THE BUTTER POSITION.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 72, 28 March 1921, Page 6

THE BUTTER POSITION.

■ —_H DELAY EN" SUBSIDY PAYMENTS, The managers cf butter factories tvhich have been catering for local requirements are much concerned at the attitude of the Government Department of Imperial Supplies with regard to the payment of the subsidy from the fund created to equalise the return from butter sold on the local market with that exported, for which the Imperial Government is paving 6d per lb more than the maximum price allowed on local sales. A circular issued to factories by the Department of Imperial Supplies under date 'March 22 notifies that the subsidy will not be paid on any butter which has not actually reached the consumer on (March 31. A certificate is required from every merchant, grocer, or other retailer stating the number of pounds of butter in stock unsold at closing time on March 31, and the factory- from which this butter was originally purchased will be treated as having this ! butter on hand, and no subsidy will be paid upon it. This, it is pointed out, places those factories supplying the local market at a great disadvantage ■with those who export the whole of their manufacture, and is contrary to the spirit of the arrangement wnen the equalisation fund was created. It is only natural that factories are declining to take the risk of any of their butter being in grocers' hands at closing t_ie next Thursday, and every pound of butter manufactured up till that day will be rushed into the grading store 3 for export, as export thereafter is prohibited. The Government subsidy to local sales •will also cease on the same date, and grocers have been notified by the factories that they can only obtain sncii quantities of butter this week as they can guarantee will have gone into consumption by Thursday night, and they have been called upon by some factories as a condition of securing any supplies to undertake to pay the factory an additional 6d per lb on any butter carried over that date on which the factory would lose the equivalent Government subsidy. From a consumer's point of view the position may be a shortage of butter for a few days, as if retail distributors decline to give the undertaking asked for it may mean they will be without butter until tlie April make comes on this market next week. The difficulty of the position should not be of long duration, as a London cable dated March 26 states that butter traders there anticipate a fall of 4d to 6d per pound in retail prices when the free sale of Government stocks begins in April.

ENGLISH BUTTER PRICES. A FALL ANTICIPATED. LONDON, March 27. Butter tradess anticipate a fall cf 4d to 6d per lb in the retail prices of imported butter when the free sales of Government stocks comn»nce in April. Meanwhile Danish has hardened to 260/ c.i-f. owing to the good demand. Cheese is firm, but is likely to be easier with the arrival of four steamers from NewZealand next week, coloured is scarce.— (A. and N.Z. Cable.)