SUPERPHOSPHATE SUPPLIES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27075, 25 June 1953, Page 12

SUPERPHOSPHATE SUPPLIES

MINISTER’S CHARGE DISPUTED MANUFACTURERS REPLY TO MR HOLYOAKE (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, June 24. New Zealand manufacturers were supplying today, as they had for many years, high-grade superphosphate at the cheapest price in the world, said Mr L. J. Stevens, chairman of directors of the Dominion Fertiliser Company, Ltd., replying today to the statements on fertilisers by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr K. J. Holyoake) at the annual conference of the Royal Agricultural Society yesterday. Mr Stevens was speaking on behalf of the fertiliser manufacturers of New Zealand. That fact, he said, was the complete answer to Mr Holyoake’s statement that it seemed the fertiliser companies must have some agreement among themselves on competition. The supply at the cheapest price in the world had been made possible only by the enterprise of the manufacturers in securing the largest possible output and providing up-to-date appliances to handle the tonnage at the lowest possible cost, he said. “Raw material costs are beyond the power of manufacturers, and are, in fact. Government-controlled,” he said. “These materials account for more than 70 per cent, of the ruling price of superphosphate. The balance —30 per cen t. —has to cover all other costs. “Contrary to the Minister’s statement, manufacturers are not averse to branching out into new processes. They are as enterprising and progressive as any other section of the community. They do not, however, make changes, except on the clearest evidence of the merit and value of the change. In particular, they avoid any expenditure that unnecessarily increases the cost to consumers. To date their policy has been wholly justified.’’ “Each of the four manufacturing companies has in recent years improved the efficiency of its plant and product to a stage where they equal or exceed the efficiency and standards of overseas plants and products,’ said Mr Stevens. “I challenge the Minister to publish the prices of superphosphate 44-46 as charged to consumers ex works in the United Kingdom or Australia, and to compare those prices with the ruling rates in New Zealand for the same grade.” Mr Stevens said that manufacturers in New Zealand would then be quite happy to let the public judge whether the price charged and the service given were satisfactory.

World Supply of Sulphur Mr Stevens also questioned the Minister’s statement on the world supply of sulphur. “New and large developments in the United States give promise of very substantial additions to the world supply,” he said. “Further developments in Mexico also promise large new sources of supply, and Japan appears to be increasing its output of sulphur. Manufacturers concede that in any new project the question of the use of pvrites should definitely be one of the objectives.” It was illogical to suggest, if, in fact, the Minister did intend to suggest, that the existing plants in New Zealand should be converted at very high cost merely to use pyrites from Australia while Australia itself continued to be a large importer of sulphur. Mr Stevens said that it was a matter for comment that a new farmers’ co-operative fertiliser company about to begin operations in Napier was designed and equipped to use elemental sulphur. This company’s works were, he understood, being financed very largely by loans from the Meat Board’s pool account. If there were any logic in the Minister’s statements, surely his first approach should have been to see that works so financed were equipped to burn pyrites and not crude sulphur, he added.

“The fact stressed by the Minister that manufacturers co-operate in price applications is in accordance with the standard procedures of the Price Tribunal,” said Mr Stevens. “As such, it is to the advantage of consumers that applications should be made on an industry basis, and prices fixed on the average costs of all works.” He said the Minister was wrong when he suggested that competition was lacking in the industry. On the contrary, competition was keen, particularly in the service given to the consumer. All manufacturers tried to secure the greatest trade. There were no agreements whatever in the North Island, and the only agreement in the South Island related to the joint selling organisation operating there.