BUTTER PRICES

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 4592, 18 May 1922, Page 2

BUTTER PRICES

NO MANIPULATION OF MARKET. IMPORTERS RESENT CRITICISM. CAUSE OF FLUCTUATING PRICES. (By Electric Cable— Copyright.) Aust and N.Z. Cable Association ) (Received May 18, 9.55 a.m.) London, May 17. Butter importers greatly ■ resent the criticisms which have appeared in Australia and New Zealand regarding their purchase of Government surplus stocks, especially tlie. suggestion that they depressed tho market and raised it after the pmchaso had been completed in order to get exorbitant profits. Interviewed by the Australian Press Association, one leading importer said tho real facts are these: Butter was retailed throughout the country from lOd to 16d per lb, with the result that consumption rose twin 2500 tons weekly to between 5000 and 6000 tons, tho demand being so gre; t that huge supplies of new butter were also readily cleared. Prices for such have never looked hack, but if the prices of butter generally h:ul been maintained, the consumption would have been so small that. Australian and Now Zealand producers would have suffered seriously in regard to this season’s output, as ti a collapse which was created by (he British Treasury forcing tbw sale would have come much later, when accumulations would have been considerably heavier and the loss accordingly so much greater. Importers transferred Hie t) 'k < f the Government butter to 'he big retail combinations for a merely nominal commission. The accusations levelled at importers are altogether erroneous and false. The Board of Trade did not sell at The request of any individual combination of importers, but only at the xtreme pressure of the Treasury officials.