AMONG SPANISH ORANGE GROVES.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 July 1917, Page 4

AMONG SPANISH ORANGE GROVES.

STARVATION AND SUNSET NR. (By Hamilton Fyfe, Special Correspondent in Spain,) Alicante, Spain, April -1 * It is a pitiful sight always to see , food going to waste. — x j I have passed during these last few days through numbers of mange groves and seen the ripe fruit, which ought to'have been gathered, withering on the trees On the ground lay thousands of oranges rotting. Of those which have been picked I sa w great heaps turning soft and black, useless foi food, a dead loss to the growers. On the quays at Valencia, Sagunto, Denia, and other ports there are hundreds of boxes which have waited already too long for shipment. The fruit they contain will soon be good for nothing. It is necessary to turn out the oranges and throw away a pitifully large proportion of them. One shipper on the Valencia quay told me that out of 337 cases, holding an average of (300 oranges apiece, he had lost 100, and every day more were going bad-. The usual shipment from the Valencia district every spring runs into a million and a half cases of golden, luscious fruit. The labour employed in picking and packing costs some live pesetas (at the present rate of exchange 5/) a case. The loss to the population caused by the war is thus very heavy indeed. We have been obliged to tell Spain that we can take only a quarter of the oranges which are usually sent to England. , It is not easy to find ships to carry even this amount. The Spanish railways are also finding it difficult to provide u. sufficiency of tracks to take tho oranges to the ports. The people of this sunny Mediterranean coast are in sore straits. I hey live scantily enough at the best of times. Bread flavoured "with an onion or some garlic ; witli a handful of olives or, when* they are ripe, a liaqdfuT of green figs, forms the staple of their diet. Now tt)ej have to pay more for their bread, "tpore for their salt ar.d sugar. And lately their earnings have been dismally reduced by reason of the orange crisis. They are going short in many places ; • in some they have been within sight of starvation. | GERMAN HtOf’AOANDA. j The Germans, who are so busy all over Spain, have seized the opportunity to pose as the real iiiends of the Spanish people. There were riots the other day at a place called Bnrriana. It is said that a deputation .from this district which went to Madrid to ask for State aid were given a hint that if they must have help they ■ Jjad"better make a little trouble. Tho Government would then have a pretext for assisting | Bnrriana at once in advance of all i the other districts which were clamouring for public works. At all events Bnrriana rioted. The Government sent £3,000 promptly for roadmaking, The German Consulate at "Valencia acted promptly too, It is distributing between £IOO and £l5O a week in relief. Further there is a German scheme afoot to buy up oranges in large quantities and make them into marmalade. The story lias been put. about that £IOO,OOO is to be spent in this enterprise. How ihe plant for making marmalade is to be acquired, how (hey are going to get tins or jars to put it into, and how they are intending to get over the difficulty of making it from sweet oranges alone, they have not yet explained. But already there are people who say, “ It is the English who have brought us near starvation, It is the Germans who are 'going to help us oaf.”

To point out that it was the Germans who lofced oil the war and thereby compelled England to cut down her import of oranges is of small avail. Angry men do not argue carefully. Even a Spanish na.val officer who owns an orange grove near Alicante accused the English of making him lose his season’s crop. , And unfortunately we have irritated the growers iurther by saying that the regulations laid down by the Prime Minister in February did not apply merely to oranges shipped after the date of his speech blit to the whole year’s imports into our country. They supposed that he meant they could only send a quarter of the amount shipped last year, excluding what had already been landed in England. The interpretation put upon his statement by our Customs authorities, is that the shipments before February 24 must be included injthe 25 per cent.

SHIPS. • I do not in the very least desire to suggest that we could have acted otherwise. 'The Government know how much tonnage we can allow for oranges ; it is their duty to keep within the margin of safety. But I do think it is worth While to state a case for the orange-growers. Next to victories, trade facilities make the best propaganda. The more we can let Spain have of what she needs from us, and the more we can take of .wliat she has to sell, the more friend 1 }' will be her feeling towards us. Oranges are certainly a food. A great many Spaniards are now existing, on bread and oranges. Those who eat oranges in England eat less of other things. - Therefore the prohibition agginst oranges comes down to the question of available tonnage. What several shippers have said to me is : “ Why not say that we can -send as many oranges as we like if we send them in Spanish ships ? ” Another quesgestion is that we might require all Spanish ships bringing oranges to carry a certain proportion, even up to 50 per cent, of other foodstuffs, such.as grain ofSpotatoes. I have not found the growers and shippers of oranges unreasonable, for the. most part. They are business men keen on their business and also anxious to save the-poor folks engaged in picking and packing from hunger. They db not reiuse to look at the case from our point of view, but they say : “ Surely there can be no objection to our sending fruit, oranges now and grapes later, if we get Spanish ships to carry it.” Anything we can do to restore to the hungry people of this lovely orange region, lying between the grey coucharit mountains and the lazy blue sea, will lie repaid to us both in gratitude and in more practical ways. The Germans are not out for gratitude. They have definite objects, one of which is to supply this region with the sulphate of ammonia needed for the manuring both of orange trees and rice fields. We have hitherto sent almost all the 44,000 tons of this-by-product of gas-making which are used by these people every year. The Germans have sent a little. They would like to send the lot. Trade, I repeat, is the best propaganda next to Victory. The Spaniards will notread our pamphlets or the Germans’. But they know which side their bread is buttered. If we can help them to butter it they will not forget. Sincq-'Mr Fyie wrote the above it has teen announced that the British Government have agreed to supply Spain with 150,000 tons of coal monthly, and in return Spain will export to England as much ore as is required, and also a certain proportion of oranges.