POTATO EMBARGO

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 23, 28 January 1935, Page 8

POTATO EMBARGO

AND FISH AND CHIPS MR. W. M. HUGHES'S ATTITUDE (From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, January 24. Mr. W. M. Hughes, Australia's wartime Prime Minister, has not lost his sense of the sardonic, despite a twelvo years' abseneo from the Cabinet, and now that he is once more a Minister, his' utterances occasionally show that he can bite as well as ever he did. Eecently he: inspected a number of small coastal vessels during inquiries about the installation of wireless, and lie told representatives. of the owners that the crows' accommodation was j not fit for pigs. A few days later he was equally frank in his reply to a fishmongers'; deputation which pleaded for the removal of the embargo on New Zealand potatoes. The deputation pointed out that the embargo had made business in fish and chips unprofitable. It was stated that I the lower-paid workers and children who formerly asked for three pennyworth of chips with their fish could now only.afford a pennyworth, because the embargo had made Australian potatoes so dear. Unless cheaper potatoes could be obtained by the removal of the embargo, fishmongers would not be able to afford to cook and supply even the smallest quantity of chips for. a penny. Mr. Hughes said that it appeared that he was being asked to sacrifice the potato growers for the sake of the fishmongers. "The potato growers have to get a decent price for their potatoes," said" Mr. Hughes, "but I do know that tons of fish are dumped into the sea to keep up the price of fish here. The potato grower has to pay for the land to produce his potatoes, but the fisherman does not have to pay for the sea that produces fish." Tho deputation. told Mr. Hughes that production costs of potatoes in Australia were too high, and that it should be possible to grow potatoes at £3 a ton. "Damn it," burst out Mr. Hughes, "you can't grow potatoes at that price. I am not a potato grower myself, but I have no doubt that if yon told the growers in Tasmania that they could grow potatoes at £3 a ton they would go off pop!" The deputation urged the value to. the Australian citrus fruit industry of: the removal of the embargo. "Ah, now you have taken the stage in an entirely new character," said Mr. Hughes. "You are trying to get there some other way." ; "Yes, Mr. Hughes," retorted a member of the deputation to the former Labour leader, "but how did you get where you are?" ■ "Principally," said Mr. Hughes, "I am where I am because I am up to all these things." "Good-bye, my friends," be said, when the deputation was leaving. "Depend upon it, I will see that you get a run for "your money." Tho same' old W.M.H.! ,