THE BUTTER MARKET.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 291, 6 December 1920, Page 10

THE BUTTER MARKET.

POSITION" IN ENGLAND. ■Butter appears to form the Inst ditch of official food control," writes W. Weddel and Co., Ltd., London, in the twenty-sixth annual report on Imported Dairy Produce Trilde for the. ye;ir ended June 30, lfi-20. "It is feared in some quarters that the United Kingdom lias lost its yre-war supremacy amongst buyers in the producing- markets of Denmark, Argentina, and New Zealand, and that in future this country will have to enter into competition with North America and the Continent fur supplies from overseas countries, which this market practically monopolised before the advent of control. It is stated that time and again, when supplies wore available in foreign countries, the Government refused to purchase at the world's prices demanded by shippers, and these supplies have been forced into otner markets. At the samp time, trader? were forbidden 1o import from any foreign source. Trices were thus kept dr\wn, artificially: but so also was the supply. The result was that people were compelled to use margarine to supply the greater part of their requirements. Margarine now represents 75 per cent of the countries' consumption of edible fats. The article continues: —

"An interesting development in the colonial dairy produce trade has been the entry of' the British Co-operative Wholesale Society into the open markets fit" New Zealand, in search" of consignments of cheeee and butter. Anyone with a knowledge of the co-opera-tive .movement, in Kngland is well aware that its avowed object is to secure poods at the lowest possible price for the consumer: find by co-operative trading rTeeeks to eliminate the competition among buyers which tende to raise prices. On the other hand, it is generally assumed that co-operation, as •understood and practised 'by the dairy farmers of New Zealand, besides aiding: production, aims at fostering twnpetition among buyers, co as to secure the higlipst possible market price for their produce. Tt is obvious that the two policies are the antithesis of one another, and it will be interesting to see how fchev are to be combined. Durintr the ypa.r there was an arangement in -force whereby the Entente countries ■boncbt their imported Ihutter in concert, notably in the U.S.A. and Holland, an arrangement which prevented one country from bidding against the other, and was intended to down below their world's market level. Governmental control of thia kind may 'be undesirable from tlic point of view of .the overseas producer: but the eiilbstitution of market control by a private trading concern having political assooratione, such as the Co-operative Wholesale Society has. woiiM inevitably place him at a still ffreater disadvantage."