GROW MORE FRUIT.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 136, 10 June 1926, Page 7

GROW MORE FRUIT.

SELL MORE TO BRITAIN, j I AN UNSATISFIED DEMAND. COMMITTEE'S ADVICE. fßy Cable. —Preas Association.—Copyrijht.) 1.30 p.m.; LONDON, Juno 0. The Imperial Economic Lommiuee's proof, repurt recently issued draws attention to the lact that £48,000,000 worth of fruit was imported into the I nited Kingdom in r>24. yet the consumption of fruit per head is still much smaller thau in the United States. Over three-! quarters of the fruit imports into the, United Kingdom are foreign grown. , There is great scope for an increase of importation from the countries within the Empire by the increase in consumption at Home and the transference of custom to Empire countries. The committee i= of opinion that the greater part of the fruit from foreign | countries, excepting grapes and oranges' ■for winter consumption, might at no very distant date he obtained from British sources. The result will be. a corresponding growth of overseas markets tor manufactures, owing to the development of j important districts suitable for prcdue- | t.ion of fruit within the Empire. While foreign countries which principally supply (Jreat Britain with fruit bought from the United Kingdom goods j valued at from 7/ to 17/ per head of j li»ir populations, the Empire countries! v.iiicli sent fruit to the United Kingdom bought from £•"> to £17 per head. j The throe outstanding facts in the j present position were: Firstly, in regard j to the number of fruits, of which apples j were the most important. The United j Kingdom market was dominated by the j fluctuating overspill from the vast pro- j (luction in the United States. Secondly. ■ fresh fruit from the southern Dominion* | comes into the United Kingdom market j at a time when it is relatively bare of I other supplies, but dried fruit is ex- I posed to the competition of the low vrase countries of the Mediterranean. Thirdly, the most important fruit of tht> j tropical colonies in the east and west | Atlantic is the banana. At present the | supply of bananas to the United Kingdom except from the Canary Inlands. i s monopolised by an organisation -u'lect ro American control.— iA. ;i ml X.Z.Sydney "Sun." I