Trawlers Put To Sea After Glut

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30312, 12 December 1963, Page 23

Trawlers Put To Sea After Glut

The Lyttelton fishing fleet went out to the fishing grounds early today and there will be f resit fish for sale in shops tomorrow. The fleet has been tied up since Monday night when wholesalers found themselves with more fish—the result of the best run in nearly 20 years—than they could process. Six Lyttelton fkiiernaen helped the staff of P. Feron and Son, Ltd., the Christchurch fish market, yesterday to process 70 tons of elephant fish and gurnet which had accumulated.

Retail prices of elephant fish and gurnet have dropped an average of 3d to 6d per lb over the last few days, but the fishermen say they should be tower. The market prices yesterday remained

steady and the retailers; wanted price levels waived. i The president of the Retailers Association (Mr M. C. Watson) said he had asked the manager of Feron’s (Mr M L. Newman! to operate a free auction where there was no price level. The fishermen would have the right to; slop supplying if the price • dropped below their liking, i Mr Newman replied that the auction was free.: Retailers were able to buy at, the packing or export price. This was not the case in I •erne parts of New Zealand' where the prices for the local; market w ere higher than I those for tt»e export market. Explaining the system Mr Newman said: ‘The auction;

is free at all times because the packers or export buyers take the entire surplus at the packing price. This price is available at times of surplus to the entire local market, which means that both local and export prices are on a par.

"This price becomes thei price support for the indus-j try, which is just as well for the fisherman." Mr Newman said he tried to see that all sections of the industry got a fair deal. That was one of the reasons he and other wholesalers had asked fishermen to stay in port on this occasion rather than go out on a quota basis each day. He? had the plant to handle the fish, but not the trained packe-c to process it. “This sort of supply is limited to 15 per cent of the year. It is not feasible to keep enough staff all the time to handle large amounts of fish, which are infrequent,” said Mr Newman. It was not fair, either, to the fishermen to limit their i catches. Some boats were bigger than others and could I hold more. It would be an unnecessary expense for I them to run to and from the fishing grounds with a limit on their catches. Mr Watson said that most lof the fuss had been quite unnecessary. “It’s really a | lot of talk about nothing. I One good southerly and the [glut is over.” he said. “The i fisheries’ development board ' will be in operation next [year and it will be going into I the matter then.”