SUGAR SUPPLIES

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 231, 24 June 1921, Page 6

SUGAR SUPPLIES

RUMOURS OF NEW CONTRACT MERCHANTS COMPLAIN ABOUT PRICE By Telegraph—Press Association. Dunedin, June 23. The contract between the Government and the Colonial Sugar Company for a supply of sugar at £47 per ton f.o.b. Auckland, has expired. It is now rumoured in local mercantile circles, says tho "Otago Daily Times,” that the Government has entered into a fresh contract with the Colonial Sugar Company for a further period, under which the price to be paid to the company will be somewhere about £lO per ton below tho price specified in the previous contract. For some reason or other no official information is available on the subject. At present Java sugar can be purchased on the basis of £26 per ton c.i.f. Sydney, which would make the landed cost in Dunedin, after payment of freight and other expenses, about £3l. The Government’s price of £l)7 per ton at Auckland, equal to, say, £3B 10s. lander! here, therefore compares most unfavourably with the price at which Java sugar can be purchased. Moreover, it is confidently asserted that the Board of Trade, in order to safeguard its contract with the Colonial Sugar Company, has warned at least one firm in Wellin’ton, and maybe other firms, t'hat if any more Java sugar is imported from java, whence a parcel is already on the way, it is likely to be refused permission to land it. If the statements confidently made by merchants on. the subject are well founded, it will be seen , that the purchasers of sugar will be required to pay at least £7 a ton more than would bo the case if Java sugar were procurable. A movement has been started in Christchurch to call a combined meeting of merchants to protest against the proposed action of the Government. It is pointed out that if there is one thing which should be brought into the Dominion as cheaply as possible it is sugar.