FRUIT CONTROL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21242, 24 January 1931, Page 12

FRUIT CONTROL.

TO THE EDITOR., Sir, — I hope growers will not confuse the issue. It is apple growers and pear growers only who vote. To-day’s post is tlie last mail by which the voting paper can be returned. I have watched the auction. Buyers know who pack well and bid and buy accordingly. If selling to samples is essential, then let the necessary legislation be put in motion under the Orchard Tax Act. We do not need control to give us this. To say that the board can adopt part of the Act and leave the rest alone is foolish talk. It is an endeavour to get in and then say, “Well, you elected us, and we must carry out the Act.” The circular issued by Mr J. H. Waigth, jun., to voters is very thin. By the way, voters must not confuse his name with that of Mr J. H. Waigth, the popular manager of the Coop. I would advise him to ask the latter how many buyers purchase through the telephone or by letter. Very few, I venture to say. Further, how can one fix the price when the market is glutted? That is the time when the grower loses his money. This cannot be avoided entirely, but certainly it may be guarded against. The Co-op. tackles this problem. The board has absolute power to give directions and sell on the terms it deems wise, charging the grower all expenses plus a levy up to 3d per . case. Further, it can mortgage the fruit,, pay all expenses, including remuneration, and then distribute any balance. Government control with a vengeance! We will have none of it. Our Co-op. for trading and the Fruitgrowers’ Council for advice is all we need.—l am, etc., Fruitgrower No. 2, TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—l must ask you to correct a mistake in my last letter. In it I said that it would take the votes of 60 per cent, of the registered growers to get back away from control. I was writing from memory and mixed up the two parts of the Act. The one for export control requires a bare majority of voters to get control, and a petition signed by 70 per cent, of the growers to get out of control. The part relating to local control is the opposite to this; it requires 60 per cent, of growers to get into control and a bare majority to get back out of it. I confused the two. but a reference to a copy of Hie Control Act, which I only lately acquired, makes it clear. No one would be more glad than I would be to see the present proposed plan a success, and if it is I shall be the first to acknowledge it. But it is the rate of supply and demand which fixes prices under the present system, and, until this is controllled somehow, things cannot be much better. In the peak of the apple season, when the state of affairs is worst, the crux is an over-supply of more or less perishable apples that will not keep very long. I have seen the very finest Jonathans from Nelson, carefully packed, labelled, and wrapped, selling for 5s and 6s a case, though the buyers knew that they could absolutely depend on the pack and grade. There was an over-supply of good apples. The idea of “Teviot,” that buyers will buy on statement of number and grade, without examining contents, is very funny. The only cases when buyers do this arc where they know from experience that they can reply on the pack of a grower. The other statement by “Teviot,” that buyers will give more under the new conditions, makes one smile. The buyer is not such a fool. His price depends absolutely on the ratio between demand and supply. If all cases were standardised and packed—most of them are now—and the supply were far in excess of demand, nothing on earth would prevent prices from dropping until the demand is stimulated and the two arc equalised. This is the case everywhere under free competition. Later on in the season, when the supply and demand are more equal, prices always improve, even under present conditions. Cookers sell up to 7s and 8s and Stunners up to 9s and 10s. I have got as high as 10s 6d for good, well-preserved cookers, and that was six or seven years ago, when packing was much worse than now. I have no hesitation in saying that if this control proposal is carried the price of apples in the height of the season will, for the foregoing reasons, not show any improvement. One or two years ago the Government improved the marketing regulations by making it an offence to pack any container with fruit or vegetables in such a way that any view of the contents would mislead. Yet prosecutions under the regulation have been nil in Dunedin, although, according to “ Teviot,” such misleading packing is common. It is a difficult thing—in fact, impossible—to prove any offence in this respect, once the Mat has left the rooms. It can only be done on the spot by inspection and the board, if constituted, wiM find that inspection will be forced on it. I think I have written enough on the subject—too much for the patience of most of your renders. I may say that these are my own personal views, and I do not pretend to represent the Co-opera-tive Fruitgrowers or any other body m what I have written.—l am, etc.. Fruitgrower No. 3. 10 THE EDITOR Sir,—l would like to say, in reference to t.he poll concerning the control of fruit, that I have voted against the proposal whether it would be to my benefit or not. on account of the already huge army of Government officers doing little or nothing and supplied with salary, motor car and, in some instances, fine homes, while some of these have an assistant to keep them company.—l am, etc., Orchardist. Clyde, January 21.