Bananas—Profitable

and Otherwise What New Zealand is Doing in Central Pacific Trade

A SHIP which has for years been as “a pain in the neck” to planters of the Central Pacific staged her usual tricks about mid-January, with the result that 7,000 cases of bananas, out of 9,000 cases which had been loaded at Niue and Western Samoa, were thrown overboard.

The refrigeration had failed and the bananas became over-ripe.

At the same time, there was a banana famine in New Zealand. If those cases had reached New Zealand ports they would have realised at least £1 per case.

The growers do not lose. The Internal Marketing Division —created by the Labour Government in New Zealand for the buying of fruit in the Pacific Islands and its marketing in New Zealand —had bought and paid for the 7.000 cases of bananas f.0.b., Apia. The Department would have made big profits upon the bananas if they had reached the market —as it is, it will make a heavy loss.

There will be no tears shed in the Islands, however —no one has any sym pathy with a Government which per sistently runs an old steamer that breaks down so frequently that it is a menace both to commerce and the passenger trade.

But the N.Z. Government will not do so badly, after all. For some time, now, it has been making substantial profits out of this banana trade. The banana grower in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Niue

(according to Mr. J. F. Hutchison, a re tired planter of Vavau, Tonga, who has been visiting Auckland) gets only 5/per case, net, for his bananas, while the New Zealand Government sells the fruit wholesale to retailers at from £1 to £l/2 6 per case, ex wharf. After allow ing 4/- per case, for freight, and 1/6 for the case, it appears that the Govern ment “Division” is doing very nicely indeed.

One would suppose that the least a socialistic government.’ such as that in New Zealand, would do would be either to divide its profits 50-50 with the ban ana-growers; or, on the other hand, see that the New Zealand consumers of bananas were given the benefit of the cheap product. But, as has been proved again and again, a government can be just as greedy as any private firm when it comes to grabbing profits.

Big Profit On 26,000 Cases

Nearly 26,000 cases of bananas from Samoa, Fiji and Tonga, for which New Zealand had paid growers 5/- per case, reached a famine market in New Zea land on January 22, and were imme diately sold at a profit, over all charges, of £lO,OOO. The N.Z. Government gets the whole of this—there is none for the Polynesian grower.

New Zealand’S Reply

On January 29. the New Zealand Minister for Marketing (Mr. Nash) made a sharp reply to Mr. Hutchinson, He flatly contradicted the statement by Mr. Hutchinson that the Tongan grower got only 5 - per case. He said that the New Zealand Government paid 9 - per packed case of bananas to the grower in Tonga: pays freight and other charges

amounting to 4/10i per case; pays com mission. overhead costs, and various charges: so that it is necessary to sell the bananas for per case ex wharf in order to cover all charges. Mr. Nash apparently denied the statement that the New Zealand Government is making substantial profits out of the banana trade.