Denning Finds For Growers

“If I’ve erred at all I think it will be because I have been too favourable to the growers,” said Lord Denning in his vital sugar report released in Fiji on January 27.

The millers, he thought, “had had a good innings over the last eight years”.

His summary of recommendations: • The Eve formula should not be the basis of a new contract which should be based on 65 per cent, of proceeds of sale to growers and 35 per cent, for millers. • Proceeds of sale should include molasses and other byproducts as well as sugar. • Growers should receive a guaranteed minimum price of $7.75 per ton of cane—ss.7s within five weeks of delivery and the remainder within six weeks of the end of crush ing at the mill. • Growers should be entitled to

have a qualified accountant to examine the books and accounts of the millers on their behalf and to make representations thereon to the independent accountant and the inde pendent chairman.

The millers, he said, had done well —events had tipped the scales in their favour since the Eve commission [of 1961] which had not anticipated the 1963 boom and the expansion of the industry. They had had good rewards but the growers had not. “In settling the terms of the new contract,” he said, “1 have tried to restore the balance ... to give the growers the reasonable remuneration which the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement in tended that they should have.”

(See also p, 130)