CITRUS TRADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 135, 10 June 1938, Page 5

CITRUS TRADE.

NO FIJI SHIPMENT. GOVERNMENT'S ATTITUDE. INDIGNATION EXPRESSED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SUVA, June-7. Owing to the attitude of the New Zealand Government in refusing to purchase citrus fruit f.o.b. Suva, as is now done with bannaas, there was no citrus fruit shipped by the Niagara. This is the second prospective shipment of citrus fruit that has not gone to New Zealand owing, it is stated, to the new regulations. Local shippers describe as unsatisfactory the state of affairs in connection with the handling of island fruit by the New Zealand Government and point to the fact that they have not yet received account sales nor any payment on account of citrus fruit shipped from Suva by the Aorangi on April 28. They add that under the old method of shipment to the regular fruit merchants of Auckland, shippers, if they wished, could draw funds from the local banks directly the fruit was shipped on presentation of the bill of lading, and account sales and balance of proceeds were always received by the first return mail. Had they continued to forward under the new arrangements they would have had three shipments afloat by this time, with a fourth going by the Matua at the end of this week. Against these four shipments they would not have! received a penny advance, nor any advice as to the disposal of the fruit, and the average shipper says he has not the financial standing to be able to afford jthis sort of thing.

However, the local shippers declare that the first shipment of citrus fruit, and the methods under which it had to be handled, so disgusted them that they decided to send no more, and they stress the fact that the net result* of the Government's taking over of the industry has been to kill it as far as Fiji is concerned,