MORE CITRUS FRUIT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 201, 26 August 1933, Page 8

MORE CITRUS FRUIT.

By lifting the bail against South Australian oranges the Government is helping consumers here and producers on the other side. Its action is, therefore, doubly welcome, and should evoke a sympathetic response from the Australian Government. New Zealand ha= been starved of oranges for eight months, while the fruit has been going to waste in Australian orchards. Such supplies as have been available here have been dear. Many families which regard oranges as a necessary part of their diet have had to go without, and we have a statement from an American visitor that the article he missed more than anything else on New Zealand tables was citrus fruit. This should not be. Government interference which inflicts such loss on the people needs the strongest of arguments to justify it. But the arguments have been weak. There was. no more reason for banning South Australian oranges last summer than there is to-day, and to-day there is none. A supposed reason was that the admission of shipments from that source would damage our prospects of opening up a market in the United States, and now that the Americans have declared their willingness to accept fruit from New Zealand it is" found that our decision to import from South Australia causes them no alarm. In that State there is no fruit fly, and it is wrong that New Zealand consumers should have been compelled to suffer as much as if the fly had been rampant there. It is also wrong that there should be a continuance of restrictions, except temporarily, now that the ban is raised. There is no justification for anything in the nature of a pinpricking policy, and it is time that both Governments adopted a more constructive attitude. There has' been too much hampering of the free exchange of goods.