APPLES DUMPED AT BLUFF

Southland Times, Issue 24576, 27 October 1941, Page 6

APPLES DUMPED AT BLUFF

Sir,—l feel, Mr Editor, you are due for some support for your recent exposure of the “apple incident.” About 10 days ago I purchased what I now presume to be a “repicked” case of Grannie Smith apples for 6/6 from a local mart. We enjoyed about onethird of the case; the remainder have gone bad and I now have an apple dump of my own. “Good business,” I can hear the vendor say; “excellent business from the storage point of view” from Mr Palmer. The arguments you have had thrown at you to date, Mr Editor, are all from the business side of the picture. Your side is that of the public which has to eat the apples. Mr Palmer speaks of “experience which cannot be gleaned from a rotten apple dump.” I will say this: Mr Palmer is interested in die storage of apples. If he owned the apples he would glean much from that rotten apple dump and I will guarantee that he would not be “caught” again next season. It is just a matter of the angle at which things are looked at. May I ask, would it not have been better for all concerned to have sold me my case of apples say a month ago at 4/6 when they were edible? The waterside workers and the cool-store workers would have received their wages just the same. I take it the cool stores would have received a few pence less storage and the mart a few pence less commission. I would have received a case of good apples at a reasonable price, or if Mr Palmer likes it, a low price, and would have come back for another case which would have been saved from the tip and we would have all been better off. As it is, I will have no more. I read recently where the American industrialist, Marshall Field, speaking of the destruction of food, said: “Never again will we see the situation where there will be a shortage of food in one place and it is being destroyed in another. If that starts to happen because some selfish interests try to get in the way they will be pushed out of the way.” We have this same thing on a small scale in our midst in little New Zealand. One point we must cede, Mr Editor, it was a decent gesture of the authorities to let the apples go properly rotten before tipping them. GREEN APPLE. Invercargill, October 25.