FRUIT TRADE

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 62, 15 March 1927, Page 10

FRUIT TRADE

COOK ISLAND ORANGES

NONE ON MARKET YET

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

The Hon. Sir Maui Pomare (Minister for the Cook Islands)stated to-day that advantage was taken of the recent visit on. furlough to New Zealand of the Director of Agriculture, Rarotonga, and of the chiefs who came up to present loyal addresses on behalf of their people to the Duke and Duchess of York, to discuss all aspects of the Cook Islands fruit . trade with the Auckland and Wellington fruit merchants.

"One practice in the past in connection with the orange shipments which has caused concern to the merchants here has been the shipping of Cook Island oranges before the fruit is sufficiently ripe and really fit for consumption," said the Minister. "These oranges, coming as they do to a bare market, usually sell at high prices, but experience has shown that the public who buy them at high prices become very dissatisfied, with the inevitable result that the sales of subsequent consignments of this very essential fruit are seriously prejudiced. It was therefore decided that no shipments of Cook Island oranges should be sent to New Zealand before the end of April, in order to ensure that the fruit shall be sweet and palatable when offered to the New Zealand public. "The Cook Islands Administration m loyal adherence to this agreement had discountenanced a proposed shipment of Aitutaki oranges by the mail steamer which arrived in Wellington on Monday, but a telegram received from the Resident Commissioner advised that notwithstanding the unanimous decision of all the interests concerned in this matter a shipment' of oranges from the neighbouring Society Group had been imported into New Zealand by this steamer.

The Minister stated that he had reason to believe that these oranges were being offered in some quarters to the public as Aitutaki oranges, and he wished on behalf of the Cook Islands Administration to state definitely that they were not Cook Islarfl oranges, and that the latter would not be shipped to New Zealand until the Island authorities were satisfied that they were sufficiently ripe for marketing. The first consignment was not expected to reach the Dominion before the end of April.