ORANGES FOR NEW ZEALANDERS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 300, 15 September 1936, Page 8

ORANGES FOR NEW ZEALANDERS

The visit of the representatives of the New South Wales fruitgrowers to this country should be welcome if for no other reason than that personal contacts between New Zealanders and Australians on matters of trade are valuable aids to the promotion of friendly relationships between their two Dominions. The object of the delegation is to confer with the New Zealand fruit industry, and in particular to remove if possible the difficulties connected with the shipment of New South Wales oranges to this country. In a statement to-day the delegation submits impressive and, on the face of it, overwhelming arguments in support of its case for the entry of the New South Wiles orange. But the difficulty mentioned, namely, New Zealand apprehension concerning the introduction through these shipments of the Mediterranean fruit fly, is not the only difficulty. If it were, it could be disposed of, no doubt, by suitable precautionary measures. i

Whenever it has been suggested that cheap citrus fruits in large quantities could and should be imported from Australia, objections have been heard from New .Zealand growers of this class of fruit that their budding industry would be crushed by the weight of competition; and from our Rarotongan friends that it is our duty to support the Island orange trade in order to foster the prosperity of the Cook Group. Then there was that matter of the Australian embargo on our potatoes, allegedly on account of “corky scab,” but actually on account of Tasmanian opposition to the competition of large quantities of New Zealand potatoes on the Australian market. The argument on this aspect of the difficulty resolved itself into a proposition from the New Zealand end that if Australia would take more potatoes this Dominion would take more oranges, but not so much more as to disturb the state of mind of the New Zealand or the Rarotongan citrus fruit-growers; Australia undertook to take more potatoes if wq would take more oranges, but not so murh more as would upset tbe Tasmanian potato-growers. Only South Australian oranges, moreover, were to be considered, the New South Wales product being ruled out on account of the Mediterranean fruit fly. But if there were no fly in the ointment, the position would not be improved very much, if at all, for the various reasons stated above. In the meantime the New Zealand consumer is paying fancy prices for his oranges. The price at which s our New South Wales visitors say he can buy their oranges, no less than the quantity he would be able to eat at that price, is calculated to make his mouth water. But he ought to know perfectly well, by time that controlled markets will never give him cheap anything. Only free trade will do that.