MIDDLEMEN AND MARKS.

Auckland Star, Issue 311, 31 December 1900, Page 2

MIDDLEMEN AND MARKS.

' '& writer in the "Morning' Post" in "discoursing of the sad lot of the Victorian beekeepers, makes the following- statement:—"The Victorian beeUteepers, who send us some of the finest honey the world knows, find that they receive a pittance for it ■which in their view is shamefully inadequate. Australian honey is, they assert, sold in London at 1/ per lb, yet if a housekeeper were to ask for it at her grocers she would be answered: 'We do not keep It; the flavour of -eucalyptus is so strong that nobody would buy it.' As a matter of fact Australian honey varies m flavour according- to the prevailing flora, just as English honey varies in the different counties, but there is an unlimited supply of exquisite fragrance awaiting a market. Experts say that it could be retained in London at 6d per pound jar, paying all middlemen a' fair percentage and yet leave the beekeeper, considerably more than the 2d to 2id per pound which he receives at present." The assertion that Australian honey is sold in London.at 1/ per lb is just one of those statements that can be substantiated but has no bearing whatever on the commercial value of the bulk of Australian honey. You can, if you like to be fool 'enough to go into the very,, swagger West End shops,- pay half a crown for the same goods that you can buy at the stores for half the price. As a matter of fact tie average price of honey in lib glass jars in London is about 6d, and at this price the retailer is not making a particularly excessive profit. We will presume that lie pays 3d per lb in bulk for say a couple of hundredweight—he must. at least ■ pay this price or the -beekeeper, would not get an ■ average of even 2§d returned for dock and cartage charges, brokers' commission, etc., have to be added to the net return to the exporters—and proceeds to put it up into lib jars. The cost of this operation, including jars, labels, parchment covers, and labour cannot possibly be less than Id per jar and probably comes rather Mgher. However, accepting the penny rate we raise the cost to 4d per lib jar,. At 6d if the retailer had a rapid sale the profit would be very enticing. But -what is the usual rule. Honey is not a common article of diet -with English people, probabjy indeed the average householder aoes not get through 51bs in the course of a year. Hence with very few exceptions shopkeepers' find honey a very slow trade, and the money they have laid out on it comes back to their tills iv "dribs and: drabs," and as every trader knows so slowly as to make it hardly worth while to stock the stuff at all. I have taken Gd a pound as the average retail price of honey in London, but it can often be bought very much cheaper. I have myself paid 9d and lOd for two pound' jars in the poorer quarters for very decent honey indeed. It must be remembered moreover that by far the greatest quantity of the honey imported into England is used in 'manufacturing1 purposes, and. therefore the retail shop price of pound jars is by-no means to be taken ■as a criterion of what is a fair average return to ."exporters. The point for Australian beekeepers to consider is whether their returns are^ on a. par those obtained by their Californian competitors, allowing of course for any differences in rates of freight as between California and London and Australia and London.

.The/'Morning Post" gossip goes on to state: "So convinced,. indeed,: are the colonials on the injustice done .them.-.that they propose to open a store in London (an Australian Winchilsea House), where consumers can be supplied with, pure butter land honey and other, small products of the Southern continent in such quantities ..as they require, and at prices much lower than they, are paying for ttie sania articles under false ficsignations." I , ■ • ""Wiirchilsea pouse," a store opened with.a i/ig ilourisfof tnimpel-s for the supply; of English farm products, was a dismal failure and is now, I relieve, shui -iip. lam much afraida similar fate will attend any shop opened io do the business indicated by the "Post" man. The elimination of the middleman is a pleasant idea, bub it can't be done by opening a little shop

here and there in London a.nd few big provincial towns. Such proceeding is in itself folly. You can't come in to fill a gap in the retail supply but only as a. competitor to the shops already in existence. Those shops are sufficient to the needs of their respective neighbourhoods, and the presence 'of an- additional shop selling butter, honey, and other articles of Australian produce "at prices much .lower, etc.," would, inevitably result in cut throat compcti-

tion, which would be good for no oue. The idea that the bulk of Australian produce is palmed off. on the unwary shopper •as 'something else is silly. It is quite true that Australian butter is sold as Dorset, and that you never—or 7"" hardly ever —see it figure as Australian, but for every pound sold as "Dorset" or under any other specific title hundredweights are sold as "shilling fresh," "best butter," and "1/2," etc. It is the same with cheese and meat. You can find Australian cheese ticketed as "Cheddar'" all over London at prices varying from 50 to 8d a pound. Not one housewife, out of ten ever gives a thought as to where it came from, and a very large proportion of them don't even know the precise meaning of the word "Cheddar." They ask for Cheddar because they have found that cheese sold under that name usually suits their palate. Probably if some shopkeeper took it into his head to call it Australian Cheddar a very large proportion of his customers would begin to question its bona fides. I know indeed of a case in point. A Clapham Junction tracr-ss-man was induced by an enterprising colonial to label his butter "Finest Australian Xew Grass Butter." A week later the tickets appeared "Finest New Grass Butter." I asked why the change had been made, and one of the countermen observed tersely, "Boracic acid—some of the old girls 'as bin reatlin' the papers and won't have Australian at no price, but" — with a grin—"they're takin' it like lambs as plain butter at 1/2."

Hudson and one or two big dealers do use the terms Australian and New Zealand openly on their butters, but I am not aware that they reap anjparticular benefit from this, and indeed I think it is quite probable that in some cases their "honesty" has not been particularly good policy, for undoubtedly a great number of people have read, marked, and inwardly digested the newspaper reports of the evidence given before the committee which sat to consider the question of food preservatives. The medical evidence, as you all know, was of a most conflicting nature, but the conclusion drawn by a very large section of the public was that though boracic acid might not be exactly poison, it was one of those things it were better to eschew. And naturally as Australian butter was prominently brought forward as containing a percentage of that preventative people would be less inclined to buy it if its country of origin were brought prominently before them.