FRUIT CASES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17425, 20 September 1918, Page 2

FRUIT CASES

EETAIUSRS DECLINE TO PAY FOR THEM. OTAGO LABOUR REPRESENTATION COMMITTEE CRITICISED.

In their determination not to pay for fruit eases, the retail fruiterers have formed, or are iormmg, associations throughout the South island to enable them to resist the demand of the iriut-growers that casts should bo paid for. If the retailers decline to purcliase tire coming season's fruit crop unless some other arrangement is come to regarding the supply of cases, and the cooperative fruit-growers decline to sell unless the cases are paid for, a difficult position will arise.

The retailers' representative of the trade claim that the public has been misled over the facts of the position, and much resent the strictures which were passed on them by tho Otago Labour Representation Committee. Tney state that they have to purcliase the paper fruit bags—which have advanced in value about 800 per cent, since the outbreak of the war—and give ■ them free to their customers.

The strongest argument they advance, however, against the payment lor cases is that the grower intends to ask 6d for his case,, and the retailer, when he returns it in good order to an agent, is allowed 4d. The grower then refills the case with fruit* and sends it back to the market time after time until it is of no further use for packing, making 2d per case out of the retailer on cach occasion. • If, therefore, a grower purchases 200 cases —say, at the current value of Is per case, and uses tho cases several times, he quickly recoups himself at 3d each time for his outlay ol £10, with the possibility even of getting in more money than he paid for the cases. The growers also reserve the right to reject a case if it is not in good order, and tile retailer then has to bear the whole loss. Tho cost of returning cases -to the agents by the retailers doing business in the outside suburbs would also, it is claimed, run into a considerable sum over tho year, and would entail a lot of detail work. It is pointed out that if a retailer purchases a crate of fruit he is charged 5s for tho crate, but that when he returns it he is allowed a rebate of the full ss.

Retailers also assert that in some instances Unit-growers place incorrect weights on their cases, and that as the fruit is purchased by the case, not by the actual weight, they are misled in bidding. There does not appear to be any truth in the allegation that the retailers have formed themselves into a combination to hold down the prices at the auction sales, as visitors to any of the fruit marts could quicklv discover for themselves—the lav/ of supply and demand rules in the fruit trade as in other businesses

Leading retailers do not hesitate to make a sinister suggestion regarding tho means adopted to 1 get the Otago Labour Representation Committee to interest itself on the side of the growers. They ask if the Otago Labour Representation Committee has nothing to sav against the action of the federated fruit-growers of New Zealand in requesting the Government not to allow the importation of American fruit, as 250,000 cases of New Zealandgrown fruit was at that time being held in the cool stores: They also say that they are quite prepared to allow the housewife to decicj, as between themselves and the Otago Representation Committee, whether they are or are not a "parasitical class" which ought to bo put out of business.