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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5322, 12 September 1888, Page 2

TiiEni; is a " Fruit Growers' Association " down south, and it is the business of this combination to get everything it, wants for its owu profit, and at tho expense of the public. Huvi:»a dene all it could to get

Tasmanian and American fruit taxed out of the market, it now finds itself in solo possession of a field which it cannot fill. To bring fruit from tho districts in which it is grown to the towns in which it is manufactured into jam, the railways have to be brought into use. But it is now discovered that fruit cannot be carried profitably on tho railways in a less quantity than two tons. Nobody sends two tons at a time to market, and Dunedin finds that its jam industry must come to a standstill in tho absence of the forbidden foreign article. So the Fruit Growers' Association is now " moving heaven and earth," that is to say Mr Maxwell and the Minister for Public Works, to get railway freights reduced to suit the particular case of fruit growers and jam makers. The general public is not considered in the matter. The Association boldly asserts that unless this concession is made the consumers will be made to suffer in having to pay higher prices. This is the direct result of Protection. Before the imposition of the new and

iniquitous tariff, jam was both cheap and good, while now, unless special concessions are made in the matter of railway freights, tho public is threatened with higher prices. Everybody knows what higher prices mean ; it means that an opening will bo made for a poor and an adulterated article.