A Guaranteed Price for Fruit

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21976, 28 December 1936, Page 6

A Guaranteed Price for Fruit

The Government’s decision to guarantee a price of 10s 6d a case on fruit exported from New Zealand cannot be regarded as an innovation, since fruitgrowers have been receiving State assistance in one form or another for 25 years. Between 1911 and 1927 growers of apples and pears received a guaranteed price of Id net per pound, after which a per case rate calculated to cover packing and transportation costs was substituted. In 1935, however, the Coalition Government decided to restrict the guarantee to apples and pears exported to approved new markets through the Fruit Export' Control Board. Exporters to established markets were to be assisted by means of an equalisation fund financed by a tax on exports subsidised £ for £ by the State up to a yearly maximum of £12,500. This scheme had two great advantages. The first was that, wisely administered, it might ultimately have weaned the industry off subsidies and left it in control of its own affairs. The second was that it encouraged the development of alternative markets. New Zealand is only one of many off-season suppliers of the British fruit market; and in recent years competition has become increasingly keen. The scheme announced by the Hon. W. Lee Martin has neither of these advantages and has in addition many obvious dangers. Indeed, it is an easy and a bad way out of a difficult situation. The fruit industry in New Zealand is in a bad state because all attempts at efficient organisation have been defeated by local and sectional differences, because the local market, which ought to be its mainstay, has never been adequately exploited, because the importance of quality is not yet sufficiently appreciated, and because the principal export market is liable to sudden gluts. Given time and patience, all these weaknesses can be remedied. Unfortunately, the present Government has chosen to cover them all under the comfortable blanket of a guaranteed price. The Minister, it is true, speaks hopefully of co-operation between growers and the Government and of measures to maintain a high standard of quality. Before the fruit export season is ended he may see the foolishness of giving the sugar before the pill.