Too Few, Too Dear

Southland Times, Issue 22895, 21 May 1936, Page 4

Too Few, Too Dear

The Government’s decision to allow 50,000 cases of South Australian oranges to be imported into New Zealand during June, July and August will only partially relieve the shortage from which many towns in the Dominion suffer. The comments of men engaged in the wholesale fruit trade in Invercargill which are published this morning indicate that the allocation for Southland will be smaller than last year. At many times in the year there is an acute shortage in Southland; on very few occasions are oranges cheap enough to be regarded as anything but a luxury. Other South Island towns are very little better off. Because Governments have thought it wise to place an embargo on Australian citrus fruit in retaliation for the Commonwealth embargo on New Zealand potatoes, and because the Government wishes to protect growers in the Cook Islands the people of the Dominion, and particularly those in the extreme south, cannot obtain at a reasonable price what all medical men are agreed is a valuable and necessary article of diet. In New South Wales and Victoria there are growers most anxious to send to New Zealand good, sound fruit which would sell at prices within the means of wage-earners, and not at four a shilling as other imported oranges sell. “In view of the available sources of supply and the need of ample quantities for consumption the Government’s attitude seems inexplicable,” was the comment of a merchant yesterday. Most people would use a stronger word.