POTATO EMBARGO.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 September 1920, Page 4

POTATO EMBARGO.

DELEGATES' VISIT TO AUSTRALIA. PREJUDICE AGATNST NEW ZEALAND PRODUCT. Mr. T. Buxton, who went to Australia, with Mr. W. Lindsay and Dr. Cockayne, with a view to getting the potato embargo lifted, has arrived back. Mr. Buxton stated in an interviewthat the New Zealand potato trade had been so conducted last year that a prejudice against our product had arisen. A considerable quantity of the potatoes shipped had not been properly graded and checked. He believed that he had done something to break down that prejudice by suggesting an efficient, method of inspection both by our experts and by an expert from Australia. He believed that if a, proper system was arranged there would be a good prospect of again getting our potatoes into Australia. We would have to convince the expert who was coming over from Australia" that the potatoes we would ship would be free from disease, and especially from powdery scab, which the Australians were very much afraid of. Asked if there was powdery scab in Australia, Mr. ( Buxton said the latest book published by the Australian Agricultural Department said that this disease existed in Tasmania and New Zealand, yet during the week he was there, 25,000 bags of Tasmaniau potatoes had arrived in Australia. Mr. Hughes is at present dependent I for his majority on the small country I party in the Federal Parliament, and this party may not wish to have New Zealand potatoes coming into competition with their own. Mr. Buxton, however, put it to Mr. Hughes that the import of New Zealand potatoes would benefit 95 per cent, of the people of Australia, and would not detrimentally affect more than 5 per cent of them.