POTATO MARKET GLUTTEDL.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1901, 8 November 1913, Page 7

POTATO MARKET GLUTTEDL.

SLUMP IN PRICES. As far as the potato 6upply is concerned the public of Wellington need not worry. A week ago it looked as if there was going to be a potato famine owing to supplies from the South having been cut off by the action of the strikers in refusing to work or allow others to work cargo. Old potatoes (Oamarus) rose sensationally from £3 10s. per ten to £12 per ton (on Saturday fast). Tho last few days has seen a completo change.' Thanks to an early and beneficent spring tho crop of new potatoes from the country—Hutt, Otaki, and tho North—was well forward, and such ample supplies have come to hand that tho price for new potatoes has dropped to £6 per ton (6s. per cwt.), and tho remainder of tho old potatoes are absolutely unsaleable at any price. It has been the most sudden and sensational drop m potato prices on record at tho .Allen Street markets. The Strike Committee purchased a ton of potatoes yesterday for distribution • among those in need. Cabbage 3 were being given away yestorday at 6d. a sack (containing about three dozen), and yet they are being retailed at 3d. and 4d. each. On Thursday one local firm sent twonty bags of good cabbages to tho destructor—tliey aro a drug in tho market. Lettuces, too, aro amazingly cheap. They were c old yesterday at from. Is. to 2s. bo. a case. Carrots and parsnips aro firm at from 6s. to Bs. per bag. ■ Tho market is bare of fruit, but £90,000 worth of American apples and Island bananas camo forward' by the Willochra, and most of it is now Btored in the Harbour Board's sheds.

Carters Coerced. The immediate trouble in getting these perishable products on to the market is te get tho carters to transfer tho cases from the wharf to the markets. Every carter has been threatened that disaster will follow if ho so much as carts a case from tho wharf, and, naturally, this has frightened them all from undertaking what may provo to bo a hazardous task. There is at present on tho wharf a consignment of bananas ex Navua rotting in tho Harbour Board's sheds Some KOO cases of bananas arrived by the Willochra, and a big consignment of rosy American apples. The first shipment of Island tomatoes— only half-a-dozen cases— also oamo to hand by tho 3JHllqolu«u