lo Oct., 1908.] The Apple Export Trade, Season 1908. 629 



THE APPLE EXPORT TRADE WITH THE UNITED 

 KINGDOM AND GERMANY, SEASON 1908. 



A Critical Bevievv^. 



Ernest Meeking, Inspector under the Commerce Act. 



Never did an apple export season open under more auspicious circum- 

 stances and with better prospects than the one under review. The reports 

 from the United States of America and Canada, 1907, indicated that 

 there would be a shortage in the apple crops of those countries, and our 

 exporters and growers had reasonable grounds for supposing that foreign 

 markets would be depleted of American stocks long before shipmeints 

 from Australia would arrive, thus leaving a, clear field for the disposal 

 of our fruits. The high prices realized in the preceding season, although 

 establishing a record so fax as the quantity exported was concerned, added 

 also to this optimistic impresson. This prediction was also expressed 

 in the report on the 1907 season, published in the Journal for July, 1907. 

 However, these hopes were doomed to disappointment as last season proved 

 to be one of the most disastrous in the records of our fruit export trade. 

 The reasons for this failure seem rather diflficult to account for, and have 

 apparently arisen through a multiplicity of causes. This unfortunate 

 state of affairs has aroused a great deal of controversy amongst exporters, 

 and the public press has been freely utilized to ventilate their reasons for 

 its occurrence. Feeling has run rather high in many instances, and a 

 certain amount of recrimination has been indulged in. As these opinions 

 have necessarily been coloured by the trade interests of those by whom 

 they have been expressed, it may hardly be supposed that any go 

 thoroughly to the root of the matter. There is not the slightest doubt 

 that all the different influences mentioned by the disputants have added 

 their quota in contributing in a greater or lesser degree to bring about 

 this untoward result ; but there appear to be other causes which have 

 apparently escaped the attention of the controversialists. 



It seems obvious enough that if our products are not sufficiently and 

 properly pushed before the right people at the other end, a "slump" 

 in prices, such as was experienced last season, must nearly always result. 

 For want of co-operative organization among the exporting growers and 

 the presence of an active agent working solely in their interests, many 

 of the producers of this State are compelled to submit to the same dis- 

 couraging experiences year after vear. Under the present system there 

 is not the slightest doubt that when our fruits are " put up" for public 

 auction and sold in various small lots, the careful and painstaking exporter 

 is penalized through the manner in which his less careful fellow exporter 

 makes up his consignment. This may be rendered more clear when it is 

 explained that each line of fruit is usually sold upon the appearance 

 and general merits of a single case which is opened at the side and exposed 

 for the decision of the buyer. Under these circumstances it may so happen 

 that a case from a line of fruit which has been carefully made up and 

 graded, may, by chance, happen to be the most inferior case in that line ; 

 whilst a case exposed from another line, which, although not containing, 

 on the average, as good or carefullv packed fruit, may happen to be the 

 best case in that line ; consequently the absurd position may arise that 



