Editorial...

DOES UNILEVER COME AS FRIEND OR FOE TO

The South Pacific?

VITH the end of the British Ministry of Food (MOF) Copra Contract in sight—it expires i December 31 —the planters, ■aders and administrators of the outh Pacific should give increasing Mention to the problem of future larketing. , , The first question to be dealt ith is the method of marketing— it to be through private enterprise, 5 in the past, or through organ ations partly or wholly controlled

■f Governments?

The urgency of this question is idicated in another column. Mr.

C A. Faure, chief buyer of oils id fats for Unilever Ltd. will be i Sydney early in March, and in ort Moresby and in Suva later in [arch, to discuss matters connected ith the marketing of South Pacific ipra, when the MOF Contract cpires.

It will be remembered that Mr.

D. Howard, another chief tecutive of Unilever, visited the outh Pacific centres in 1956, and iscussed with planters and traders tany matters connected with copra reduction and quality.

In view of this, it is as well that e remind ourselves of two very nportant factors in the world 3pra situation, namely: Unilever is the biggest single buyer in the world of vegetable oil seeds, which includes coconut ‘products.

The South Pacific countries now produce approximately 280,000 tons per annum of fair average quality copra. piRST, about Unilever Limited, f In the years before the war, this international combine, tirough great internal efficiency nd the prompt and early applica ion of scientific discoveries in the reatment of oils and fats, got a tranglehold on the world copra larket, and virtually arranged its wn prices.

In the eyes of the South Pacific oconut planters, it was quite roperly represented as a monster Ti th two horns and a tail.

During World War 11, copra ;ene r a 11 y—especially copra of Iritish origin—passed largely under lover nment control, as a vital podstuff; and that control has con inued (through the MOF 9-years ontract) until now. It was a little lisconcerting to find that Unilever ?as closely associated with the Jritish Government, during the war tnd post-war years, in the gather ing and marketing of copra. How ever, as everyone knows, the MOF

Contract for a decade has stabilised British copra-selling and enriched British coconut-planters.

Now, the British Government re tires from the picture; and the top copra men of Unilever are becom ing prominent. What now are we to expect from Unilever, the com bine which shaped our South Pacific lives in 1920-40?

The creature may still have horns, but its ugly forked tail has more or less disappeared. In other words, it probably is not as great a menace as it was—although every independent copra-seller should be on his guard. A monopoly is still a monopoly, no matter how prettily it dresses itself; and the primary purpose of a monopoly, no matter how lustily it yells about its desire for efficiency and the elimination of waste, still is to make bigger and better profits.

BUT the world has changed a great deal since 1939. Unilever has an influential voice in the world’s copra markets, but it no longer dominates them.

Pre-war, Unilever was in control because it controlled most of the world’s crushers. To-day, emphatic ally, it does not. One hears of in dependent crushers now in widely separated countries —in Switzer land, for instance, and Finland, and Canada —and in Fiji and New Guinea.

When Unilever buyers go into the market to get copra for their very numerous crushers, in so many countries, they now are in competi tion with buyers for a large and growing number of mill-operators who are not in the Unilever combine.

The world is demanding more and more copra, now, in a way that should be heartening to coconut planters generally. Morocco came into the market lately, and so did Israel. South America now is a buyer. A greater and greater pro portion of the copra and oil pro duced in Ceylon and Malaya and Philippines is going to India and China, and other Asiatic countries which are so rapidly swinging over to Western standards of living.

This is a comforting picture. The more we examine it, the more we are inclined to say: Don’t hesitate to plant coconuts, so long as you are satisfied about the future owner ship of your land.

In other words, the economic outlook is quite good and you may proceed with confidence, so long as

your political outlook is right. (The political outlook matters a good deal in places like New Guinea, under Trusteeship, and Fiji, where a growing Indian population is an increasing problem).

THIS growing international de mand for copra therefore has altered the position of Unilever.

It now is quite possible that Unilever will come to us as a seeker of favours rather than as a ruthless dispenser of same. We of the South

News items page 9, this issue.

Pacific now have 280,000 tons of copra to sell each year; and the world wants it —and the better quality it is, the more the world wants it, and the higher the price will be.

It is quite likely that Unilever, in order to ensure a supply over a long period, will offer long-term contracts, and on what appear to be favourable terms something that neither buyers nor sellers ever even dreamed of in the Between- War years.

This brings us straight up to a consideration of Unilever, as a factor of our economic world.

Unilever is not likely to offer con tracts to individual producers. But if the present copra-marketing machinery in Papua-New Guinea and in Fiji, for example, is going to be held together after 1957, by Government instruction or through Government blessing (and it seems that it could only continue to function if maintained under Gov ernmental authority), then Unilever almost certainly will be interested, and eager to contract for the supply of copra that will come through such organisations. There is evid ence of that already, in the way in which Mr. Faure proposes to spend all his time, in Papua next month, with the Copra Marketing Board.

One may presume that Unilever, at bottom, has human qualities, like the devil: “The devil was sick, the devil a saint would be; “The devil was well, the devil a saint was he!”

Unilever, supreme, was not ex actly a benefactor of the coconut industry. Unilever, under strong competition, may become a bene factor This is a very great and rich organisation. Control of it has passed in the last two decades from the hands of the rather ruthless old gentlemen who created it, into those of another generation, who may think differently. They may see that in a competitive world, if they are to ensure supplies of raw materials for industries pro ducing vast international quantities of goods based on oils and fats,

they must protect and take care of the primary producers. One gets the impression that that is the pre sent policy of Unilever, BUT the copra producers of the South Pacific should not allow themselves to be lulled into any false sense of security. They are safe enough, while the world clamours for copra, and the South Pacific planters have for sale at least a quarter-million tons per annum. And the better the average quality, and the more they can function as a single selling unit, the safer they will be. But just let the world go into economic doldrums, and the buyer—and especially the monopolistic buyer—get on top of the market, and cruel things will happen.

The South Pacific welcomes the emissaries of Unilever, and probably will be happy to bargain with them.

Unilever, with its knowledge and resources, can do a great deal to help the South Pacific planters.

There is no reason why the South Pacific should not accept the benefits which Unilever is in a posi tion to confer. Unilever wants our copra, and is in a position to pay for it. Fine! Let’s forget the past.

But let no planter, or Board, or the bureaucratic planners in Canberra and Suva and Wellington (who have served the planters well in recent years) forg'et that little couplet about the sick and the healthy devil. Let a knowledge of history, and caution, be the handmaidens of planning.