THE DUTY ON JAM

Otago Witness, Issue 1853, 27 May 1887, Page 11

THE DUTY ON JAM

The following letter relating to the duty on jam has been handed to us for publication. It was forwarded to the Colonial Treasurer on Monday:—

Dunedin, 23rd May 1887. Tho Honourable Sir Julius Vogcl, K.0.ft1.G., &c, &c, Colonial Tivasurer.

Sir,— As the largest jam manufacturer in the Australasian Colonies. I have the hi nour to ask your kind consideration of the fol owing reasons why the proposed duty of 2d per lb oa fruit partially preserved should not be imposed. • It is a tax on the raw material— and on raw material not obtainable in the colony. Permit me to explain : —

The manufacturer can only procure the surplus left over atter the requnen ents of the fruiterer have been met. The fruiterer pays more than we can afford to pay. and all the world over obtains the pick of tho crop. When he is satisfied— and not till then— does the grower come to us. lint the grower cannot bupply the fruiterer. Even in the Jiea tof the New Zealand fruir. season tho fruiterers are compelled to impoit. , I observe from the public pres6 that they are olijecting to the duty on green fruit on this very grouud— namely, that tho local supply is unequal to ehe demand, at.d their position appeals to be supported by; he fact that, notwith tanding the codliu moth, phylloxera, and other hindrances, about £60,000 worth of green fruit was imported last year. Now if the grower cannot supply th. imiterer, where is the surplus fo • the manufacturer to come from? — what can brim over from a r>nlfiilled bucket? If during the four months when fruit is most abundant the daily want- of the fruiterer cannnf, bo met, how is the factory to be fed during the whole twelve mouths of the ,i ear ? Moreover, the factory requires variety as well as quantity. By the iron custom of the trade, eachcaseof five dozen lib tins must contain 15 different varieties of jams. Hence no factory can work unless at least ,15 different sorts of fruit are obtainable, whereas the trees for pome of these have not been so much as planhi din N>w Zealand. When one considers, sir, the large quantity of jam a well-equipped lactory can turn out in a year, the small area of land now under fruit cultivation, and the tims it takes for newly-planted trees to become fruit-bearing, it must, I submit, be manifest that a sufficiency of fruit for factory use— whether as to quantity or variety— cannot possibly be obtainable within l ho colony lor many years to come. Of the fruit imported by the fruiterer not a pound is intended for the factory. It is solely for table use : and to prevoiit decay is plucked when quite green, though even then a quarter ripens and rots on the voyage. On the other hand, fruit for jam-making cannot be plucked until fully ripe, and of course would perish utterly if imported in the same way as is the fruiterers' supply. We are therefore forced to adopt some art ficial method of preventing decay in transit. Until recently the ripe fruit was converted into fruit pulp a method now superseded by my patent process of preserving the freshness of the truit without otherwise affecting it. The local supply being thus so scanty, and the factory requirements so large, and fruit not being obtainable from abroad without some artificial mode of preservation, it follows, as stated by me at the outset, that the proposed tax is a "tax on raw material not obtainable within the colony. Again, it is burdensome— so much so that in my own case (and no manufacturer in New Zealand works with such advantages as I) my factory must be closed, and between 50 and 60 hands thrown on the already overcrowded labour market of the colony. That I cannot afford to continue operations if the duty te imposed -will plainly appear from the following considerations :— lt takes £lb of fruit and §lb of sugar to make lib of jam. Ihe duty on the former would be Id, and nn the latter making a total of l^d per lb. The duty on jam is 2d. but from thiß must be deducted the rebate of -jd allowed by the Tasmanian tariff on the sugar in each lib of jam thence exported. There is thus an apparent net margin in my favour of §d per lb. This apparent margin is however much more than absorbed by the cost of the patent process, and the expense of keeping up my branok here, involving as it does two rents, two staffs of clerks and workmen, and rates and taxes on two factories instead of one ; all of which can be saved by making the jam at my Hobart or Melbourne establishments and shipping it to New Zealand. 1 If the duty would stop my factory it cannot operate less fatally on other New Zealand manufacturers,

all of whom must purchase their pulp or partially preserved fruit from the Tasmanian or Victorian supplier. But the evil of the tax does not end here. It injures the local grower. I have said that he cannot fully supply the fruiterer, still less the factory. But the factory is of incalculable benefit to him. What he chiefly wants is au assured and constant market for all his crop- It constantly happens that more or leas of his rruit does not come up to the fruiterer's standard. The fruiterer requires excellence of form and colour as well as flavour. Form and colour are nothing to the factory, if only the fruit be ripe, sound, and sweet. The manufacturer is therefore always ready to take what would otherwise lie dead on the grower*s hands ; and it follows that a tax that injures the fact --ry must injure the local grower. When intelligently alive to his own interest, the fruitgrower fully preceives this, as is shown by the fact that when last year it was proposed in New South Wales to place a duty of Id per lb on fruit pulp, two petitions by fruitgrowers— one with 60 signatures from Pennant Hill and Castle Hill, and another with 89 signatures from Ityde and Glndenvale—were presented to Parliament, praying that it ehould not be levied, on the grounds that it would "by preventing the carrying on profitably of the jam industry, materially injure the petitioneis by depriving them to a very large extent of the market for their goods,"

The local grower is protected by freight charges and decay in transit to the extent of more than 75 per 'Cent., and this not against foreign countries where labour is low, but against the neighbouring colonies where the conditions of capital and labour are, the same as here. With fruiterers to take the pick of his crop, factories always open to absorb the balance, the extent and variety of fruit culture must steadily and rapidly expand, until in the course of a few years the need of importations will almost entirely cease ; but I submit it would be a cruelly mistaken kindne-8 on the part of the Government feo al tempt to " encourage " him by crushing the factories. m The duty is also anomalous and illogical. Compare it with the duty on green fruit, the precise co3t in each case being on the average substantially the same— Jd per lb. The fruiterer imports his fruit. It is to him the manufactured article, and on its arrival necessitates neither labour nor machinery. He pays 5 per cent, ad valorem. I import my fruit. It is to me the raw material. 1 employ over 60 hands and several thousands of pounds of capital in converting it into jam. I pay 2d perlb. In other words, the quantity of fruit that he can land for £5 costs me £266 13s 4d, and this in addition to the duties 1 pay on my sugar, labels, tins, and the other thousand-and-one things that I use in my factory. It really looks as it I were being punished for employing so much labour and capital. 'J ho amount of the proposed duty is so enormous that I am almost tempted to think a clerical error has been made. Even the fruitgrowers of Coal Hill, who with curious obliquity have petitioned for a duty on the manufacturers' imported supplies, express themselves as contented with Jd per lb, but the Government apparently intend to fix it at 2d. If the duty is designed for revenue purposes it muat fail of effect, for the simple reason that it ia absolutely prolrbitory ; if, as I have reason to believe, it is intended for the encouragement of the grower, I have advanced enough, I trust, to satisfy you that so far from helping, it must grievously hurt him.

It ma}' be that jam manufacturers do exist in New Zealand who favcur this duty, and say they can supply themselves within the colony. Possibly they can, but assuredly not with fruit; and the Government, lain sure," will hesitate before putting a premium on adulteration, or rather making adulteration inevitable You are probably aware tbat the Petone jam factory has decided to suspend operations and wind up; the chief reason given being " the difficulty in obtaining a sufficient quantity of fruit at suitable prices."

For my own part I do not import for the loveof it. If I could get supplies in New Zealand, a duty of 20s per Ib -would not. affect me. It is because I cannot tlint I respectfully ask the Government to reconBider the question of this duty, and not compel m« to close my fnclory, withdraw my capital, and discharge my workmen. It may perhaps be said that the difficulty could be got over by further raising the duty oujam and increasing the price. This is not practicable. Any increase oi j»ice would lessen consumption. On this point all manufacturers will agree with me. Its cheapness accounts for if a be'ng largely used by the working people, who would give it up if it got any dearer. I quite recognise that revenue is needed, and that the jam ma'uit icturers should bear their share. A duty of say 5 per cei.fc ad valorem, though a burden on a struggling industry, would not be too grievous to be bor e; ami I venture respectfully to express the hope that the Government will see their way to a modification such as this. — I have, &c, G-kobge Peacock (Per John Henry Gay). P.S.— I have the honour to crave the liberty to append a brief description of the patent process above referred to. The information may be interesting to the members of the House, to whom, wi'h your permission, I propose sending a copy of this letter.

M. Pasteur, the eminent French scientist, discovered that the whole process of fermentation started from the bloom on the fruit. Acting on this, we. hit on a most simple and effective method of destroying the bloom witho-t in the slightest degree affecting the fruit. The fruit is placed in casks, sulphurous fumes are injected for a few minutes, and the cask is then closed up. In this way fruit ran be kept perfc -' Jy sweet and sound for years. ( )n exposure to the air, the fumes being very volatile go off, and the fruit is as fresh as the day it was picked. The application of heat hastens and renders more complete the driving off of the fumes, and this met hod we always adopt. The following certiiicates speak for themselves :—: — " Mr Peacock.

" Dear Sir,— l have examined specimens of your fruit preserved by your new procesß. after it had been so preserved "for nine mofaths, and I was much surptised and . leased at the complete success the invention li -s itlniiifd.

"I f "1 certain that it will effect a complete chaugi .a the manufacture of jams, and that it will b« a valuable accession to the industries of the colonies.

" Moreover, the process does not and cannot in any way interfere with the i ahirc and character of any fruit, inasmuch as the agent v<w employ, being volatile, must be entirely got rid or in the boiling. "Jams made by your process cannot possibly be affected by moulds, nor can they ferment after manufacture, as all germs of feirrent must be completely destroyed.— Yours truly "J.E.Taylok, Ph.D., F.L.S.', F.G.S., F.R.G.S T., &c, "Editor of Sciei cc Gossip, Director of Musem, Ipswich, England kc, &c." " Technological Museum, Melbourne, " 7th September 1885. " Mr Peacock, " Dear Sir, — In reply to your request that I should state my knowledge of the character of the process for preserving fresh fruit, which you have been testing practically during the past fruit season, and which you are now patenting, I can only state that, from numerous observations and tests made in the museum laboratory, t am convinced that your fruit will keep for any length of time, and that when us>ed for jam-making. &c. , the preserve will be found perfectly good and wholesome. Tho preservative used being volatile, is entirely got rid of during the process of jam manufacture, so that nothing is left but the pure fruit.— Yours very truly, " J. Cosmo Newbery." — Quite the Proper Thing. — •' Did you hear that Isaacs, the pawnbroker, had recently beeu presented with triplets '?" said Sample. "No," replied Jamison. "But it is quite the proper thing." "Why so ?" •' Three bawls, you know."

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