Cook Is. Fruit.
p. 23 · Read in the full issue
ALTHOUGH New Zealand officialdom claims good results from the C.I. orange control plan, the N.Z. fruit merchants are unconvinced and scornful.
“Look at the figures for yourself,” they said to me in Auckland, in Feb ruary. “Under private enterprise, we brought 40,000 cases of C.I. oranges into New Zealand in a year; and, being two way traders, we could provide cargoes for the ships on their way back. Last year, under this Government arrange ment, 13,000 cases came in, and the shipping owners have had a thin time.
“The Government, from April 1, will take charge of bananas, in the same fashion. It is going to be rough on the growers.
“These C.I. bananas are poor little things—the worst that come in here.
“If this Government would forget about marketing, and its hatred of the rapacious traders, and would teach the Cook Islanders to cultivate oranges and bananas, we should be getting some where. Nearly all the Cook Island oranges are ‘wild’ oranges. Go and compare them with the cultivated oranges imported from other places.”
The writer did. Comparisons are odious!—R.W.R.