CHARGING FOR FRUIT CASES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIV, Issue LIV, 4 December 1920, Page 5

CHARGING FOR FRUIT CASES

A DEADLOCK AT CHRISTCHURCH (By Telegraph,—Special to Mail.) CHRISTCHURCH, Dec. 3. An unexpected deadlock has occurred in the wholesale fruit. market. Buyers refused to operate in consequence _*> l a demand by growers for an additional sixpence for each case, and the auctioneers ( pd no more than a limited amount of business. City consumers ] will not be affected, because supplies of I loose fruit are coming in freely.* “The whole trouble is duo to the claim of the growers for sixpence on .each case,’’ said Air. J. Co well, vice- ! president of the Fruit Retailors’ Association. “No such charge ever been niado before in New Zealand, and we are not going to pay it now fruit is at its highest level. The proposal was gone into at- a joint conference, over , which a well-known auctioneer prostdqd; but we could come to no agree- , inent. The growers said that we could ( pass on the extra sixpence. We replied that the public were being hard enough hit as It was, and that we were firmly against any increase for cases. We have been getting up to 8s a dozen after use while a few have, been sold , for 4s 6d. a dozen. Wo look on the money wo get. for cases as an offset, against the cost of hags, say, a halfpenny each, taking large and small all through. However, we offered to sell the growers all good cases at 2s, 4s, and 6s a dozen, according to size and nuality They Would, not accept, so "we aro buying nothing but loose fruit. The growers are evidently looking for a fight, and we are ready for them.” Telegrams received state that trouble has*also arisen in Dunedin and Inver* cargill over the proposal to charge extra for fruit casettf Growers .claim that the cost of labour and material has gone up tremendously, and that they can no longer afford to give cases in. at auction safes.