THE FRUIT INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 53, 11 September 1928, Page 10

THE FRUIT INDUSTRY

(To the Editor.) j Sir,—ln your issue of sth September we had a dissertation on the above subject by "Nineteen Twenty-Eighth Committee," whoever that might be. The author of this article is evidently one of those persons who are trying to wreck the Fruit Control Board. We have a few of them on this side of Cook Strait, and a. perusal' of the result of last Wednesday's poll should convince your correspondent and others that the small fruit grower—l mean the man with au area of, say, less than thirty acres—still has confidence in the Fruit Board as at present constituted. The election this week resulted as follows;—T. C. Brash (pro-Coiitrol Board), 120 votes. J. Dicker (pro-Control Board), 63 votes. A. Gilbert (against the board policy), 76 votes. That ia to say, 183 votes were in favour of the Control Board aB at present ■ instituted and 76 votes against the present policy of the board. Your correspondent grudges the present Government guarantee of 11s per case being paid to growers if that amount is cot realised on English and foreign markets. What does this guarantee mean? It simply means that the grower will receive enough to pay his consolidated charges, which include freight to wharfage at Nelson and Wellington, cool storage charges,, insurance and freight to England. Those charges , amount to approximately 5s per case from Mapua. Then there is the sum of 4s per case advanced by tho Fruit Federation, to coyer packing costs, cost of case, cartage, picking, etc. This leaves the sum of 2s out of the 11s Government guarantee, from which has to bo deducted the sum of Is 3d to cover selling commission and handling charges in London and elsewhere, leaving 9d per case for the grower to pay for his fruit, manuring, spraying, cultivation, and sundry other charges, including interest on capital for the year. So you _ will see that there is not much of a living to be made out of a small orchard on these figures. In fact, in cases where the orchardist has started with little or no capital a season at Government guarantee prices has been sufficient to cause him financial ruin and compel him to walk off tho property. Then the guarantee is not a subsidy like the pig exporters receive at the hands of the Government, but 6imply a sort of solatium to keep him hoping on that tho next season will be a little more successful than the last, and that eventually he will make enough money to live decently and pay off his back debts. I may say that the Government did not pay a penny by way of guarantee to fruit growers last year. Your correspondent states that the Control Board system is stifling competition. Goodness knows that there is enough competition m the British ' market without some firm trying to undermine the Fruit Board by obtaining fruit on the f.o.b. basis in order to queer the sale of our pro-1 duce on outside markets. The Finance Act and its pavers have been referred to, and exception taken to clauses in the I Act giving the Fruit Federation prior rights in connection with paying accountl owing to the federation by growers—and quite right too. Sir, why should the rest I of the growers have to pay for those who default by going bankrupt? The position is not understood by the outsider, and the "Frankenstein Monster" raised by your I correspondent is nothing more or less than piffle. Your correspondent's letter is from I first to last absolute flapdoodle, and I am surprised that the chairman of the Fruit Growers' Federation (Mr. T. C. Brash) or the chairman of the Control I Board (Colonel Grey) has not thought fit to reply to the article in question. Per, haps they think it will carry its own refutation. It would on this side, but ir, Wellington, where there are no commercial apple growers, it is just as well to put the public wise to the true facts of the case.-I am, etc., ORCHARMST Mapua, Nelson, Bth September.