"IMPOSSIBLE."

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 233, 1 October 1932, Page 10

"IMPOSSIBLE."

TRANSFER OF FIRE BLIGHT. REPLY TO AUSTRALIANS. "It is absolutely impossible for fire blight to be sent overseas in export apples," said Mr. George A. Green, secretary of the Horticultural Trade Association of New Zealand, this morning, replying to the cabled statement of the Fruitgrowers' Federation of New South Wales that New Zealand fruit was banned from Australian markets on account of the. danger of the introduction of that blight. "There appears little doubt," added Mr. Green, "that this embargo is in line with others which aim at the protection of the Australian grower to the exclusion of the New Zealand grower." He said that the claim that the embargo was the result of the presence of fire blight in New Zealand and the fear that it might spread to Australia, wae either the result of ignorance of the nature of fire blight and of the way in which it was spread, or else it was on all foure with the present embargo on lemons. The latter embargo, allegedly, was due to the presence of citrus canker in America, which country wae in regular trade communication with the Dominion. Another embargo of a like order was that which operated against the entry of pineapples into Australia.