BUTTER FOR AUSTRALIA

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 29, 3 August 1923, Page 6

BUTTER FOR AUSTRALIA

Mr. Wilford, in raising the question of the quality of New Zealand butter recently exported to Australia, will have done well if his action results in clearing up a charge of excessive moisture-con-tent and shortage in weight made against certain shipments. As may not be generally known to the public, all butter and cheese for export is tested by Government graders, and if the moisture-content of the butter so tested is found to exceed 16 per cent., it is not allowed to go, nor to be sold on the local market in that condition. Needless to say, every box in a shipment of hundreds is not tested, but any box (or boxes) the grader may select from a parcel is tested, and the whole is graded on such test. Such confidence have buyers in the New Zealand grading of butter and cheese that many hundreds of thousands of pounds of business are done on the faith of those grade notes, in respect >,to the British, Canadian, ' "onited: States, and Australian purchasers. Now, it is reported by the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth, butter from New Zealand has been received in- Sydney, and is being held there, that does not conform to its grade note, and is.also short in. weight and over-moist. Until the matter is cleared up, comment upon any particular case would be out of place; but it ought to be cleared up with the least possible delay. It has taken many years to build up the high reputation for quality that New Zealand dairy produce enjoys; its reward is to be seen in the premium in price it enjoys over prices realised by its competitors. It would be almost suicidal to the great dairy industry, for the sake/of a few pound's saved in the cost of manufacture of an article, if that reputation were tarnished, for there would be a corresponding reduction in the returns that all would receive for their butter or cheese, as the case might be. There is too much at stake to permit the charges made against New Zealand butter shipped to Australia to pass without the fullest investigation being made into their truth or otherwise.