NEW ZEALAND POSITION

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 6, 9 January 1928, Page 12

NEW ZEALAND POSITION

The operation of the Paterson scheme and organisation of the dairying industry together with a protective duty of 6d per pound has delivered the Australian consumer into the hands of the producer, with the result that, recouped by the high price of butter in the Australian market, the producer can afford to sell and he generally sells his butter at shillings per hundredweight lower outside of Australia, after paying ocean freights, insurance, and other charges. This practice has played into the hands of Canadian dairy-farmers, who have construed it to mean dumping, and have accordingly pressed for imposition of dumping duties. The local price of butter in New Zealand is governed by its value for export; if that value is high, the local price is high; when it declines the local price declines. There is no Paterson subsidy or any other device of the kind regulating the price of New Zealand butter within New Zealand, therefore no objection of that kind is or can be taken by Canadian producers to the admission of New Zea]and butter into the larger Dominion. As a matter of fact the exports of New Zealand butter to Canada this season will be very heavy, for not only are considerable exports going direct from Auckland to Vancouver by Union Company mail steamers, but heavy shipments are being made via Panama to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Dairy Board is advised of 198.600 boxes of butter shipped from New Zealand to Canada, East and West Coasts, for the current season, with 30.000 boxes to go in the Hororata to Halifax, Nova Scotia, this month, and a heavy shipment in the Union Company's Vancouver mail steamer from Auckland.