HOPELESS POSITION

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 55, 2 September 1937, Page 11

HOPELESS POSITION

ONION MARKET

AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day.

Bad as the onion marketing situation was in Canterbury' three months ago, it is now worse, because the Government has allowed a large, quantity of' onions to be imported from Australia at competitive prices.

This was the statement made this morning by a prominent Marshland grower, who has seen the best part of his stock rendered unsaleable by what he described as "nothing less than dumping." He said permission for the importation of onions was the worst of a series of blunders made by those responsible for the marketing of local onions this season. He mentioned numerous cases where growers holding stock to avoid flooding the market had been forced to.throw their onions away. .

It was pointed out that although the; pool price in Australia at the time the onions were bought was £13 a ton,New Zealand supplies were acquired at £5 10s a ton on the boat and landed to sell at £10. It was hopeless for New Zealand onions, selling at £12 a ton, to meet this competition.