SCOPE FOR EMPIRE

Evening Post, Volume 137, Issue CXI, 10 June 1926, Page 9

SCOPE FOR EMPIRE

BRITAIN'S FRUIT BILL

IMPORTS MOSTLY FOREIGN

WHY NOT FROM DOMINIONS?

(United Press As_ociatio_—Copyright.) (Australian-New Zealand Cable Assn.) (Received 10th June, noon.) LONDON, 9th June.

The Imperial Economic Committee's fruit report, which has been issued, draws attention to the fact that i £48,600,000 worth of fruit was imported into the United Kingdom in | 1924, yet tho consumption of fruit per head was still much smaller than in the United States. Over three quarters of the fruit imports of the United Kingdom are foreign. There is great scope, says the report, for an increase in the importation from the Empire by an increase in consumption, and the transference of custom to the Empire. The committee deliberately declares its conviction that the greater part of the fruit now derived from foreign countries, except grapes and oranges for winter consumption, might at no very distant date be obtained from British sources. Tho result would be a corresponding growth of overseas markets for manufacturers owing to the development of important districts of the Empire suitable for the production of fruit. While the foreign countries which principally supply the United Kingdom with fruit bought from the United Kingdom goods valued at from 7s to 17s' per head of their population, the Empire countries which sent fruit to the United Kingdom bought from £3 to £17 per head. THREE OUTSTANDING FACTS. The three outstanding facts of the present position are as follow:— (1) In regard to the number of fruits, of which apples are the most important, the United Kingdom market is dominated by the fluctuating overspill from the vast production of the United States. (2) Fresh fruit from the Southern Dominions comes on the- United Kingdom market at a time when it is relatively1 baro of other supplies, but dried fruit is exposed to the competition of low-wage countries. (3) The most important fruit of the tropical colonies of the East and West Atlantic is the banana, and at present the supply of bananas to the United Kingdom, except from the Canaries, is monopolised by an organisation subject to American control. ONE OF THREE POLICIES. The committee considered three policies with a view of defending and developing the fruit industries of the Empire. They are unable t recommend schemes for embargo and license owing to the limitations imposed by the "most-favoured-nation" clauses of various treaties. The policy of Customs preferences, according to the de-1 cision of the Imperial Conference of 1923, does not come within the purview of the committee. Thus the only policy which seems to be immediately available is the policy of developing a voluntary preference on' the part of the consumer based on the organisation of Empire producers and the mobilisation of United Kingdom consumers.