NEW GUINEA.

Otago Witness, Issue 3743, 8 December 1925, Page 73

NEW GUINEA.

DEVELOPMENT COMPANY’S SUCCESS. (From Our Own Cor.respondent.l LONDON, October 20. Sir Westby Perceval presided over the third annual meeting of the British New Guinea Development Company, and was able to inform the shareholders that to-day the company had no debts in London, Papua, or Australia. The output of rubber last year increased from 186,G061b to 323,6601 b, and the profit was sixpence per pound as compared with about halfpenny per pound jn the previous year. The main points in the rubber situation are that the board succeeded last July in selling forward for the remainder of this year 7£ tons per month at an average price of 4s per pound, and that the company has secured 2s 6£d per pound for five tons per month from January to December, 1926. The latter contract represents less than one-third of the estimated rubber output, but, nevertheless, will cover the whole of the rubber-growing costs for the year. Thus the whole of the cash received for the remaining two-thirds of the rubber crop with represent clear profit. “ Of the total planted area of cocoanuts—namely, 7878 acres— quite 6000 acres should be by now in bearing,” said the chairman, and we must frankly admit that our output of 1330 tons of copra during f’ period under review was much less than it ought to have been. A programme of special cultivation was consequently authorised., with a view to increasing the production. It will take time before the full effects of this expenditure can fructify, but, obviously, if the crop can be substantially increased, the cost of production will automatically be lowered, and we look for a larger output of copra and a freater profit per ton than we have secured itherto. “ So far as cotton is concerned, we have been dogged with misfortune in our various experiments. In one case it was a sudden and very violent attack from caterpillars, and in another case the plantation wag flooded by an abnormal rainfall in a district where such heavy rain had never before been experienced. We have had a few small shipments from Papua, which have sold at satisfactory prices, and we are continuing the cultivation in a small way in the hope of better results.”