SAMOAN BANANAS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21196, 29 November 1930, Page 18

SAMOAN BANANAS.

PROPOSED EXPORT DUTY. - RESENTMENT IN WELUNGTON/ ; : (Spkial to Daily Times.) ~ .WELLINGTON, November 2*. Considerable surprise and some. resent* ment was expressed by Wellington fruitmerchants at the Government’s decision --to' mpose an export duty of 2s 6d acasc bn- . all bananas shipped from Samoa. •'Thu duty will certainly not stabilise the martet. nor can I see .how it i. RoinTto f protect the grower," said one mordant won a lifelong experience o! the fruit , W im^tl em f a l ked that e th * Ntw.ZW.-r. land imports of bananas.from Samoa in wwe at least 60,000 case£ the duty on which at 2s 6d a ease would would' represent a.ll the difference between a successful deal and an unsuccessful one. He' tha |,' w boevot got the i Handling Samoan banahas would not make much money. The successful tenderer last year paid 11s 6d a cted' in Samoa, and over the whole season would . not make ,very much-out of the business. Ahere was not a lot of money made out of bauanas. as some people appeared-tW think. The export duty could not be passed on by the merchant, who was entirely m the hand of the buyers, lie bulk of the fruit Was sold at public auction and the bidding was dictated wholly by the law of "supply and demands In normal; years Samoan bananas faced the active competition: of Fijian and Barotongan bananas, which ■, were > free of duty. This year, owing to the hurricane damage to plantations, there was not a great. quantity of Fijian bananas coming, and- the monthly ship- • ments had been roughly 6000 cases as against 16,000 eases a month in a normal, season. It was probable that the storm recently reported had wrought’ further damage to the Fijian banana plantations; in which case there would be probably a further a shrinkage on - ' the supply fronx that quarter, to the benefit of Samoan bananas. - ■The merchant Said that any taxation that tended to increase the price PS island fruit to the consumer was not a good thing. On one hand there was thp ■ Publio Health Department urging the people-to eat more fruit, and yet on tht * other hand soma other Government De-' ■ partment had succeeded in getting the Kgh rate of Sa 6d a case export duty placed on Sampan bananas, which’ would make the fruit muchmore expensive. The consumer Would have to etand , the increase. As an, example of what the increased duties; on imported frmt and vegetables meant the merchant said that on a-recent shipment of ' 6001 bags of onions and SOD kegs of, grapfea from California he had paid £220 Iff duty, u against 280 under the old rate. He had "turned over" about £6OO for, | the shipment,' and his net return was ’actually £7. : .