FRUIT INDUSTRY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 13 January 1938, Page 6

FRUIT INDUSTRY

GOVERNMENT’S ASSISTANCE STATEMENT MADE BV MINISTER CONCERNING THE £40,000 GRANT (By Telegraph—Press Association] WELLINGTON, This Day. In a statement regarding assistance to the fruit industry, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong said that he would like to remove the impression that the sum ot £40.00d had been set aside to assist the growers in the Hawkes Bay district es the result of loss through frost damage. The sum of £40.000 was set aside by the Government to enable the fruitgrowers to pay the increased wages operating since Ist February, and had no connection with the special assistance granted the Hawkes Bay growers. At the same time the assistance granted the Hawkes Bay growers had been very considerable and up to the present approximately £IO.OOO had been paid to the growers in that district in the form of sustenance and subsidies on labour employed iri the orchards. Mr Armstrong reviewed the circumstances leading up to the grant of £40,000 to the fruitgrowers, adding that as a large number of growers failed to submit the necessary returns to enable the Department to fix the basis for the disbursement of this amount, it had beer, impossible to pay out the claims against it except those in the Hawkes Bay district which were allow'ed following a visit by departmental [ representatives. LIBERAL GUARANTEE In regard to the export guarantee, Mr Armstrong said he was assured that the guarantee of 10s 6d per case last season and the proposed guarantee of j 1 Is per case for the 1938 season is. even having regard to increased costs, a more liberal guarantee than has operated since 1927, when the present method of the export guarantee was first instituted Referring to his undertaking that an Order-in-Council w'ould be issued to heip overcome the difficulties facing the packing industry if it had to comply with the 40-hour week provision and other Factories Act conditions. Mr Armstrong said he had immediately made arrangements for the preparation of the necessary Order-in-Council. but in view of the fact that the packing sheds would not be commencing operations before the end of January at the earliest, there had appeared to be no extreme urgency. The Order-in-Coun-eff had now' been approved and would be gazetted this week

Mr Armstrong contended that *hc Labour Government had been exceptionally good to the fruitgrowers, but in view of the difficulties confronting the industry and its importance to the country he was not suggesting that the Government had done any more than was reasonably necessary.