BUTTER MARKETING

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 4845, 14 May 1936, Page 5

BUTTER MARKETING

MR. NASH'S TRIP HOME. Mr. F. W. Doidge, of Auckland, writes as follows on a matter of considerable interest to all dairymen:— It is good to know that the Hon. W. Nash goes Home. The pity of it is that Mr. Nash did not make ' the journey before instead of after committing New Zealand to the "tremendous experiment" of bounty-fed exports. For weeks past we have observed Mr. Nash soaring the dizzy heights as the supreme visionary. In Britain he must come to earth with a bump. Mr. Walter Elliot, Britain's Minister of Agriculture, is a young .man with a fixed and practical purpose. He is determined to re-estab-lish British agriculture—which, when he took office, was completely bankrupt, Britain spends £200,000,000 per year in the purchase of foreign foodstuffs. Mr. Elliot's purpose is to put an end to that. He was responsible for. the policy of quotas and restrictions which reacted so disastrously in the Dominions last year. Mr. Elliot believes the Dominion producer represents a menace to the Home farmer; and this year, as Mr. Baldwin recently stated in the House of Commons, Britain will heighten the fiscal walls by replacing quotas with a system of tariffs against imported foodstuffs. If Mr. Nash were going Home with his hands unfettered the prospect would not be so disturbing. There is a vast body of public opinion at Home, led by Lord Beaverbrook, which favours a- tax on foreign fodostuffs, but which wants free entry for Dominion products. The ground is cut from under their feet when Mr. Nash goes Home to arQue a case in favour of dumping into Britain New Zealand's bountyfed exports. It was because other countries were dumping subsidised products into Britain, and ruining British agriculture, that Britain its century-old policy of free trade. All his life long Mr. Lloyd George has been a Cobdenite free trader. It is of especial significance to us when we find that even Mr. George has gone over to the advocacy of tariffs upon imported foodstuffs. More significant still is it when we find him declaring: ''Strong measures must be enforced to stop the dumping of produce in the British markets at prices lower than that at which it is sold in the market of origin." Last year the total imports of butter into Britain were 80,000 tons in excess of what, in 1933, it was estimated the market could profitably absorb. New Zealand dairy farmers are to receive Is 3d per lb'for their produce. It is to be sold in Britain for anything it will briny. Does Mr. Nash see Mr. Elliot doing business with him on that basis? And as for the "hooey talked about New Zealand makingtrade agreements with other countries? While in London Mr. Nash must' find time to study the outcome of Mr. Runciman's efforts on Britain's behalf in this respect. To add to Mr. Naslfs burden, his colleagues talk glibly of stimulating New Zealand's secondary industries by the aid of tariffs and import licenses. Britain is to be a free dumping ground for New Zealand's subsidised primary products, but New Zealand is to increase the tariff barriers against the entry of Britain's manufactured o-ood's. This is the programme with which Mi-. Nash, in childlike simplicity, will present to hard-headed Mr. Elliot. Poor Mr. Nash!.