FRUIT INDUSTRY

Hokitika Guardian, 1 August 1930, Page 2

FRUIT INDUSTRY

COAIPLAINT OF DUMPING.

HUN Elf IN, July 30. “At a time like this, when most people are complaining i bout increases in taxation, it should be refreshing to hear a complaint on the opposite score,” said Mr William Stevenson, managing director of Irvine and Stevenson’s St George Company, Ltd., to a representative of the “Daily Times” to-day, “Fruitgrowing, with its complementary industries--jam making and fruit- canning-*-providefi a livelihood for thousands of New Zealanders today, yet it is allowed to be endangered by almost any country that wishes to dump some of its surplus here,” continued Mr Stevenson. “Fresh fruit is necessary to the health of any people, and a fresh fruit trade cannot reasonably bo carried on without factories to use up the surplus. “A lesson might well be taken from either the United States of America or Australia, in both of which, by prohibiting imports, canning and fruit-growing have grown to such a tremendous extent as to reduce enormously the cost of production. The public must reap the benefit in more than one direction because raw fruit in these countries is half the New Zealand price, or less. Mass production reduces the cost of raw fruit just as it reduces the cost of anything. If the policies of Australia and New Zealand during the past twenty-five years had been reversed, Australia would be in our position to-day, that jg, her growers and manufacturers would be complaining 'because we New Zealanders were exploiting her home market in canned fruit. South Africa, also, is allowed to dump dried fruit into New Zealand against a purely nominal duty,.

“Even our raw material, in some instances, is taxed more in proportion than the goods we have to sell against. Thus we have English manufacturers offering jam in tins or jarp at 3d per dozen difference in price, while the difference in cost between empty tins and jars in New Zealand is 2s 6d to 3s 6d per dozen.”