THE FISH MARKET PROJECT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19905, 27 September 1926, Page 8

THE FISH MARKET PROJECT.

The least uninteresting contribution to a somewhat dull discussion at a meeting of the Harbour Board on Friday night last on the subject of the provision of a fish and produce market was that offered by Mr Larnach, who said that there was no chance of an arrangement beinc made with the fishermen, for the use of a market and that “ he could assure them at the present time the City Council did not want to be bothered with this sort of thing.” Mr Larnach has the advantage of being a member of the City Council as well as a member of the Harbour Board, but it does not appear that he was expressly charged by the City Council with the delivery of this message to the Harbour Board. It may be very likely that a fish market would not turn out to be a success in Dunedin. The experience in other cities in the Dominion is not encouraging. Nowhere in northern centres has the establishment of a fish market resulted otherwise than in failure. It is not easy, in face of this, to argue that the City Council is falling short of it§ duty in not taking steps to establish a fish market in Dunedin. Yet H is to be recognised that the circumstances that govern the supply of fish for public consumption leave a great deal to be desired. Every now and again there is an outcry against the existence of conditions that make fish an unreasonably costly commodity. It should be a common article of diet in a country like New Zealand, set as this is in seas in which edible fish swarm. The price that has to be paid for it, however, restricts the regular consumption of fish to a comparatively small section of the community. The manner in which the trade is regulated seems to account, in part at any rate, for the high price of fish, and the only remedy is one by which those who actually go out to sea to secure the catches may be brought into direct touch with the public. It is unfortunate, therefore, if the establishment of a fish market must be ruled out of consideration because of the risk, if not the certainty, of failure. The City Council has, however, or should have, an interest of another kind in the matter of the fish supply for the community. Even if it should feel that the establishment of a fish market would financially be so disastrous as to he out of the question, it cannot be indifferent to the altogether objectionable conditions under which the disposal of fish on its arrival at the railway station in Dunedin is at present effected. To the unhygienic nature of the arrangement under which the so-called market is conducted pointed attention has been directed by the Medical Officer of Health for the district The intervention of this official is plainly open to the construction that the continuation of the existing conditions cannot be tolerated. It Is in this sense a plain warning to the local authorities. The warning is one which they cannot ignore, however unwilling they may be to be “ bothered with this sort of thing.”