Our Russian Competitors.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7061, 22 July 1901, Page 4

Our Russian Competitors.

Australasia is to have a powerful foreign rival in the butter market-of freetrade England. Writing to D. J. Nathan of this city on June 6, Mr Louis J. Nathan says:—"The price of butter in Holland and Denmark is abnormally high on account of the late spring, but there is grass in abundance, now, and we shall shortly have a big flush of butter. We are warned that the demand at', last year's prices for blended butter will probably not be maintained, as much of the Siberian butter is superior to our lower grades, and can be purchased at 7d per lb. The Russian Government is taking a great amount of interest in the matter, and is'carrying butter thousands of miles, from Siberia to Biga, thence by subsidised steamers to England at 8s per hundredweight from the place of production to the port of England (2s per hundredweight less than it can be carried by steamer from New Zealand). It is carried in refrigerating cars over thousands of miles of railway. There is a stretch of grass country there, where butter is produced, 800 miles longi and 100 miles, wide. The whole of this tract of country is commune land, for the use of which thepeasants pay nothing. The danger to us is that the Danes, who have been private proprietors of dairies at home, and who find they cannot compete with the co-operative dairies, may turn their attention to this country and introduce the factory system." Apparently there is nothing to stop the Russians from being successful except the filthy conditions under which they live and work ; cleanliness being essential to good butter-making. But, as, on tho other hand cheapness is a desideratum with a large section of British consumers a little dirt will not be found amiss so that it brings the butter within the purchasing capacity of the consumer. In an interview with M. Kalantar, a Kussian agent, who is 1 establishing depots at London, Leeds, Glasgow, Hull and other commercial centres, a "Daily Mail" representative found that Russia anticipates a great increase of trade by reason of her spirit of enterprise. It appears that last year Russian butter to the value of £1,347,000 was exported, only a third of which came direct to England, most of the remainder ultimately, reaching that country, but through Danish and German firms. This year the Russians expect the amount to be well over £2,000,000 worth. The growth of the trade has already been very remarkable, the export in 1900 being four times what it was in 1896. Now, with the establishment of direct trade, theimprovement in manufacture and speoial means for quick transport, the growth will certainly be even more rapid. These are facts which' our Parliamentarians might paste in their hats, with a view to starting an agitation (l)for regular steamers, and (2) for ' preferential treatment in the Homo' markets.—Times. !