STATE BANANAS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 33, 9 February 1937, Page 6

STATE BANANAS.

Very few details have been given the public of the plans of the Government to fix the price of Sanioan bananas. Experts have been called in, and it is to be assumed that a practical scheme has been hammered out, but there is much that the consumer would like | to know. Banana prices have fluctuated very greatly this summer. Last month they sold at one week-end at five pounds a shilling; the following Tuesday they were back to fourpence per pound, and at the week-end to fivepence. For some days now they have averaged sixpence. Bananas are a highly perishable product, and the demand is dependent on the price. How are Samoan bananas to be : regulated as a class apart? Will it be possible fo fix a price which will enable the lower-paid worker to buy the fruit, and will the price b<> sufficiently flexible to cope with the inevitable glut when bananas arrive ripe and must go over the counter immediately? Fixation of prices of a commodity so liable to fluctuation implies ample security for the merchant who can take or leave them. If he decides that the price is too high, then it would seem, from present evidence, that the State will be left to carry the baby, and that might cost the taxpayer an unjustifiable amount of money. The position at present is entirely conjectural, and the Minister should offer a full statement of his intentions without delay.