DOMINION FRUIT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 November 1939, Page 3

DOMINION FRUIT

hOT WAITED BY BRITAIN. SERIOUS MARKETING PROBLEM. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Under the war situation New Zealand was faced with the possibility of having no European market for the export of apples and pears, and the United Kingdom Government had notified the Dominion that it did not desire to buy any fruit, said the Minister of Finance and Marketing, Mr Nash, when discussing the negotiations for the sale of the fruit crop in a national radio broadcast from his office in Parliament Buildings, Wellington, last evening. The estimated production of apples and pears in the current season was 3,403,000 cases, the Minister said. Last year up to one and a half million cases had been sold overseas, including about 600,000 cases in the United kingdom, and some in Europe, the Far East and South America. This market was now in a very dangerous and delicate position, and the Dominion might not be able to send any away. On the local market the quantity sold was about 1,250,000 cases. Fruit-growers had built up an industry which produced up to 3.500.000 cases, and there was no certainty of market for some 1,250,000 to 1,500,000 cases. Mr Nash said that under the war situation all the shipping and storage space must be used to the full in taking food requirements to the United Kingdom, and the United Kingdom Government had said it must give preference to butter, cheese and meat and other primary products. It had not been possible to make any arrangements for space for fruit. The Government had been in touch with the shipping companies, the United Kingdom Government and other Governments, but the Dominion might not be able to send any away, or only a much smaller quantity than it usually sent. Negotiations which have taken place between the Government and the fruit industry over the last year or two were outlined by the Minister. The Gov-

ernment desired to extend to those working in primary industries the system of guaranteed prices under which for goods produced for marketing it would pay the producer a price that would give him a reasonable return for his work and cover his costs.