AN INDUSTRY IN PERIL

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 71, 25 March 1931, Page 8

AN INDUSTRY IN PERIL

Whether the Government realises it or not, there is no gainsaying the fact that the great export cheese industry of New Zealand is fast approaching a crisis. Even at the present low values it is an industry worth to the Dominion some £7,000,000 a year, not counting the value of the local market. The trouble is the indifferent quality of, the cheese and the consequential low prices it commands in the British market. By way of comparison, the price of Canadian cheese in London at the end of last week was about 20s per cwt more than New Zealand, say 2 l-8d per lb. Why? Has Canada a better climate for dairying, better legislation specially framed to foster, instruct, defend, and : guide the dairy farmer than New Zealand possesses? It is not that. The explanation of the great disparity in price is to be found in the failure to meet the requirements of the British cheese trade, and that not only in the matter of taste and quality. So far back as 29th May, 1930, under the heading of "Urgent and Important," the attention of the Minister of Agriculture was called to the complaints then being made of the quality of New Zealand cheese by the best and largest customer of the Dominion's product. We asked then, and we repeat the question now:

Can regulations be made sufficiently strict so as to save a large majority of cheese makers from themselves and incidentally retain and. extend one of the most potent sources of the wealth of the Dominion?

At that time the South Island cheesemakers, fully realising the dangerous drift of the industry, insisted on a brand of cheese for themselves, to distinguish it from other cheese made in the Dominion that was doing the market for New Zealand cheese in general a grave disservice and "pulling down" its price. That cheese was the so-called "standardised" article, i.e., made from milk containing a standard percentage of fat and solids. Some full-cream cheese may or may not contain as high a percentage of fat and solid matter as some standardised. That is beside the point which is that the British trade insisted on full-cream, and was prepared to pay for it, and is paying for it a premium of Is per cwt. This standardised article raised a storm of protest which, although it left its advocates in New Zealand unperturbed, was quite sufficient to damage the Dominion's goodwill in the cheese market. So an artful compromise was effected, and officially sanctioned. The percentage of fat and solids was slightly raised, and a new designation was coined, and "New Zealand Cheddar Cheese" made its appearance in the market. The results have been even worse than the lamentable standardised venture. Here again the departure was not made without warning. His Excellency the Governor-General, speaking at Carterton, referred to the regrettable idea conveyed to the mind of the English consumer by the words "Standardised cheese," i.e., "cheese made from milk from which some of the cream had been removed." The Chairman of the Dairy Board, Mr. W. A. lorns, from first-hand information, reported that the British trade agreed that consumption and prices for New Zealand cheese could only be improved "by revelling to fullcream cheese." The question was asked in these columns at that time, "Will the trade be induced to quaff the same beverage from the same bottle bearing a'differenL label?" , TUe trade, hi other words the

British market for New Zealand cheese, has given its answer through the High Commissioner (Sir Thomas Wilford). After representations have been made to him he has now advised the New Zealand Dairy Board:

I strongly recommend the discontinuance of the word "cheddav" as soon as possible, as I am certain its application, to standardised cheese will prejudicially affect us and lose us the goodwill of tho cheese trade.

What more damaging evidence does llie Government want? When Mr. Forbes was in London, was this matter brought to his attention? We do not know. But if it was, why was it allowed to continue? This is no time—if ever there is a time—to affront overseas customers for one of the leading exports of the Dominion. It is a time, rather, for expansion, and consolidation of goodwill in every market into which the products of the country are exported. There may be some other causes to account for the low-price of New Zealand cheese in comparison with Canadian, but the customer has stated with all the emphasis at his command that he does not want New Zealand cheese made from milk from which some of the fat has been extracted. This matter is not .only more "urgent and important" to-day than it was a year ago, but is one that, in a degree, is helping to retard the economic recovery of the Dominion, and at the same time seriously affecting the welfare of one of its greatest industries. It should be put right without

delay