CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 84, 9 April 1940, Page 6

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS.

BUTTER PRODUCTION.

(To the Editor.) Mr. R. B. Tennent, addressing the Auckland District Council of Primarr Production, recommends the expansion of our butter production. Has he overlooked the fact that Britain's purchase of our eeason'6 butter is fixed at a maximum of 115,000 tons, which is considerably below our already normal output ? Have we any guarantee that our total production will be 'bought? So far the public has not been acquainted with any such guarantee. Then, in answer to a very pertinent question from Mr. S. Irwin Crookes (a member of the dig. trict council), Mr. Tennent replied "Margarine is a substitute for butter and no substitute can take the place of butter. It is a cheap food, put on the market as a war measure, but the public of Britain will not adhere to a diet of margarine if they can wecure butter." This is a most remarkable statement If margarine is put on the market ai a war measure, then we can bid a. lasting good-bye to "peace."' Mr. Crooke's sugl gestion is the correct one. Margarine jg a competitor of butter and not a guk stitute. Mr. Tennents statement, if applied 4rt years ago. would have been correct. Hear what Mr. Morrison. M.P. (Food Controller at the timet, stated in the British House of Commons, a* reported on November 9, 1939. He said, inter alia: "The policy of the Government in securing raw materials for margarine was far more economical than that of storing butter in refrigerators and. in addition, it placed at the disposal of consumers a food commodity of high vitamin value." THOS. D. COLLINS.