EGGS FROM AUSTRALIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26750, 20 April 1948, Page 4

EGGS FROM AUSTRALIA

LARGE SHIPMENT FOR WELLINGTON FALL IN LOCAL PRODUCTION Special Correspondent WELLINGTON, Apl. 19. Nine thousand dozen eggs from Australia are due at Wellington in the Wahine to-morrow to supply the Wellington market. Wellington normally draws eggs from as far north as Tauranga, and as far south as Timaru, and from these sources has been able to maintain a strictly-rationed supply. This season, however, production has fallen to a lower level than usual, and the only way' the Internal Marketing Department could maintain a minimum supply was to seek eggs from Australia. The importation of fresh eggs was last necessary during the early stages of the war, when large numbers of American troops were stationed near Wellington.

An official of the egg division of tho department could not. however, recall any large-scale imports for many years. He said that about 28 years ago, when the Dominion was importing much egg pulp and egg products from overseas, the poultry producers of the day told the Prime Minister, Mr W. F. Massey, that they would guarantee to produce the Dominion’s requirements. Mr Massey told them that if they did he would place an embargo on all imports. This proposition was accepted, and has been carried out more or less to the present day. * Australian sources had given an assurance that the minimum time was lost in getting the present shipment from the fowl runs to the ship’s hold, and assuming that that was so, there would be very little more time taken in bringing eggs from Sydney poultry farms to Wellington than from some of the more distant New Zealand farms. Unofficial estimates of New Zealand’s egg production place the output at 40,000,000 dozen annually. Only 11.00i.00C dozen are handled by the egg floors