GROWERS SUGGEST SHARING COST OF CONTAINERS 50-50

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22890, 9 March 1949, Page 9

GROWERS SUGGEST SHARING COST OF CONTAINERS 50-50

PRODUCE DISPUTE

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, Mar. 8. “We suggest that the price to be charged in the markets should be approximately half the cost of a new box,” said Mr| H. R. Sampson, for the New Zealand Fruitgrowers' Federation, at the opening of proceedings today aimed at settling the container dispute before Mr. G. G. G. Watson. Mr. F. S. Spratt appeared for the Dominion Council of Commercial Growers, and Mr. A. J. Mazengarb for the Retail Fruiterers and Greengrocers' Federation. Right of Vendor Mr. Sampson said: “Our claim for a separate charge is based purely on the right of the vendor to determine his own conditions of sale." He added that from time to time that right had been restricted by regulations and price orders, all of which were now revoked with the exception of smse relating to apples, pears and lemons. Mr. Spratt said commercial growers supported the view of the fruitgrowers on the general principle of container charging. Commercial growers contended that the question had already been settled by the Coleman Report of 10 years ago, which recommended that the case charge practice should be adopted generally throughout New Zealand.

Bertie Victor Cooksley, president of the Dominion Council of the Commercial Growers, said he thought that the containers' service to growers and retailers was about 50-50. For that reason the cost should be shared on the same basis. Retailers could recover the cost of the charges because they sold by private treaty with the consumer for all vegetables, except new potatoes, were now free of price control.

Mr. Watson: Whichever way you put it, the consumer is going to pay for the container in the finish. Cooksley: I am afraid so.