CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 62, 14 March 1944, Page 4

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

BUTTER FOR IiRITAIN To the Editor. In reply to an inquiry by the New Zealand Farmers' Union (Auckland province) the Minister of Marketing estimates that butter rationing will release for shipment to the United Kingdom 7000 tons for the season ending July 31, 1944. On a full season, the figure would be approximately 0000 tons v the Minister says This is evidently based on a full saving of the difference between the old and the rationed consumption over the whole population, ignoring the fact that the average of 401b per head that used to be consumed was not all consumed as butter. A great deal goes into manufacture that has not been cut down proportionately There is another assumption that production will be maintained, and it is difficult to understand where the evidence of maintenance of dairying production can be discovered. Much more can be done bv encouraging production than by savings from local consumption Export of butter last year was 1,983,142cwt and the addition of a full 9000 tons would bring this up to 2,163,142cwt. The total export of butter has been declining since 1937 when it was nearly 3,000,000cwt to which it had climbed from 2,614,000 cwt in 1934, and to which latter figure it dropped in 1938. Export of butter in 1941 was 2,2G3,000cwt and in 1942, 2,344,000cwt. It will be'seen that an addition of 180,000cwt, even if production is maintained at last year's figure, will not make much impression on the shortage from the maximum and will not, indeed, give as much as in earlier war years a. e. Robinson!