HIGH PRODUCTION RAISES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 107, 2 November 1937, Page 8

HIGH PRODUCTION RAISES

PROBLEM

. In confirming the impression that Australian dairying has muck greater power of expansion than dairying in New Zealand, a Waikato farmer and dairy company director, Mr. E. Runnerstrum, reports that dairying methods there are being modernised. He easily makes out a case for rapidly expanded seasonal production when Australian climatic conditions are favourable; what he does not explain is where the butter is to be sold to profit. For many years the Australian butter industry has relied on a controlled home price to enable it to sell oversea at a less price. Latterly New Zealand dairying has also been supported by a Government guaranteed price. Do guaranteed prices and export bonuses provide a firm foundation on which to rapidly expand export? And if Australian and New Zealand butter is not to be exported in proportion to increased output, where and how is it to be sold to profit? The marketing side of increased butter production remains unexplained; and whether the future spells increased exporting or a bigger home consumption, induced by immigration, no one can say. The climatic factor is equally unforeseeable. Mr.i Runnerstrum seems to think that the recent rainfall in New South Wales is sufficient for a good season, but Australian natural conditions are full of surprises. Consider, for instance, the return to the wheat areas of the periodic grasshopper pest. Modernisation provides no remedy, and it is cabled that "nothing but an act of God" can avail. Australian experiences over many years point to the fact that New Zealand's greatest asset is climatic and natural—what God has given and not what political policy dictates. What Government can guarantee a price for what grasshoppers destroy?