STATE-AIDED FRUIT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1033, 24 January 1911, Page 6

STATE-AIDED FRUIT.

: Sir,—ln' a letter to your paper some time ago I dealt with the huge deficit 0,11 • the railways, which is recouped from the pockets of the general taxpayer.' ■ Tho railways aro .not tho only Department of Government that is financed in this manner, however.. The same vicious system of imposing taxation burdens on the p'eor pie for losses in connection with the management of tho other public services by.'a half-baked State Socialist Government applies'to'the Telegraph Department (deficit .£13,000 last year), to"the State'coal mines, and to the Agricultural Department. Recently the Minister in chargo of this Department, Hon. T. Mackenzie, speaking re the fruit industry, said: "Wo have shown that fruit can bo landed in the London' market at remunerative prices to the producers" How was this done? The Government guaranteed the exporters Id. per lb. jf or apples shipped from Nelson. To realise-their.prico it-was necessary to obtain 9s.'' per case in the London market, and this it failed to do because" the' fruit "was landed in an unsaleable state. . One; would think that such a disastrous experiment would deter even the Ward Government from such fool' ventures.' The deficit- amounted to .£325, and tho. general taxpayer paid it, but the Hon. Thos. Jlackenzie is a bold man, who is determined not to wait for his eighteen-day ship per Panama Canal,, or oven for Sir Joseph Ward's flying vessels, soanother large sum of public money was placed on tho-Estimates last session, and another trial .is to be made at the public expense. That it will fail there is not the least doubt. Tho Dominion is so fat removed from tho world's markets that extremely perishable products by slow' transport facilities cannot bo sold at competitive, prices in the London market. No private exporter would take such" 1 risks, but they don't possess milch cows like the Ward Government in the person of the general body of-tho taxpayers, who receive no profit from such "beneficent State actions" as Sir uosenh Ward and Hon; Thomas Mackenzie term their fea-ther-brained State Socialist fads—l am, . F. W. BURKE. 1 Ashburton, January 17.