ENGLAND'S BUTTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 77, 1 April 1940, Page 6

ENGLAND'S BUTTER.

New Zealand has not put all its eggs in one basket, but it has piled so many into the dairy basket that the revised version of the old adage, advising all who so place their eggs to watch the basket, is of particular significance. Rationing and high

prices, together with the stress laid by the British Department of Agriculture on the successful "vitamising" of margarine, are giving lifelong butter users a taste for the cheaper product, and butter stocks are meanwhile piling up in everincreasing quantities in the cool stores. Imports into England have dropped by one-quarter, but consumption iias fallen away by; one-half, and it does not take much imagination to arrive at the ultimate result of those figures. Canada, Australia and New Zealand are all vitally interested. They have agreed to supply all Britain's requirements and to increase production as rapidly as possible in order to ensure that those requirements shall be met. But if the bottom is to drop out of the market the Governments should lose no time in getting to grips with the problem. An immediate conference between the British and overseas Governments would appear to offer the most likely method of solution, and our own Government should losr ,no time in pressing this suggestion.