SAMOAN BANANAS

Evening Star, Issue 20666, 13 December 1930, Page 17

SAMOAN BANANAS

PROTEST AGAINST THE TAX “A GOVERNMENT MONOPOLY” [Special to the ' Star.’] AUCKLAND, December 33. Mr Harvey Turner, managing director of Turner and Growers Ltd., the firm which held the contract for Samoan bananas last year, stated this morning that the first news Auckland merchants had of the imposition of an export duty of 2s Cd per case on Samoan bananas was when the Government made the fact public after accepting the Dunedin tender. “ Their tender was slightly higher than ours, and they are justly entitled to get fruit, and we wish them all success in handling and distribution. We have no quarrel with them whatever, and do not intend to be drawn into a newspaper controversy as far as the contract is concerned. The tax of 2s (Jd per case is a very different matter ; it creates a precedent, and if allowed to go unchallenged would be a menace to any business trading in competition with the Government.” Mr E. 0. Turner, director of the same firm, who was in Dunedin last week, stated emphatically that he had mado no claim while in the south to having had anything to do with the imposition of the duty or the collection of it. “It would be absurd for mo to make such a statement,” he said, “ in view of the fact that H. L. Tapley and Co.’s contract was made public some days before 1 reached Dunedin. I was aware, however, that Auckland importers were protesting against the principle of the tax. I was also aware that Radley and Company had already voiced its protest through the Press before I left for Dunedin to meet the Maui Pomare, which brought the shipment of bananas which we handled.” A prominent fruit merchant stated that the tax of 2s Gd per case would react adversely against the natives of Samoa, who would get no more than the present prico of 5s per case for their product. The effect of the tax would bo to create a Government monopoly.