PUBLIC "TRIMMED" ALL THE TIME

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5296, 8 January 1947, Page 4

PUBLIC "TRIMMED" ALL THE TIME

Vegetable Ceiling Prices Should Be Abolished WELLINGTON, Last Night. "The pisblic are being 'trimmed' ; all the time. I laugh when I hear these broadcasts of ceiling prices," said Mr. F. Brown, of Wellington, chairman of the New Zealand Fruit and Produce and Merchants and Auctioneers' Association, today. He said retailers ask ceiling prices, irrespective of what they paid on the market. He personally had heen asked lOd for a cabbage which he knew had been sold to a Chinese : retailer at Is per sack. ' Mr. Brown associated himself with j the recent statement by Mr. J. Tiir- ' ner, in Auckland, who said a number j of w people with knowledge of tho trade considered that perishable lines | such as fruit and vegetables, should ! not be subject to ceiling prices, and that the law of supply and demand j should be allowed free course, Mx*. j Brown, however, differed with Mr. i Turner wheh he said that if control ; were inevitable it should be applied j only to essential lines, such as potai toes, onicns, ox*anges, lemons, ' bananas, and apples. ; ""Ceiling prices had resulted in un- ■ satisfactory returns to growers -and j insufficient supplies of many lines j on the market. The best way to en- ! courage production in New Zealand | was either to allow a free market or | to guarantee returns that "would en- ' sure a payable return to producers.