UP AND DOWN

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 75, 30 March 1939, Page 10

UP AND DOWN

POTATOES IN SYDNEY

SHORT-LIVED RELIEF

PRICES RETURN TO HIGH

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

SYDNEY, March 24.

The humble potato continues- to igure in the daily news—and continaes to be the villain in the housewife's tragedy of high costs.

The modification for a month of the Australian embargo on New Zealand potatoes came into force yesterday, but reports received here indicate that a shortage of the vegetable there and rising prices will fail to bring relief to Sydney consumers. In the week after the announcement of the Government's decision to modify the ban there was a rush by Tasmanian growers to market their potatoes on the mainland; a glut ensued, and prices tumbled £6 a ton. It was explained,) on behalf of the growers, that sud-1 denly-increased supplies had been the result of rain benefiting tha crops. The glut lasted exactly a week. This week, the supplies were again short, and prices recovered almost the full extent of their decrease. Potato merchants in Sydney are now again predicting that there will be a famine. Nothing will rid the public mind of the belief that the market is being "rigged"—whether by growers or merchants is the mystery. . Few believe that the natural law of supply and demand is being allowed to operate.' The director of the State marketing bureau, Mr. A. A. Watson, said this week the system of distribution might require investigation. That was more important than the question of whether some retailers were making undue profits. At present he saw no reason for supposing that speculation was responsible for the shortage. He discounted suggestions that agents or growers were holding supplies back. MARKETING SYSTEM. Under the present system of marketing Tasmanian potatoes, the potatoes are shipped at Burnie (Tas.) on Saturday, arriving at Sydney on Monday. In Sydney they are inspected' by agents to whom they are consigned. The agents meet and fix the price according to the size of the shipment and the estimated demand. The agents sell the potatoes to wholesalers at the Municipal Vegetable Markets, or to other clients. During the following few days the agents may receive orders from regular clients whom they cannot supply—as happened this week. The agent is then forced to bid in the open market' for potatoes he has already sold. Wholesale merchants says that nobody except the grower is getting any benefit from the rise in price. They say they do not know where to find potatoes, and have difficulty in keeping faith with customers. The representative in Sydney of thej

Tasmanian Potato Marketing Board, Mr. A. C. Foster, said: "There is only one way of rationing a commodity which is in short supply and that is to raise the price until some unfortunate people are choked off. The board has no power to fix the price. There have been a lot of charges that potatoes are controlled by a monopoly, a racket, to obtain a dishonest profit frci. the public. Actually there is no commodity sold in Sydney subject to less control than potatoes."

The president of the Housewives' Association (Mrs. E. Glencross) says that she will probably make an appeal to housewives not to buy potatoes for the next two weeks.