EASTERN TRADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 264, 7 November 1935, Page 6

EASTERN TRADE.

HAS IT BEEN ENCOURAGED?

(To the Editor.) I quite agree with Mr. Tetzner that M Government is not interested in fl Eastern trade. Everything it has done so fy fl ha 6 been done in such a way that it is hjji Mi to believe that it is in the slightest- degre, fl interested in obtaining Eastern trade. jq. M "Times of India" lately published an artic], i which showed that prosecutions Were takfo Replace in Bombay for supplying adulterated W ghee and butter. Ghee adulterated to 98 pe, m cent of adulterants. Butter II 85 per cent of adulterants. The Bombay || dency has a law against adulterating f oo i' I What has our Government done so fat to I establish an Eastern trade? The Dab K Research Department was instructed to prac' I tise adulterating ghee. The Department ot IConimerce sends out a copy of a report f Ma ffi a margarine firm which it calls "authorita- '' tive." It supplies prices from certain «e«et fl sources of its own which shows pure butter El ghee as worth lOd to 1/ a lb, while native i cooking butter is shown in trade papers M fl worth up to l/ 9 per lb. It is apparent oar | Department of Commerce has no Eastern I' newspapers in its possession or else it ignores *• them when it quotes prices which are obvious). 1 incorrect. A Minister of the Crown negotiates fl with a shipping line for refrigerated ships for ■ Singapore and Japan when he has no informs L tion whether we can satisfactorily send butter B there. What shipping line is going to start fl a line of steamers without first knowing H whether there is going to be a trade? It jj H like a grocer buying a delivery wagon before he knows whether he has any customers. % ' have a Dairy Research Department instructed i to make ghee samples before it knows, what ■ the natives want. We have proof of this in ■ tho fact that it makes various kinds' of p samples. If you make ghee for a customer fl you make the kind that he wants, and"yon fl know what he wants before you make the §1 article if you genuinely wish to obtain his fl custom. Australia exports three or four timea H as much butter as we do to countries other H than England, and yet we believe that n H have the better butter. Australia looks for p markets. We have known for years past that ffl Australia has been ahead of us in this respect, H and still, as one politician lately remarked til in criticising the Government, "Our Govern- fe ment still has the matter under consideration" M J. F. S. BKIGGS.' I