POTATOES AND ONIONS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1751, 27 September 1905, Page 66

POTATOES AND ONIONS

TUBERS FROM AMERICA. PRICES WEAKENING. If the gravity of the ravages of the Irish potato blight has not been brought home to consumers by pressure on the purse, the fact that merchants are impelling potatoes from the United States and Canada is sufficient evidence of a serious position of affairs. If general conditions had not been so prosperous as they undoubtedly have been, the “ potato pinch ” in New Zealand would have been keenly felt, but, even as things are, the poorer classes have “been sorely pressed through the serious rise in the price of potatoes, one result of which has been that at present, according to the representative of one of the largest produce firms in the city, only half the usual quantity is being sold. He concludes that the price has risen above the means of a great many people in Wellington, and they have had to forego the potato in favour of bread and other cheap foods. Some six weeks ago potatoes were bringing £l4 per ton at auction, but that did, not nearly represent the price the consumer was paying. John Chinaman paid that at public auction; then he carted the sacks to his store, picked the contents over perhaps, displayed them to the best advantage, and probably sold them per medium of the basket-men from door to door in sixpennyworths or shillingsworths. By the time the potatoes reached that stage they were selling at about £2B per ton, and that person who could not afford to purchase by the hundredweight or more, and who had four or five hungry children to feed, found that it cost him a day’s wages per week to buy potatoes alone.

Prices are weakening a little at last. Mr Mitchell, of La©ry and Co., states that for good potatoes, which were bringing £l4 per ton, the price has dropped to £ll, and there are signs of a further weakening. The large quantities that have been coming forward from Tasmania has brought this about. But there is a consignment on board th© San Francisco mailboat, and it should reach Wellington about the 26th inst. There are also shipments coming along from distant Vancouver. Th© potatoes that are coming to hand from California are “Burbanks,” named after! the famous American agricultural scientist and experimentalist, and are white-skinned, similar in character to our new potato, and a good t table variety. Mr Mitchell cannot say if American potatoes have been imported into New Zealand for general use before, but these consignment* are the first from America for a great _ many years, and the present season will no doubt be known in produce circles as “ the year we imported potatoes from. America.” The duty on American potatoes {not seed) is 20 per cent. American shipments have pulled down the price of onions from between £2O and £22 —the prevailing price a month ago—to between £l6 and £lB per ton, and with regular shipments per the San Francisco* steamers, the price may shorten further. Despite the import duty of £1 per ton, onions are imported from California every spring. They are of better quality than is produced in the oolonv*