PRODUCE AND SHIPPING

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 140, 10 December 1918, Page 6

PRODUCE AND SHIPPING

The Imperial Government, having purchased for the current and nest seasons the exportable surplus of wool, butter, and cheese, may make, it is to be hoped, a similar arrangement with respect to meat. Both wool-grower and dairy-farmer now know" where they are, and are likely to be for another season, in respect to returns.' They have nothing to worry about with respect to freight rates, marine insurance, and commission charges, and very little anxiety with respect to storage charges. Meat is on a rather different footing. With cheese, it was primarily required as a food for troops engaged in the war, the surplus being distributed to fulfil civilian requirements? There are already in, cold store in ■New Zealand some four and a-half million freight carcases of 601b of moat (which includes beef), a-nd the new season is about to open. The purchase of this meat at present terminates "three months after the war." If this means after peace is signed, then there is time enough yet to arrange for a renewal of the purchase, and probably a revision of the terras and conditions of sale. But inasmuch as the Imperial Government has secured not only the butter and cheese of New Zealand, but that of Australia, and butter of Argentina and South Africa, it is. probable that it will secure meat supplies for the civil population at a reasonable price, even though the military demands will be much diminished. Until shipping and business conditions generally, which have been so disturbed by the war, are readjusted, as Mr. Beau.champ, chairman o! the Bank of New Zealand, remarked to shareholders last week, the Imperial purchase scheme is advantageous not only to the producers in particular but to .the people of the Dominion as a whole. Much money has been spent and received in the cpuntry in connection with the war expenditure that lias not been derived from realisation of produce—the better- way—but that expenditure will now decrease. At least, it is hoped so. What comes into and what is consumed in the country will have to comq oat of the land. The auguries for substantial returns of this description are all good. Inflation may subside a little, but it will bo for the national good health. Much will depend upon reasonably sufficient shipping tonnage. The prospects for that, according to to-dayV c%bl« advices Jrom Lqa'deiii