UNDER FIRE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 5, 7 January 1928, Page 13

UNDER FIRE

NEW ZEALAND BUTTER j THE CANADIAN FARMER (From "The Post's" Representative.) VANCOUVEB, 14th December. New Zealand butter is again under fire, in connection with an angry protest by the National Dairy Council of Canada, made in person by way of dele- j gation to tho Federal Cabinet at Ottawa. The delegation, asked, at first, for the abrogation of the Australian trade treaty, and the benefits New Zealand derives from similar concessions, but, when the Prime Minister, Mr. MacI kenzie King, made it clear that such a request was not likely to be considered for a moment, the delegation thinned it down to the butter preference. But the queues are still outside the grocery stores that sell New Zealand butter when shipments are in, and cabled dispatches announce the quantity each ship carries. There is no Australian butter—practically none— coming into the Dominion, but the Australian trade treaty bears the brunt of every complaint of the dairy farmers, especially those on the prairie. That the adversaries of the treaty, and of the concession New Zealand butter enjoys under it, are not presenting the case fairly is the opinion expressed by more than one influential journal. "The ordinary man is more prone to believe this," says the "Montreal ] Star," "when he finds, to his amazement, that New Zealand butter, travelling over hundreds of miles by land, then across seven thousand miles of ocean, and a further three thousaud miles of land, can compete successfully with the butter made on the spot with one of tho dairying provinces of Canada. This is little short of miraculous. "The National Dairy Council deny that there, is a miracle involved, and allege unfair advantage. If they prove their allegations they should be granted relief, for it is not in reason that the farmers of Canada should be compelled to suffer because some other section of the community needs assistance. But, if the success of the New Zealand dairy farmer is the result of his own enterprise and up-to-date methods, he deserves to reap his reward and earn the gratitude of the Canadian consumer jat the same time. The Canadian farmer presumably could, if he would, use- the same methods and win back that exportable surplus of 24,000,0001b of butI ter of which he was so proud in 1925.''