RATIONING OF BUTTER

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26123, 27 May 1950, Page 5

RATIONING OF BUTTER

REMOVAL AFTER SIX YEARS

EFFECT ON EXPORTS TO BRITAIN

After more than six years rationing of butter in New Zealand will end on June 4. Since rationing was introduced on October 28, 1943, the saving of butter for export to Britain has totalled thousands of tons each year. There have been varying estimates of the amount saved, ranging from the figure of 13,000 tons a year given by the Dairy Products Marketing Commission, to 8000 tons, given in the 1947-49 edition of the New Zealand Official Year Book. The Aid to Britain National Council has estimated the total saving from October 28, 1943, to March 31, 1948, at 51,000 tons.

When butter is freed from rationing, petrol will be the only commodity still rationed in New Zealand. Sugar rationing, introduced on April 27, 1942, was lifted on August 27, 1948, and tea rationing, introduced on June 1, 1942, was lifted on May 31, 1948. Meat was rationed from March 6, 1944, to September 27, 1948, and the restriction on the use of cream, introduced at the same time as butter rationing, was finally lifted officially on February 23 this year after a trial period of free sales.

What effect the abolition of butter rationing will have on exports to Britain is uncertain as yet. The annual civilian consumption of butter in 1943 when rationing was introduced was 441 b a head. At first the individual ration was Boz a week. When it was reduced to 6oz on June 11, 1945, the amount was stated to be about twothirds of the average consumption before the war. When the ration was increased to Boz on October 24 last year, the former Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr A. H. Nordmeyer) indicated that the extra ration would reduce New Zealand shipments overseas by about 4000 tons a year.

Ninety-seven per cent, of all butter exported from New Zealand has gone to Britain in the past, 3 per cent, of the exportable surplus being reserved after consultation with the British Ministry of Food for “free” sale anywhere. The reduction of the price subsidy on butter, which has brought the price up to 2s a pound instead of Is 6d, may have the effect of reducing domestic consumption. Any increase in domestic consumption may be offset by dairy production. When the ban on the use of cream was lifted, the Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr C. M. Bowden) said that exports of butter (which had been increased by the saving of cream) would be reduced by less than 1 per cent., which would be more than offset by the increase in this season’s dairy production. Since rationing was introduced exports of butter have increased each year except *1946. Last year, however, there was a slight decrease from 135.869 tons in 1948 to 134.538 tons. The export figure for the first three months of this year, according to British sources, was 51.372 tons compared with 49,539 tons for the same period last year.