FRUIT IMPORT CONTROL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22960, 11 February 1938, Page 10

FRUIT IMPORT CONTROL

• Many uneasy questions will be raised in the public mind at the report published this morning that the Government intends to control the import into New Zealand of all fresh fruit as from April 1. If such is the official intention, some explanation should be given of the reason prompting sudden and drastic action. It is not in response to any public clamour, because that has been confined to the muddle and scarcity created by the Government in the import trades it already controls or rations. Nor is there any demand at present by local fruitgrowers for closer control of imports. Few of the latter are competitive and then only at certain seasons. The motive of the Government is. therefore difficult to determine, unless the reported step is being taken as part of the advance toward its objective of complete socialisation. That will be a disturbing thought in many minds this morning. The people will also resent the assumption by the Government of authority to regulate and ration their consumption of tropical fruits. The Government may disown any such intention, but that will be one effect of control. The aspect on which public attention will fix chiefly, however, is the effect of State import control on supplies and prices. Will the fruit bo more plentiful and cheaper, or scarcer and dearer? No doubt the Government intends the former, but. the people have not forgotten that State intervention in the recent past has brought both scarcity and high prices. The public memory of controlled orange imports is fresh and bitter. Sound reasons will therefore be demanded for the socialisation of imports, and also for the displacement of present importers, whose trade is valuable and largely centred in Auckland.