The Evening Star FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1933. THE DAIRYING PROBLEM.

Evening Star, Issue 21523, 22 September 1933, Page 8

The Evening Star FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1933. THE DAIRYING PROBLEM.

Simultaneously with the conclusion of the first dominion conference convened by the Dairy Produce Control Board Mr Thomas Baxter arrived in New Zealand from England. He is an ex-presi-dent of the National Farmers’ Union of England and Wales, and he is chairman of the Milk Marketing Board. Ho comes here at the express invitation of Mr Forbes, who, in extending it last August after the conclusion of the World Conference, said such a visit would he useful for two reasons. It would help the New Zealand fanner fully to understand the difficulties of the British farmer brought about by the low prices of dairy pi’oduce in the London market, and it would enable Britain to understand the seriousness of the New Zealand farmers’ position if prevented from disposing of his full measure of production. It is one thing for the producers in two countries to understand one another’s difficulties, but it is a far harder thing to remove them when they are of such a nature as in this particular case. Put as briefly as possible, the position is that the British market has been glutted with dairy produce to a degree that brought down the average price index for 1932 to 84 as compared with 141 in the three years 1924-25-26. (Latterly there has been an improvement in prices, doubtless caused in part by the severe autumn drought in Britain and presumably in parts of the Continent of Europe also.) It is now the declared policy ot the British Government to promote home production until it reaches a considerably greater volume than at present, but this is impracticable while prices are at a level which positively discourage production. As may easily be understood in a country so densely populated as England, a heavy proportion of the local milk output goes into • consumption in its natural liquid form. The butter and cheese exports of. a country like New Zealand, arriving on a glutted London market, depress prices to a level which discourages the manufacture of surplus British milk into those products. Perhaps the greatest difficulty with which the milk industry in England is faced is the tendency of surplus milk to drive down the price of milk to what it is worth for manufacture, and if that price is unpayable the plight of the British owner of milking herds can be imagined. Conditions in the two countries are so dissimilar that perhaps the New Zealand farmer and the New Zealand public can hardly realise the English problem. To assist them to do so we invite them to imagine how tho market for town supplies of milk would have fared had New Zealand dairymen declared that, butter and cheese export prices being unpayable, manufacture for export would cease and the milk would bo made available for local consumption. What would happen then illustrates, though in greatly exaggerated form, what is the British Government’s problem at present. The Minister of Agriculture (Major Elliot) is launching a scheme for the reotganisation of tho milk industry. Under it a board will control the marketing of milk so that the surplus shall not be allowed to undercut the market. Approximately that board will have to deal with a thousand million gallons of milk a year, and it is hoped to substitute order for chaos in the sale of milk for manufacture, ensuring that manufacturers would pay a fair, economic price for their raw material'; but tho board’s fixed policy will be to keep the manufacturing outlet always subsidiary to the liquid market. Retail prices are to be fixed, and wholesale prices are to b. a matter cf bargaining between the board and the principal milk producers. Tho hoard’s present attitude on one particular point is worthy of special notice. Now Zealand dairymen and their organisations have been practically unanimous in their opposition to a quota. In fast, one gathers tho impression that, not only wishing to maint