CORRESPONDENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 36, 12 February 1941, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE

FRUIT SUPPLIES & PRICES

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —In fairness to fruit retailers, may I be permitted to correct the erroneous statement of the Minister of Marketing regarding fruit marketing, which appeared in Monday's "Post." Mr. Barclay states that the only fruits directly marketed by the Department are oranges, bananas, lemons, apples, and pears. What about the now highpriced pineapples and grapefruit? Does Mr. Barclay wish to disown such high-priced articles as these? Also, does the Department not control and market the Island tomatoes?

Mr. Barclay further states that the Department at all times makes available to wholesalers "ample supplies of oranges and bananas at the lowest possible price." Surely he was not in earnest, or was perhaps thinking of the high cost of maintaining such a luxury Department as the 1.M.D., which must be paid for by the purchasing public. Also, supplies are nearly always famine, and not ample, as reference to any retailer or wholesaler will verify.

As to the recent regulations mentioned by the Minister: these appear to be merely a clumsy effort to cover the ever-increasing cost of citrus fruits, and the only result is utter and complete confusion to everyone concerned, plus the employment of a host of inspectors which further increase the cost.

Mr. Barclay states also that last year, in marketing apples and pears, the Department made these fruits available at lower prices than had been in existence for many years. Surely as an illusion and a joke this is a supreme masterpiece, but he forgot the lemons, grapefruit, pineapples, and oranges. I would suggest once more that competition, with ample supplies, would bring about once more reasonablypriced fruit as obtained before restrictions were imposed on importation and before the local fruit industry was straddled with the enormous burden of a State Department which is both uneconomical and unnecessary, and does not justify its existence.—l am, etc.,

A. BENNETT, Treasurer, European Fruiterers' Association

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —I wonder how many city dwellers know the taste of a ripe peach. Today I wandered along Lambton Quay intent on fruit shops, searching for what might look like a ripe peach. There were peaches galore, piles of green cookers that a few years ago could have been bought for 3d a pound, but now marked 6d; others more closely akin to eaters at Bd, and still, others that looked far from ripe at lOd. I pictured the peaches we used to gather in the garden orchard on the farm —those luscious, toothsome globes that, just melted with every bite. And it is not so many years ago that one could buy peaches almost as luscious at certain shops on the Quay. Determined to find such a peach, I tried a shop where the rosiest reclined in special boxes. I bought two at 5d each and left the shop feeling well content. At that«f»rice they must be the genuine article—ripe and juicy. But disappointment was in store. They were hard, tasteless, and stale. Who pays the price for these peaches? It would be interesting to know just how many find their way to the dump. —I am, etc., RIPE PEACH.