AGREEMENT URGED.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20485, 11 December 1934, Page 8

AGREEMENT URGED.

Reciprocal Trade Between N.Z. and Australia. DISPARITY IN PRICES. Per Press Association. M ERCARGILL, December 10. I was made to realise early in my visit that there is great need for some reciprocal trade arrangement between Australia and New Zealand,” said Mr J. Mulcare, president of the West Coast branch of the Farmers’ Union, who was the official representative of t “ e New Zealand Farmers’ Union at the Melbourne Centenary, and who returned by the Maheno to-day. tt W hen I left the Dominion,” he said, potatoes were quoted at about £2 10s per ton in Christchurch, and in Sydney they were £l6. On the other hand, oranges were retailing in the South Island at about 2s 6d or 3s per dozen. Sir Stanley Argyle, Premier of Victoria, told me, as a citrus grower, that he received an average of 2s a case for his oranges, the cases containing from 90 to 200 oranges and averaging about 120. “ Here we have on one side of the Tasman the consumer paying a prohibitive price for a necessary article of diet, potatoes, because there is an embargo on the importation of these from New Zealand, while on the other side New Zealanders are paying far too high a price for an almost equally important article, oranges.”