Butter Rationing
Answering the deputy-chairman of the New Zealand Dairy Board (Mr A. Linton), who suggested that the time had come to abolish butter rationing, the Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) in the statement printed yesterday emphasised the need to help olit the meagre British food rations. Rationing undoubtedly provides more butter for Britain. Evidence to support the Government’s policy is not hard to find. The Aid to Britain National Council has estimated that 51,000 tons of butter have been saved between October 28, 1943, when rationing was introduced, and March 31, 1948. The Dairy Products Marketing Commission has set the annual saving at 13,000 tons. The present New Zealand ration of fioz a week is an adequate ration, about two-thirds of the pre-war average consumption, as the Dairy Board’s last annual
report shows. Yet, as the chairman of the Dairy Products Marketing Commission (Mr W. Marshall) said last year, if consumption ceased to be regulated even to this mild extent, Britain would lose not less than 10,000 tons of butter a year, and probably a good deal more. Mr Fraser’s is the more definite figure of 14.Q00 tons. And if New Zealand moved to end butter rationing, Australia might well follow; and if Australia did, the British loss would be disastrously heavier. (New Zealanders of a touchy pride may like to ask themselves how they could Soothe the smart with butter if Australia virtuously refused to follow.) Mr Linton is not the first to urge that rationing should be abolished. What he has said will be said again, perhaps more insistently; and Mr Fraser has done very well to answer his statement at once. But the Government must be as prompt and effective in defending its rationing policy every time, So long as this policy rests on firm ground, as it does still, and particularly when its critics-hold positions of influence or responsibility in the dairy industry.
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25811, 24 May 1949, Page 4
Word Count
317Butter Rationing Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25811, 24 May 1949, Page 4
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