FRUIT EXPORT CONTROL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 16 January 1928, Page 6

FRUIT EXPORT CONTROL

(To the Editor) Sir, —As the season for exporting our apples is close at hand, it might he as well to considcv the position of the growers. The Government calls the guarantee, s, guarantee on. export fruit,‘ liuj. jt i« ‘hh V that.'•!%’is • * ■ tee that the foreign, manufacturers, shipping companies and merchants will be ■ paid the- full amount of their charges. The last thing the Government has considered is wliat the growers are going to live on if the fruit does not realise more than the guarantee after the Control Board lias gambled with the growers’ fruit. Surely, Sir, it is time that the. Government restored to those growers who wish to make 'a living and pay tlicir debts, the right to sell their own fruit at a f.o.b. price. At present the Government says no; you must hand it over to a Board to gamble with; never mind whether you got a living or not. r Tn denying the growers the right to sell f.o.b. the Govormbont does not consider the good of the general tax/ payer in the least, lis if f.o.b. sale 3 were allowed, on fruit so sold there •would be no need fo_r a guarantee with the taxpayers’ money at all. It is to be deplored that a Government that is always preaching “use New Zealand goods’’ should frame regulations that make it impossible to use any New Zealand products- for the packing of tlie fruit, for export, except perhaps a few nails. For this season there will be £35,000 going to America for cases alone. With more reasonable regulations two-thirds of these should'be produced in Nelson. . .''

If a New Zealand merchant wanes to buy apples from the growers for export to, say, Germany, lie is told iii effect, that it is sufficient for the Government to help to find! the guaran* tee.; that'any profits from,-that' trade, are wanted for our friends the British merchants, who are at liberty to buy what they like at the 1 price, determined by the law. of supply and demand, and without taking -any risks as to how the fruit will arrive, tlie grower carrying that responsibility. Tlie Government tells fruitgrowers that the guarantee cannot go on for much longer and that they ought to make provision for when that time comes; hut they at the same time cut off" the .only-''provision that, is workable, when .tliey will iibt' allow growers to work up a'igoqd stable flo.b. sales .-business. There are progressive and far-seeing growers who have wanted • to make their standing sure and carry out that policy of insuring against the time of no guarantee, but the Government has put it in the*power, of others not looking ahead to dominate the position, and they do it to the full. If the present policy in regard to tlie fruit industry is carried out for lobg tliere is a worse tiriie ahead than any the growers have had yet. The Government claims to be the champions of-individual initiative; less government in business, and the use of New Zealand manufactured goods for the use' of New Zealanders, but its attitude in regard to' the fruit industry gives it k the lie direct in regard to those three claims. I am, etc., ALFRED V. ALLPORT. Stoke, 16th January.