DUTY ON BANANAS

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 113, 9 November 1921, Page 6

DUTY ON BANANAS

"If the tariff of 7s 6d a ease which the Government has imposed on bananas remains, bananas will be increased to a prohibitive price, and will become practically unsaleable," remarked , a Christchurch fruiterer, when, asked by a Star reporter how the Tariff would affect his business, Bananas, he explained, constituted the principal item in a fruiterer's turnover, and the effect of the new Tariff would be to make the price for best bananas about 3d each, which was to< high altogether. The duty was quite ridiculous, Is a case being quite high enough, especially as bananas usually arrived1 in twenty and thirty case lots. A duty of 7s 6d per case has also been imposed on/oranges, and the fruiterer pointed out that these were' amongst the only lines whioh could not be grown in New Zealand, and yet they were goinft to be taxed so outrageously. It was quite clear the Government was out for increased revenue and not for production, or it would have imposed a duty on imported apples, which have been left alone. . Six fruiterers, he said, were now tryinsr to sell their businesses owing to the Tariff changes making it impossible for them to make a decent living. He considered that when bananas were scarce a fruiterer's takings dropped about 50 per cent. Neither bananas' nor oranges could be regarded as luxuries, he added, and in support of this statement he said that during the epidemio the Government commandeered all the oranges in the country. That, itself, was sufficient indication that they were considered a necessity to the health of the community.