SUGAR SHORTAGE

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10610, 8 June 1920, Page 5

SUGAR SHORTAGE

«NO HOARDING” SAYS BOARD OP TRADE. According to tho Board of Trades there is no hoarding of sugar. Investigations are made regularly hy ofucers of the board, and no case has yet been proved, of hpdiding which might constitute an offence against the statutes. There appears, however, to bo mo doubt that private 'consumers in different parts of the Dominion have .put bv small stores —a bag or so—es•peciallv in tbo country districts, against tho possibility of an absolute sugar famine. There is no evidence that grocers are doing anything but carry on with storks, os it were from hand-to-mouth. Shipping difficulties and a. genuine shortage of supplies are the source of. tho trouble. A reeent Visitor to the Colonial Sugar Comiranv’s refinery at Auckland could find ■no indication there of a largo surplus set aside speculatively for a. rise. Sugar is still about as cheap in New Zealand os in any part of the world—certainly far cheaper than in Australia, whore the cane is grown and the sugar refined by the very iiine company which ■operates in Now Zealand. The question of a riso in price is, no douht, exercising tho minds of tho authorities ■ and there is every indication that tho price will he increased.