FISH AND CHIPS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 100, 22 January 1935, Page 8

FISH AND CHIPS

The citizens of Australia have had opportunities in past crises to show their undoubted worth, but now an occasion has.arisen which will tax to the utmost, not”their depleted purses, but their powers of stoical endurance. Fish and chips will soon have swum out of their financial reach, and they will have to content themselves with mince \pies for odd meals. But, while all the rest of Australia wilbbe preparing to face this new situation with fortitude, the fishmongers are sadly anticipating sinking with the tons of fish which Mr. W. M. Hughes declares to have been cast back into the sea. They find the fish and chips trade unprofitable: The potato embargo is the cause of it all. There is no disclosed reason why New Zealand potatoes mix better with Australian fish than Australian potatoes do, but there it is: the present strains do not get on well together, and the fishmongers want New Zealand potatoes back. We on this side of the Tasman should be prepared to make the most of that clear demand. If Australia will not admit our potatoes whole, will she admit them as chips? If so, will, she also allow us to catch our own fish (instead of sending her trawlers to do it) and then admit fish and chips: If not, then Mohammed must be brought to the mountain. We shall have to add a line to our publicity in the Commonwealth: “Spend your holiday in New Zealand: Enjoy snow-capped mountains; crystalclear streams; boiling pools; forest-girt lakes—and potato chips!”