HONEY SUPPLIES AND COSTS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 79, 3 April 1943, Page 4

HONEY SUPPLIES AND COSTS

RECENT correspondence in our columns concerning tlie. attitude of the Canterbury apiarists, who have sold their honey to former customers at IOJd instead of to the Internal Marketing Division at 6d, under the rationing scheme, gives some indication of the price the consumer pays for State interference: Auckland beekeepers are satisfied with the arrangement, on the basis that they get 7d for their. highest grade, plus special privileges in benzine, tyres and relief from military service. That the consumer pays double the producer's price, says the president of the Auckland Beekeepers' Association, is no concern of the Internal Marketing Division, but of the Price Tribunal. But is it? A Department which calls itself a Marketing Division should be interested in the consumer price of anything it handles, and if it is content with collecting three-farthings a pound for passing on to somebody else the right to buy honey which it may have inspected but has not processed in any way, possibly not even handled, then it is itself a big factor in raising the price against tfce public. If it then shuffles out of the picture and takes no steps to see that the ultimate buyer's interests are protected it is doing less than half a job. There is no excuse for doubling the price between producer and consumer. If the Department has graded the honey and sold it at 7sd it should follow the full course of the marketing or it should keep out of the business, for its own charge is a definite and a relatively high proportion of the cost to the buyer. -Apportionment of the small supplies available is no doubt necessary, but that is no excuse for- adding at least a penny a pound to. the selling price. ■- _ "■"■;'. ' ■'•"■. ; -° '■■-•'-" v - ~\-