MARKET POSITION

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 103, 4 May 1931, Page 8

MARKET POSITION

A critical situation has arisen in the British market for New Zealand dairy produce; At the end of last week prices for both butter and cheese had receded to a point well below cost of production. Since the export season opened in September prices have been falling, until to-day they are about' 106s per cwt for butler and 49s per cwt. for cheese. Official and other cabled reports of the British markets for these products are anxiously scanned, as they arrive, [by all directly and indirectly associated with the industry, but there is little or no indication of the bottom being reached. Improvements in marketing and in the quality of the produce exported, some authorities hold to be urgent, but these cannot' entirely account for the seriousness of the position to-day. Unfortunately the former outlets for New, Zealand butter in Australia and Canada have been practically closed against us, and the full weight of our exports has to be thrown on to the already overloaded free and open market of the United Kingdom—a market free and open lo all coiners. Moreover, it is a market thai cannot improve until the circumstances of the British people themselves improve. Mallei's have now reached a critical pass with the dairy industry. Consumplion of butter has been greatly increased by

the low prices, and stocks have been substantially, reduced, and still the market: falls. It is difficult to suggest what, if anything, of practical value can be done al'lhis end to restore prices for butler and cheese to payable levels. But in any case the first step in that direction must be the full recognition by Government and people of the fact that ihc acute position of the dairy industry has assumed a national complexion; and if improvements can be effected by raising the standards of quality, by economising still further in costs of production and handling, and by getting on better terms with the market by meeting all its requirements, then there is no lime to be lost.