THE FRUIT TRADE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22721, 6 November 1935, Page 6

THE FRUIT TRADE

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —It is a current rumour that the fruit retailers are refusing to pay for cases when buying fruit at the auction marts in Dunedin. Most >of the fruit shops in the city and suburbs are controlled by Chinese. No doubt the harm they are doing to the fruitgrowers, many of whom lost sons at the war, does not concern them. While members of the fruitgrowers' families were away fighting these Chinese, to the everlasting discredit ofthe citizens of Dunedin, got a footing. Are we so un-British that, although the white retail trade has almost succumbed to the Chinese octopus, we are going to allow foreigners to dictate to the fruitgrower as they have done to the Dunedin public? Should another war come along would these Chinese enlist? I say that as foreigners they would not be allowed, so would stay here as they did in the last war, while our womenfolk, who patronise them mostly, encouraged them to make a good living in our midst. A year ago a number of fruit retailers started an advertising campaign against these Chinese, and had red, white, and blue slogans on their shop windows, "British Shops, British Goods, British People." The very retailers who were prominent in that campaign are now hobnobbing with the Chinese, and th» presi-

dent and secretary, with three other white men, along with five Chinese, comprise the committee of the Retail Fruiterers' Association. No wonder a number of self-re-specting fruiterers will not join the Retail Association! Why should these Chinese dictate to an established industry and tell the growers how they should conduct their businesses? There are hundreds of fruitgrowers in Otago, and these men and their families have had a hard struggle, waiting for years for the trees to come into _ bearing, and have had a hard time with frosts, etc. It seems almost incredible that these five white fruiterers in Dunedin should associate themselves with five Chinese and use their weight to go against their own countrymen—men who have supplied them with fruit over a number of years. Are we, as loyal citizens, going to let these retailers dictate to the grower? Let our answer be a definite "No." Let us oust these birds of passage.—l am, etc., November 5. Loyal Britisher.