VEGETABLE INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 105, 4 May 1926, Page 3

VEGETABLE INDUSTRY

(To tht Editor.)

Sir, —The open letter: from: the: Chinese community to the white people of New Zealand, published in Tuesday's "Post," calls for comment from those interested in the business of market gardening. I would like to point out that a misunderstanding prevails in this, country that .the Chinese are the, only people who can. grow vegetables in quantity. I wonder whether your correspondent.has ever made it his business to find put the- number of Europeans (I call them Britishers) who till the land in the. Hutt Valley And produce varied crops of vegetables;throughout the y<f he last census taken gave the number as 122, who Were depending upon the above business for a living, and since that time they had increased; so why the bogey that if the Chinese were to down tools we would'find a scarcity of vegetables—and in the rc-adjusttnent vegetables would become l dearer? Are they dear now? dvquote the following:—Lettuce, Is per case of 36, 2s 6d per case of 231b; tomatoes. Is 6d per I case, cabbage: Id per bunch, turnips. These were the average prices obtained this1 week by auction. Surely your correspondent is aware of this, a« his business perhaps takes him there every day, and does he infer that the European (should down tool on behalf of hia countryman and let them, control the markets? Again, he says we attempt to exclude the Chinese from legitimate trading. That is contrary to the fact. The European gardener is not afraid of the Chinese in fair and open competition, but he .is dead against unfair treatment, and can more than hold his own against the Chinese,' even though your correspondent says they do not' care for the drudgery of market gardening, and that is why some of them have been.producing the best vegetables . sent to the Wellington markets for these past thirtysix years, and to-day are producing vegetables from the same land just as good, if not better than, the Chinaman. Vegetables are controlled by the law of supply and demand. lam t afraid your eorresponI dent is pleading for those 2000 Chinese j I who seek to oust the European from his j holding, but I sincerely hop*; the Government is strong enough to realise that their own countrymen come first, .and that "charity begins in the home"; that the hard-earned cash that is handled by the European is distributed in his own country not taken back, to be spent in a foreign land.—l am, etc., A MARKET GARDENER. Lower Hutt, 30th April.