QUOTA ON BANANAS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 31, 31 October 1932, Page 2

QUOTA ON BANANAS

Cook Islands and Samoa

PROTECTION TO GROWERS

The quota system is to be applied by agreement to imports into New Zealand of bananas from the Cook Islands and Western Samoa, according to a statement made in the House of Representatives by the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes, in reply to a question by Mr. W. E. Barnard (Lab., Napier). In drawing attention to rumours that the quota system was to be applied. Mr. Barnard said it was alleged that there was a desire on the part of certain importers to limit supplies and raise prices. “Owing to a considerable over-supply of bananas to the New Zealand market, which resulted in ruinous prices and heavy losses,” said Mr. Forbes, “all supplying countries (including the Cook Islands and Western Samoa) have decided to limit the quantities to be shipped so as lo allow of the importation into New Zealand of a total quantity of bananas equivalent to 25,000 ‘Fiji’ cases every four weeks during the months of May. June, July, August, and September, and 30,000 cases during the remainder of the year.

“These quantities are considered to be the utmost that can be absorbed in this Dominion at a price that will enable the growers to supply. No proper Indication of average prices can of course be obtained from sales in October, November, and December, when prices are Invariably higher than paring the remainder of the year.

“In the absence of some such agreement. many growers, were on the point of being forced out of production, and the result would have been a shortage of supplies with a corresponding increase in price to the consumer in New Zealand followed by disturbing fluctuations both in supplies and in prices. The position of growers In the CookIslands and Western Samoa was most serious, and the Government, was reluctant to consider anything in the nature of a duty, which would bo the only alternative to a quota system.

“The present arrangement is considered to be in the best interests of both producers and consumers, who will each benefit by a system of orderly marketing.”