APPLE EXPORT

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 60, 4 December 1926, Page 10

APPLE EXPORT

THE GUARANTEE QUESTION ITS JUSTIFICATION “An article on the fruit export guarantee which has been going the rounds of the Press contains so many serious misrepresentations on the position that it is due, not only to the Government, but to a very hard-working class of producer, that something should be said in justification of the guarantee, writes Mr. 11. E. Napier, secretary ot the New Zealand Fruitgrowers’ Federation. “The critical article refers misleadingly to a subsidy. It may never be paid, though last season’s disastrous market conditions overseas owing to the strike certainly resulted in the export grower having to take advantage of the encouragement which the Government is giving to build up a new and substantial export from the land. It is said that last year’s guarantee cost the Government £100,OiX), but as the claims are not complete that figure must be a guess, and trom the information available, an ‘outside’ one at that. “It can be fairly urged that the Government is doing no. more for the fruitgrower than is being done for some of the secondary industries. One cannot help pointing out that the present system of helping the fruitgrower to establish a market overseas does not cost the public anything approaching the amount collected by the Customs Department in protection < f manufacturers of clothing, boots, matches, etc. One could multiply these instances, bv' lficient has teen said to demoi j that the Government guarantee on it is only in line with what is being done for other industries in the country. “Under the circumstances, is there not the greater need to encourage in every possible way an industry, which aims at bringing, in further additions to the national income from cutside? Fruitgrowers.. given reasonably good marketing conditions, could push our national income from exports up by another million sterling, but at the moment they are struggling, though the industry has demonstrated its capacity to reach that objective. One argument used. by . the critic to discount fruitgrowing is actually a demonstration of the soundness of its development. Critical attention is called to a small diminution in the area under orchard in New Zealand during the operation of the export guarantee. The critic might have been fair enough to add that last season’s . production was an easy record, the real facts of the position'being that orcharding is now run on strict commercial lines, and the aim is high yields of first class quality. It -is essentially an intensive land operation, and therein lies the principal Justification of the State in giving it encouragement. Answering a critic who mainly expresses opinions,, and is shaky on the few "facts” presented, it is best to rely on nlain facts. Tn the Hastings district, 3000 acres are planted in commercial orchards and this comparatively small area of land supports approximately 600 families. It is credibly estimated that the product pays about £150,000 per annum in wages, for a long line of benefit comes from the production of fruit. Apart from its cultivation and picking, which needs much labour, there is the case making, the packing, transport, coo] storage, wharf labour, auction mart labour and sea transport. Take a- similar area of Hawke’s Bay land carrying sheep. How many workers would be needed? Three or four shepherds. Three or four hundred families, compared with six hundred.

“Fruitgrowing lias the further importent national advantage that it can be successfully done on land unfit for other farming operation. There are many examples in New Zealand of land, a wildnerness 12 years ago, growing nothing but weeds or scrub, now a pleasing prospect of fruit trees, returning a living—if a modest one—to the hard working people who have developed the area, One example is near Auckland city, the Huapai district, once bare clay country, covered with hales left by gum diggers who had extracted what seemed the cnly possible crop, but now supporting so many orchardists that there are three or four schools now required to educate their children.

"The Minister of Lands, in discussing the difficult future of land settlement, pertinently asked why this should not be subsidised as well as secondary industries. The fruit industry ie developing the class of land which the ordinary land worker cannot profitably touch, and would therefore be a firstclass example of the justification for subsidy. The splendid record of the State Advances to Settlers Department is one instance of farming helped by cheap money. “Fruitgrowers did not look for State backing in their export business until they had demonstrated for years a policy of self-help. They induced Parliament to pass a measure imposing a tax on orchards to be applied for the development of markets and sound organisation of the industry to undertake export, and the export tax on fruit is another instance of the grower’s desire to create an export market as much at his own expense as possible. “It is suggested that American officials must gasp at the sublime ignorance of New Zealand fruitgrowers over their tariff wall against our fruit, which the critic indicates as being equivalent to a farthing per lb. The ignorance seems nearer home, for American officials know very well that on' the pretext that infection might enter their country from a disease which does not exist in New Zealand orchards, they simply bar our fruit altogether—a very solid tariff wall I One is tempted to put the critic right on a number of other misstatements. but space, only permits of touching another subject on which we are approximating to agreement. The complaint is made that despite subsidy, fruit is dear in New Zealand. The fruitgrower makes the. same complaint,

for Iris returns do not reflect the 6d. or 3d. per lb. which the critic mentions as the retail price of New Zealand fruit. The grower was getting noir more than cost of packing and transport for a good deal of last season’s output, but the local retail price only hazily suggested that fruit was so cheap. This is an old problem associated with the industry—the wide margin between the price received by the orchai'dist. and that paid by the consumer. Many efforts have been made by the organised producers to sell direct to the consumer, eliminating the expensive chain in between, but the consumer has been rather indifferent to these experiments, and many of our orchardists consider that although they made fruit available at attractive prices, they were badly "let down” by the continued partiality. of the consumer to one pound’s weight in a bag for sixpence.’’