspector was transferred to Samarai.

Sarnarai has no Legal Eagles re sident and any court action necess itates considerable expense.

Copra is the only cash crop the natives have in this district but so far we have seen no expert from the Agriculture Department de tailed to instruct the natives in making better copra. All that has been done in the way of agricultural instruction, so far as I am aware, is the distribution of coffee-plants in some areas in batches of fifty; some pocket-handkerchief-sized plots of rice have also been grown and some natives have been given a course of training at the local Agri cultural station near Samarai and turned loose on their fellow men.

Due to the siting of the wharf, when a copra ship is loading in Samarai no copra can be accepted by the Copra Marketing Board.

Sometimes boats have had to wait for over a week to unload. But Samarai has been lucky in the staff of the board, which has been courteous, co-operative and efficient.

This has helped minimise any troubles which have arisen prior to this last blitz The Inspector has now been transferred —again—and a new one is in office. But there is still the loss of thousands of pounds and working hours to be made up, if

possible. Bureaucracy has won £ and the private citizen suffers..

It is very evident that ■ standard of grading of copn necessary for the whole terrr and that individual copra inspeo: grading, at present, varies qui) lot. The inspector’s job, than: as it is, is a very important on which the future of the indil rests to a great extent.

I am, etc.,

J. D. Wilkins[?]

Sideia Is., Via Samarai,

Papua.