TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. MONDAY, 30th NOVEMBER, 1936. ORANGES AS A LUXURY.

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3840, 30 November 1936, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. MONDAY, 30th NOVEMBER, 1936. ORANGES AS A LUXURY.

A SITUATION has arisen to-day in New Zealand by reason of the acute shortage in the supply of oranges to the local market that impels the question, with due apology to the sponsors of Douglas Credit: “ Why poverty in the midst of plenty ? ” In other words, what are we doing by refusing to allow our people to share the abundant fruit production of our sub-tro-pical neighbour, Australia ? In the Commonwealth at the present time this nutritious citrus fruit is abundant in quantity, excellent in quality, and unsurpassed for cheapness, and, with adequate transport available, there should be an equal abundance in this Dominion at a price to which only transport and handling Charges would have to be added. Instead, we are experiencing a famine, with prices at a luxury level. Here, then, we have the fruits of increased production withheld from people anxious to consume them. Needless to say, the shortage is an artificial one, for if the absurd restrictions were lifted there would be an abundant supply. That supplies—at any time for that matter—are neither ample nor cheap is due to political muddling of the whole question, dating back to 1919: and successive Governments have failed to rectify the position, so that it would be impossible, as it also would be unfair, to apportion the blame for the shortage to the present or any particular governmental administration. Since that date there has been a State restriction on the importation of Australian oranges—a restriction ostensibly imposed in order that the Cook Islands export trade in citrus fruits would not be prejudiced, but a restriction imposed not solely out of regard to the fact that Australia refuses admission to New Zealand potatoes, a decree enforced undoubtedly at the behest of Victorian and Tasmanian growers, who fear the dumping of the Dominion’s surplus stocks on markets regarded inherently as their own. Th; ridiculous result of - this artificial manipulation of trade is that in the height of the Australian season, when oranges are almost being given away on the other side of the Tasman, the people of this country have to be content with supplies at luxury prices. The Minister of Industries last week arbitrarily fixed the wholesale and retail prices of a small shipment of Jamaican oranges, but this will not solve the problem. What will do so is the restoration of free, unfettered trade. The Hon. D. G. Sullivan, in reply to that observation, asserts that the problem goes much beyond oranges and potatoes: it concerns, he says, the balance of trade between the Commonwealth and the Dominion. Not many people know much about this “ balance of trade,” and do not care whether it is in favour.of Australia or New Zealand. What they do know, want, and demand is that citrus fruits shall be made available to them at cheaper rates than have obtained since 1919, when politicians stemmed the natural course of trade by artificial barriers and restrictions. Since that year the consumers, especially the poorer classes, have been exploited till oranges even in ordinary times are a luxury. It is undeniable that in the interests of health this luscious fruit ought to form part of the diet of every family in the country; and so far no one has been able to show a single good reason why it should not be available to every family in New Zealand. Apparently the Prime Minister and his colleagues now recognise the need for a revision of the trade relations between Australia and New Zealand, for it is announced today that Cabinet has agreed to a request by the Commonwealth authorities to enter into negotiations to end the dispute. The futility of trade restrictions, by which both countries suffer, is so manifest that it is fervently to be hoped the outcome will be freer and less restricted trade between the two.