CORRESPONDENCE

Grey River Argus, 1 April 1935, Page 8

CORRESPONDENCE

THE HONEY INDUSTRY. (To the Editor.) Sir, —In your issue of March 22, Mr. V allace Nelson, chairman of N.Z. Honey, Ltd., says; “1 wish to state that our distributors are under agreement to only sell~h&ney packed by this company and have scrupulously kept their agreement.” In his zeal for his company-, Mr. Nelson often indulges in superlatives, and he would certainly have been more convincing had he given the date when this agreement became completely operative, for lit was apparently a comparatively recent one. When Mr. Nelson was addressing the visitors at the field day held at the Ruakura Farm of Instruction (Waikato) on the 13th ultimo, in a friendly setting, with questioners rigorously muzzled by order of the local Branch of the Beekeepers’ Association, he stated “that to-day we (N.Z. Honey, Ltd.) represent over 80 per cent, of the Dominion’s commercial production of honey.” (Vide “Smallholder,” March, 1935.) Now, at the field day held by the Auckland Central Branch of the Association, on January 19, Mr. Butland, chairman of the Honey Control Board, stated, in the course of an aoclresw, when referring to the importance of the local market, that the domestic consumption of honey in the Dominion was approximately three thousand tons per annum. Can Mr. Nelson quote from the records of his company and show that, it has handled the proportion of the commercial production he claims, or are his statements all of a kind?—l remain, vours most, respectfully, H. GEDDES. Rotorua.