IMPERIAL FRUIT CONFERENCE.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 June 1926, Page 3

IMPERIAL FRUIT CONFERENCE.

[Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.]

(Received this day at 12.25 p.m.) LONDON, June 9

Tlic Imperial Economic Committee’s j, iruit report, issued, draws attention v to the fact that £18,600,000 worth of „ fruit was imported to United King ; doin in 192-1, vet the consumption of g fruit per head ,is still much smaller v than in United States. Over three £ quarters of the fruit imports into Unit- t ed Kingdom are foreign. There is t greater scope for an increase of impor- t tntion from the Empire by the in- ( creased consumption and transference ; of custom to tiio Empire. The com- j lnitteo is of opinion a greater part of i the fruit from foreign. countries, ex- S eept grapes and oranges for. winter < consumption, might at a not very cl is- i tant date, he obtained from British i sources. 1 , The result will he a corresponding i growth of overseas markets for manuf act lines, owing to the development of important districts with the Empire suitable for production of fruit. While foreign countries which principally supply United Kingdom with fruit bought from United Kingdom goods valued from 7 to seventeen shillings per head of their populations. Empire countries which sent- fruit to United Kingdom bought from three to seventeen pounds sterling per head. Three outstanding facts in the present position were, firstly, in regal'd to the number of fruits of which apples were the most important. The United Kingdom market was dominated by the fluctuating overspill from the vast .production of United States; secondly, fresh fruit from the southern Pominions comes into the United Kingdom market at a time when it is relatively bare of otter supplies, but dried fruit is exposed to the competition of low wage countries of the Mediterranean; thirdly, the most imported fruit of tropical countries of east and west'Atlantic is the banana, and at present the supply of bananas to United Kingdom, except from the Canaries is monopolised by an organisation subject to American control. The committee considered three policies with a view to defending and developing the fruit industries of the Empire. They arc unable to recommend schemes of embargo and license owing to the limitations imposed by the most favoured nation clauses of the various treaties, and a policy of customs preferences according to decision of the Imperial Conference of 1923 docs not come within the purview of tte committee. Thus the only policy which seems to he immediately available is a policy of development of voluntary preference on the part of the consumer, based on an organisation of Empire producers and mobilisation of United Kingdom consumers.