The Press ’Monday, may 13, 1963. Butter Sales To Britain

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30129, 13 May 1963, Page 14

The Press ’Monday, may 13, 1963. Butter Sales To Britain

The London butter talks have finished much as had been expected: in the waiving of Commonwealth preference so that Britain may end the discriminatory tariff on Danish supplies. In return for the Commonwealth countries’ acceptance of this arrangement, Britain is to guarantee for an indeterminate period the continuation of the quota system that regulates all its butter imports. If the quotas were to be abolished, Australia and New Zealand, the principal Commonwealth suppliers, would be seriously prejudiced in competing against duty-free Danish butter. The New Zealand ‘dairy industry, therefore, can only hope that a successor government to Mr Macmillan’s does not find it expedient to forget about the promises given to the New Zealand DeputyPrime Minister (Mr Marshall). It is difficult to see how the latest negotiations —in Mr Marshall’s words—have given “ a greater sense “of security ” to New Zealand dairy exporters although (again in Mr Marshall’s words) “it “should be understood that “no definite term is fixed “ and that the quantities of “ butter may vary from “ time to time”.

Britain’s desire to placate the Danes is a measure of the anxiety felt in London about the future of the European Free Trade Area, of which Denmark is a key member. It also highlights the dependence upon agricultural arrangements of all current endeavours to rationalise trade throughout the Western world. Because of the collapse of negotiations on Britain’s entry to the European Economic Community, such arrangements must tend to be merely stopgaps, liable to be jettisoned when an acceptable substitute is found for the policies abandoned as a consequence of the Brussels debacle. One satis-

factory factor is Danish concern to maintain price levels on the British butter market, which because of the population boom may expand by almost a third by the year 2000. The British Government’s assurance that it will not en J courage an increase of home production is also welcome: the total of British farm subsidies is already formidably high. New Zealand, caught in the cross-currents of world trade negotiations, can do little more than accept as inevitable its latest understanding with its main customer for dairy produce. The difficulties of finding alternative outlets are plain enough. Denmark and New Zealand share anxieties because (as “The Times” recently observed) “agri- “ culture is the unsolved “ problem of world trade ”. Both the E.E.C. and the E.F.T.A. are meeting now, in Brussels and Lisbon respectively, to settle their trading policies, and especially their attitudes towards agriculture. Later, together with the Commonwealth countries, they will meet at Geneva for the Ministerial conference of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. In the background is the United States’ campaign for more liberal trading practices. All these meetings are designed to contribute towards the fashioning of concepts upon which will be based the economic welfare of the nonCommunist countries. Some concession to Danish agriculture was made essential by the Danes’ reluctance to lower tariffs on manufactures (as the E.F.T.A. plan requires them to do) unless they were compensated by more favourable access to the British dairy market. The Commonwealth countries’ agreement over butter should facilitate the extension of a trading system - which may ultimately be of world-wide benefit.