TOO DEAR

Southland Times, Issue 20445, 24 March 1928, Page 8

TOO DEAR

FISH IN SOUTHLAND A HOUSEWIFE COMPLAINS WHY ALL THE TALK ABOUT EXPORTATION? It is not often that a reporter is peremptorily summoned by a busy housewife to an interview on domestic matters, but yesterday the telephone in the reporters’ room of the Times Office rang insistently, and a woman’s voice asked that a call should be made at her home where she would have something interesting to say about fish. Fish stories being by no means uncommon, the reporter was hesitant, but the realization that it was leap year with its consequent privilege to women made him hasten to catch a car that led to the address given him over the ’phone. “I saw in your paper this morning a touching article on the serious position of those engaged in the fish trade,” were the first words that greeted the reporter after he had gone through the preliminaries of ringing the door bell and introducing himself. ‘All I can say is that if the fishmongers of Bluff and Invercargill thought less about exporting fish to Australia and more about reducing the price of fish locally they would be benefiting the community and enriching themselves. Your article talks about four thousand cases being in the cool stores at Bluff. I’m sure every one of those fish could have been sold in Southland if the prices weren’t so ridiculously high. It is no wonder to me that those engaged in the fish trade are in a serious position. So would those engaged in any other trade if they charged a price too high for all pockets save those of the idle rich.” The reporter interrupted with due diffidence to ask if fish really were so dear in Invercargill. Oysters, with which he had had most experience, seemed reasonable in price .....

“Fish not dear in Southland!” was the retort. “Why it should be as cheap here as anywhere in New Zealand, yet we find it much dearer than Dunedin for instance, to which town large quantities are railed from Moeraki and Karitane. Dunedin board-ing-houses find fish one of the cheapest meals to give their guests. I’m sure in Invercargill this is not the case. To me it is ridiculous to see in the paper that there is no outlet for the fish caught in Southland waters. There would be plenty of outlet if a little business sense were let into the heads of the fish merchants.”