SPRING CABBAGES

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 305, 20 September 1943, Page 4

SPRING CABBAGES

Growers’ Statement On High Prices GOVERNMENT BLAMED “Housewives who may be inclined to 'blame the growers for the high prices for Sipring cabbages are entitled, to know that the Government, not the growers, are at fault,” states the executive ol the riutt Valley Market Gardeners. iLast week, it continues, the growers received) on an average 2/6 a case for spnng wbiba^ es, the net weight a case being oblb. Ihat -meant .that the cost 'to the retailer, including freight, etc., was about Id. a lb. The executive states that members of tiie organization had cheekedi up prices in shops in the Hutt and in Wellington, and found that -the same cabbages were 'being sold for 4Jd. a- lib.—a profit of nearly 400 per cent. Several members ol the executive took occasion to remind customers -who hail bought cabbages, when 'they were leaving the shops, that they were being charged too much, but one woman who returned to the shopkeeper to demand a refund, was told that “the Government fixes the price; we can do nothing.” „ , - Actually, according to Price Order 14.6 published in the New Zealandi Gazette on July 20 last, the executive states, the retailer was allowed to charge cost plus 66 2-3 per cent. However, as actual experience demonstrates, they charged ceiling prices, and apparently the Government made no effort to enforce the strict terms of the Price Order. In Decenibet last, the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, stated in a broadcast on stabilization that the price of cabbages along with numerous other commodities had been stabilized. The example it had given, said the executive, showed just how stabilization worked out in practice.