The MANAWATU DAILY Times WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1936. The Orange Famine

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 279, 25 November 1936, Page 4

The MANAWATU DAILY Times WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1936. The Orange Famine

We are a long-suffering people! For more than three years the stupidity of politicians has made one of the most necessaryand pleasant of Nature’s gifts to man almost unprocurable except at luxury prices.

Now the shortage of oranges threatens to become a famine in New Zealand. Selling wholesale yesterday in Wellington at £3 per case, the Jamaica product will be available only as a costly luxury to a favoured few, and the great majority of New Zealanders will go orange-hungry.

It must be admitted, of course, that the famine has been accentuated by the big maritime strike which is daily assuming more serious proportions on the Paciiic coast of America. The almost complete shipping hold-up will prevent for some time the transhipment of any Californian oranges to New Zealand, and as we have been forced by the squabble with Australia to depend almost entirely on that market for our oranges the position could hardly be worse.

The now ancient potato-citrus feud between the Commonwealth and New Zealand has been going on for so long that its origin threatens to be lost in the mists of antiquity. Each country needs the product of the other —and needs it badly. But certain politicians in Australia, in their determination to keep the potato market a special preserve for their own constituents, persist in the transparent and rather silly excuse that an embargo is necessary to prevent the introduction of disease into Australia.

The New Zealand statesman’s reply is to place an embargo on citrus fruits. Each side has dug in its heels, and with a stubbornness only possible in politicians—as witness the pitiful exhibition of Australia’s Mr. Paterson in the Freer case—neither will give way. In the meantime the consumer on both sides of the Tasman suffers. Sydney wants potatoes. We want oranges. Meanwhile oranges rot in Australian orchards and potatoes go abegging on New Zealand farms.

Admittedly, the rights of the argument are mainly with New Zealand. But it is most unfortunate that citrus fruits should have been chosen as the stick with which to beat the Australian potato-grower. For New Zealand’s health’s sake we need a steady and plentiful supply of oranges, and these can be supplied by the Commonwealth grower. The partial lifting of the embargo a few weeks ago let in a shipment or two of the delicious South Australian product, but sufficient only to whet the appetite and reveal how great a price we have been paying for sticking up for our rights.

Why cannot the Government choose another weapon of offence? The trade balance between the two countries is enormously in favour of Australia. There are numerous products coming on to this market from the Commonwealth which can as easily and as cheaply be supplied by Great Britain or one of the Dominions. Here is a chance for the Government to save its face. Why not lift the citrus embargo until the maritime strike is over, and then change the method of attack by penalising some other Australian product?

Mr. and Mrs. A. T. Pritahard, of Park road, Palmerston North, returned to the city yesteday from a visit to the Old Country-

Several cyclists have recently hail the experience of their machine being removed from a cycle stand and placed on the pavement, where it had been adorned with a sticker for “wrong parking.”