EMBARGO ON FRUIT

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 227, 7 September 1933, Page 9

EMBARGO ON FRUIT

MOVE WAS NECESSARY IN FAIRNESS TO GROWERS. ADDRESS TO CONFERENCE. WELLINGTON, Sept. 8. “There may be times when an embargo is justified, and this, I contend, applied in the New Zealand fruit-grow--ing industry for a considerable time prior to December last, when the Government took action to prohibit the further importation of fruit from Australia,” said Mr T. C. Brash, in his presidential address to the annual conference of the New Zealand Fruitgrowers’ Federation, iu Wellington, yesterday. One was justified, Mr Brash said, iu looking askance at all forms of embargos, quotas and other abnormal trade restrictions, not only from the point of view of the dislocation of business immediately resulting, but also because of the fact that they were likely to prove to be two-edged weapons. A one-way or an unduly hampered trade was not a healthy one, and sooner or later repercussions were likely to emanate from it to the detriment of all concerned. Nevertheless, action in either direction might at times be justified as the lesser of the existing evils. As far ns embargos were concerned, it had to be fully admitted that every country had the right to impose and maintain an embargo as a safeguard against the introduction of a serious disease, if after due consideration of all the factors such action was deemed unavoidable; but, even so, an embargo should not be lightly indulged in or made more irksome than the circumstances warranted, for once imposed they were difficult to remove, in consequence of the resistance that wan sure to arise from those factions that had benefited by this form of protection. Contrary to widespread suggestions that had been made, the embargo had not 'originally been intended to be a trade embargo in the accepted sense, Mr Brash explained. Its imposition had not been for the purpose of protecting any section of the fruitgrowing industry in New Zealand against Australian competition; but rather for the purpose of opening further markets necessary to meet the requirements of the rapidly expanding fruit industry of the country. The action had been practically forced upon the Government in fairness t<? the New Zealand fruitgrower, after years of less drastic endeavour to effect the aim in view had failed.