Price Of Lemons

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 193, 13 May 1944, Page 6

Price Of Lemons

Sir, —If your correspondent “Freedom” paid 3<l. in Hastings fun a lemon of the type distributed through the Internal Marketing Division she was over-charged. Anyone discovering this by consulting the Price Order which every shop selling lemons is required to display should inform the local office of the Price Tribuna' for the protection of other purchasers. The price the division pays to lemon growers has increased every year since they requested it to take over their curing and marketing. Today it stands at 8/2 a loose bushel, nearly double that paid in the first year. Nevertheless the average retail price has not been increased since 1942 —indeed it has been reduced. In comparing lemon prices, the type of lemon, its size, the district it is sold in and the season of the year must all be considered. Formerly prices fluctuated with the period of the vear and the distance a shop was situated from the producing districts. The more distant districts also tended to got fewer than their share of supplies. Today the division distributes proportionate to local needs over the whole Dominion ata price that stpys uniform throughout the year, varying only for the size of the fruit and as between town and country areas. The betterment of growers’ orices has been essential to keep orchards in production and maintain supplies for the nation. A record supply this year (not including the Australian lemons which war makes difficult to obtain) indicates that I.M.D. control meets with the growers’ general acceptance. Consumers, on the other hand, have only to compare the price of New Zealand oranges and Meyer lemons —over which the division lias no authority and which rose as high ns 1/and Bd. respectively until held down by Price Order—to, realize that control by the division has worked in their interest also—l am. etc.. R. P. FRASER. ActingDirector, Internal Marketing Division. Wellington, May 12.