SAVING TO PRODUCERS

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 253, 20 September 1930, Page 6

SAVING TO PRODUCERS

BUTTER AND CHEESE FREIGHTS. BOARD ; CHAIRMAN RETURNS. WELLINGTON, Sept. 17. An important statement regarding the dairying industry was made todav by Mr W. A. lorns, chairman of the New Zealand Dairy Produce Board, who returned to New Zealand to-day from a visit to England, where he was principally engaged in arranging freight contracts for driry produce between New Zealand and the Mother Country. Dairy exporters in the Dominion will benefit during the next three years by a saving of between £35,000 and £40,000 on freight contracts. These figures are an estimate made by Mr lorns. “In conjunction with the Meat Board,” he said, “we were very successful in getting a reduction. I consider we were most fortunate, because there is no doubt that owing to the economic position of the whole world to-day snipping is not prosperous. “Probably the fact that the board was 60 successful in getting some of the shipping conditions relating to the loading and discharge of products embodied in this contract will be of enormous benefit to the industry and the Dominion as a whole,” said Mr lorns. “Now that we are faced, however, with growing competition in exports from all the Baltic States it is essential that we should have more regular arrivals of our products in Great Britain. Shopkeepers there should be able to sell New Zealand butter for 52 weeks in the year if they so desire. But New Zealand’s marketing methods are different from those of her competitors. What I mean is that some of our factories sometimes defer their sales, whereas the Continental countries keep up a continuous 6ale. That is

liable to be an important factor for the New Zealand producer, and he must keep alive to the good effects of continuity in marketing and the bad effects of its neglect. “The quality of our butter is good,” Mr lorns continued,, “and this year the buyer is discriminating more so than before on the difference of from one to two shillings in the fresh arrived butter and -the cool store product.” i POOR CHEESE QUALITY. Mr lorns said that he was very disappointed with the quality of much of the New Zealand cheese which reached Great Britain. He had investigated the position very fully, however, with a view to reporting to the board, but the solution of the present position was not apparent. _ There were certain difficulties which had to be faced: Grading, at all events, must be tightened, in view of the present situation of the London market and the possibility that some of the Baltic people would go in seriously for cheese production. “On our cheese,” said Mr lorns, “the decline in price means that we have lost a lot of money. Had our quality of five years back been maintained the industry would probably have netted another million pounds sterling for its cheese production during the last season. “Since I was last in England five years ago there has been a wonderful advance in the feeling in mo6t directions for some sort of Empire tariff. New Zealand for its own protection must realise that Great Britain has the only open door in the world for its primary products, while many of the large countries exporting their manufactures to the Dominion have a tariff fence against the importation of our meat, butter and cheese. The only prospect we have of getting any of our products into the countries in question is by retaliatory tariffs.” Bulk purchase, Mr lorns added, which was to be dealt with by the forthcoming Imperial Conference, did not seem to him to be a promising subject. He did not think much would come of it.