BUTTER MARKET IN BRITAIN

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27309, 27 March 1954, Page 2

BUTTER MARKET IN BRITAIN

VIEW OF MINISTER OF FOOD

(Special CorresTJOndent N.Z.P.A.) (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON. March 26. “We are going to face a butter shortage for some time to come, but we could not continue to ration one commodity indefinitely, and we shall all be watching the market very closely after May 8, when there will be ample supplies of high quality branded margarine selling in competition with butter,” said Mr G. Lloyd George, the Minister of Food, addressing the Commonwealth Correspondents’ Association. . , “The butter men will have to weigh a temptation to snatch a quick profit against a long-term possibility of losing their markets to margarine. It has happened elsewhere —in the Netherlands, for example, and in the United States. “A surplus of 100,000 tons of unsaleable high nriced butter in the United States must stand as a warning in all butter producing areas of the world. I am confident that our Commonwealth suppliers are businessmen enough to heed it,” said Mr Lloyd George. j x , He said Britain had contracts for butter and cheese with Australia and New Zealand. “These contracts will of course be honoured although, obviously. they will not be renewed as the private trade will be taking over. “But we are the traditional market for these products, and I can see no reason why the aim of the last year, which was to secure a maximum of butter and cheese exports from the southern Dominions, should not continue under private trading,” he said Purchase by RussiaAsked whether he thought the reported purchase of butter by Russia would be likely to have any effect on supplies. Mr Lloyd George replied: “1 would have thought it might because there has been a drought in New Zealand which, is bound to have an effect. Russia is in the market in a big way for butter and her other needs and, as supplies of butter in the world are limited, Russian buying is bound to have some influence.”

Asked whether Russian buying and the result of the New Zealand drought might result in Britain buying butter from the United States, Mr Lloyd George said; “Butter is a very high price in America.” Referring to meat, Mr Lloyd George said its decontrol—one of the last of the major operations—was in some respects most important and complicated. “There is no doubt this country offers the Dominions a promising and long-term market for meat and particularly for beef, which will continue t o be our scarcest meat for many years. We have a 15-year agreement on unrestricted entry for New Zealand meat and a 15-year agreement of a rather different kind with Australia,” he said. “We are at this moment engaged in discussions with meat producing interests of both these countries about future arrangements—which is sufficient reason why I should say no more at this stage.” Asked when he thought an agreement with Australia and New Zealand on future arrangements might be reached. Mr Lloyd George replied: “Very shortly, J think.”